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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

What can I actually do about neighbourhood horror cat?

7 replies

Phalarope · 06/01/2023 18:49

Our cats are peeing in the house because they’re being harassed by someone else’s bastard cat who keeps coming round to yowl at them. Been going on for a month now.

If we’re there when Horror Cat does it, then we chase it off - generally it scarpers by the time I get the door open. But this is not a sustainable solution, and our two are now reluctant to use the cat flap. They’ll go out the front door if you open it for them - again not sustainable on account of having full time jobs (poor DH gets the worst of this as WFH and on endless door duty).

Girl cat initially responded to Horror Cat by getting cystitis which has now cleared with Cystease and adding water to wet food. Both girl cat and boy cat are still pissing on the floor though, despite new litter trays and calm spaces and Feliway. I’ve ordered Zylkene too. Lost my sense of smell with covid but I imagine the house reeks regardless of all the cleaning.

It’s a fairly cat-heavy neighbourhood. Our two are fairly pathetic and non-confrontational. Has anyone had any success at changing rival cat territory dynamics, or do I just have to hope it loses interest?

OP posts:
SeeminglyAbsurd · 07/01/2023 08:12

Not sure how you can deter horror cat unless you can keep it out (&yours in) by putting cat proof fencing up, is this an option?
purrfectfence.co.uk
if it’s not possible to add the fencing, is making your garden feel safer for your cats by adding a catio an option?
www.4mypet.co.uk/three-sided-catios

interestingly there was an item on scent training about people who had lost their sense of smell on The One Show last night, it was showing how you can retrain your brain to recognise smell again.

whataboutsecondbreakfast · 07/01/2023 09:14

The only way to do it is to cat-proof your garden, but that means yours can't get out either. They'll just need to live in the house and garden going forward.

It's not illegal for cats to roam so the neighbours aren't doing anything wrong by having their cat wandering like he is.

dragonbreaths · 07/01/2023 09:26

put a post on Facebook to see if anyone knows cat/ owner.
I got our local terror trapped and neutered. Soon stopped him in his tracks

DRS1970 · 07/01/2023 09:35

We had similar issues in the summer. I sprayed the offending cat with a hose whenever it was in out yard. It got fed up after a couple of weeks and never came back. Harder to do this in the winter though.

Phalarope · 07/01/2023 19:54

Thanks. Ours like to roam too when they’re not being scared, so cat fencing probably not the solution (I suppose they could actually be yowling at other people’s cat flaps in their spare time). Facebook and hose on standby..!

OP posts:
kidnapcat · 07/01/2023 19:56

Have NC for this but also I haven't read your full post

I trapped the next door neighbours cat after it coming in via my cat flap for six months and terrorising my cat
She didn't eat and she was skinny and scared to go in the garden
She would jump if she thought she heard the cat flap
She was being attacked in our home so we locked the cat flap.. but first

I locked the cat in the room it was in in my house and then I got him with a water gun

Released him

He didn't come back

Igotthegoose · 08/01/2023 11:39

We’ve had some experience of this, my very clever DP put a circle off pissy litter around the boundaries of the house and terror cat did not like it enough to cross said boundary. We won.

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