Topic: Problem with Cats....

[loulu]

Hi all, I hope you don't mind me posting a general gardening question here.....

I have a large garden, the bottom of which is my allotment (growing fruit, veg and herbs), the middle bit is for my kids, and the front for decorative purposes. Anyway, my kids have a climbing frame/slide under which the neighbourhood cats like to poo - and I'm not just talking little amounts here! (My neighbour works for the Cat Protection League and feeds the ferals, etc  - we also have foxes coming in because she leaves the food out for the cats)

So, you could call it excessive.  Any ideas how to deal with as the pepper method just isn't working (in fact they poo all over the entire garden and its beginning to tick me right off!)

PS I love cats btw, its nothing personal.  :)

Thanks

[norfolklass]

I sympathise! I'm a cat owner and love cats but my neighbour's cat does like to use my flower beds as a loo. there are plenty of people on here who don't like cats and would be more than happy to make some unpleasant suggestions but if you're happy to hang around outside in the cold weather to catch the cats at it I'd try arming yourself with a water pistol and each time you catch a cat in the act give them a bit of a squirt - and hopefully they'll soon learn. good luck!

[Georgie]

My top tip for keeping cats off borders is to place prickly cuttings on any bare soil.  I'm a cat lover too and this really works.  But clearly you can't do that under the children's climbing frame.  The only thing I can suggest is replacing whatever surface you have at the moment - I'm guessing bark chips? - with something less tempting perhaps that springy rubber stuff they have in playgrounds?

G x

[lewic]

Maybe you could dedicate an area as a cat-loo to tempt them away from the other places? A mixture of sand with the soil might be more attractive to them.

If you have bark chips it probably feels like cat litter underfoot, so dont fancy your chances off keeping them off it .. when I had a cat I could never have bean bags in the house for that reason  :P

[loulu]

Thanks for the responses! I'm glad you can sympathise - in the summer I send the kids out in hand with water pistols!! (I am friends with this neighbour and its difficult to do much without upsetting her!)

It was grass under the slide but as a result of the shade and the cats, it  is now just a soily (literally!) mess - but you have given me plenty of food for thought and I will certainly try some alternatives. I put stones down on my beds and although it doesn't stop them completely it deters them a little - and is easier to clean up. I didn't think about crinkly cuttings or an alternative surface under the slide.

Father christmas is bringing my boys a trampoline in 10 days....another area the cats will most certainly love! Better get cracking sorting this out!

Thanks again  :) 

[jungleplot]

You could try a sonic deterrent but I'm not sure how effective they are. The pocket ones for dogs work like a charm. You can get cat ones that sit on the ground and hand held ones. You're limited because you have to be careful of the children. I use chemical deterrents but spiky, thorny twigs strewn around on the ground seem to work well. Your neighbour doesn't seem to care about their cats causing you problems so I wouldn't be too concerned about upsetting them.

[asbean]

Your neighbour doesn't seem to care about their cats causing you problems so I wouldn't be too concerned about upsetting them.

Cats are cats. When a cat goes outside the owner has NO control on what the cat does.

It always seems that people who don't understand cats are the ones who have the problems.  When we moved into this house (with a small garden) there were four cats next door one side, one the other side and three cats in the houses at the end of the garden.  We brought one cat with us and since then we have got another two when the original cat died and have NEVER had problems.  OK, the occasional turd from time to time that didn't get properly buried, but so what, it's not worse than getting rid of slugs, snails, bird mess, hedgehog mess, or anything else.

On the allotments we had a problem with rabbits, rats, mice and pigeons, so three feral cats were introduced.  The problems were immediately almost completely solved, but guess what - the people who complained about their veg being eaten were now complaining about the occasional cat poo.  How is it possible for three cats to COVER a site with poo when there are over 200 full-sized plots on it? But that's how they describe it. 

Complete exaggeration, and it does wear a bit thin.

Rant over.

[jungleplot]

Snails and slugs are part of the ecosystem as is bird mess and hedgehog mess. Cats are not part of the natural system and their mess is a health hazard, especially when sited in a children's play area. Cats kill over 2 million birds in the UK every year. Inconsiderate, selfish cat owners care little for any of this.

[OllieC]

Hahaha, good one jungleplot! You had me for a minute there but when I realised that you were referring to a child's play area as being part of a natural system I realised that you were joking!!

[norfolklass]

Cats are not part of the natural system and their mess is a health hazard ...Inconsiderate, selfish cat owners care little for any of this.

I can only speak for where I live but the amount of cat poop I encounter in my garden is a tiny fraction of the amount of dog poop left on the local pavements and grass verges. yet I never read posts about inconsiderate, selfish dog owners who can't be bothered to pick up after their dogs, and dog fouling is a fineable offence. why do people react so strongly to cats?

anyway, loulu, I hope your garden is less poop-filled. I'm guessing the snow has probably helped recently!

[asbean]

Snails and slugs are part of the ecosystem as is bird mess and hedgehog mess.

And cats aren't?  Perhaps they are made of plastic.   ??? ??? ???

Cats are not part of the natural system and their mess is a health hazard, especially when sited in a children's play area.

Perhaps someone should teach cats to read and put up signs near children's play areas.  >:( >:( >:(

Cats kill over 2 million birds in the UK every year.

No-one can accurately count that. There are reportedly 8 million cats in the UK. The birds that cats manage to kill are the ones that are weak and probably would not have survived for long. I am sure magpies kill far more birds than cats, but I've never seen any complaints or statistics on that.  Or the birds that get caught in netting, fruit cages etc. - the netting is not part of the ecosystem, perhaps that should be banned along with the cats.  :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\

Inconsiderate, selfish cat owners care little for any of this.

I'm inconsiderate and selfish and proud of it.  :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[asbean]

Ooops, sorry Jungleplot - didn't realise you were a newbie - welcome to A4A   :) :) :) :) :)

[Geoff H]

 The birds that cats manage to kill are the ones that are weak and probably would not have survived for long.

Not true. i have often found dead birds that have been in the prime of life and have had cats take parent birds and so lost whole clutches of chicks. In my neighbourhood the cats wiped out a population of water voles. I have no hatred of cats, having owned one in the past but i made a conscious choice not to have another because of its impact on the wildlife. I did not feel it was fair to own a cat, I like friends cats and they like me, but I did not think it fair to restrict it to a house. In natural ecosystems predators such as wild cats.... and magpies are relatively rare and their numbers are restricted by available prey so you get a balance between prey and predators. Domestic cats upset that balance because we have a very high density of domestic predators and local wildlife finds it difficult to cope. I find blackbirds and thrushes suffer particularly because they spend so much time on the ground.

I understand that you can get a device that uses motion detectors and then squirts a spray of water. Also if you see a cat in the garden shout and scream at it and throw a stone - not at the cat but the cat will think you are out to kill it - tell your neighbour what you are doing. Most sane cat owners can understand that you trying to train the cat. If cats are wary of something it makes them unwilling to drop their guard while they poo.
My best deterrent was a big, friendly labrador. If he saw a cat he saw it as a potential play mate. They did not see it that way but saw him as a big black wolf bearing down on them. I now have to be more serious about keeping cats out. I now have a cat hating German Shepherd ( she must have met one while a tiny puppy or something). I think she would rip one apart and i don't want my neighbour's pets being dismembered.

[Mortality]

http://www.britishnews.co.uk/bizarrebritain/madcat.htm

Cats can be trained to poo in the loo, problem solved. :)

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/11/cat-poo-408872.html

if you dont believe it !

[theothermarg]

Snails and slugs are part of the ecosystem as is bird mess and hedgehog mess. Cats are not part of the natural system and their mess is a health hazard, especially when sited in a children's play area. Cats kill over 2 million birds in the UK every year. Inconsiderate, selfish cat owners care little for any of this.

welcome jungleplot 'Ihope you enjoy a bit of banter ;)
eer I'm almost sure that cats (wild ones)were always part of Britains wildlife but only servive in the highlands of Scotland because of man
marg

[Mortality]

Snails and slugs are part of the ecosystem as is bird mess and hedgehog mess. Cats are not part of the natural system and their mess is a health hazard, especially when sited in a children's play area. Cats kill over 2 million birds in the UK every year. Inconsiderate, selfish cat owners care little for any of this.

welcome jungleplot 'Ihope you enjoy a bit of banter ;)
eer I'm almost sure that cats (wild ones)were always part of Britains wildlife but only servive in the highlands of Scotland because of man
marg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Wildcat


Yup natural Wild cat

[Robert_Brenchley]

Wildcats are native, as are human children. The problem lies in the sheer density of the domestic moggy population.

[Vinlander]

My mother swears by part-filled water bottles - clear PET (pun not intended) lemonade ones and the like. 

Apparently cats don't like the shifting reflections so remove the labels.

Personally I wouldn't let sugary drinks near kids and the artificially sweetened ones are even worse, but there are plenty of near-feral sugar-crazed children about with inconsiderate guardians who let them chuck empties all over for us to recover, reuse, recycle... ;)

The other good method is cotton threads criss-crossing the area - puts cats off but too weak to trap them - but be vigilant because threads can trap birds - so it's better to use bright cotton - though birds aren't stupid and after a few close shaves you will still see birds about but not near there ever again. Make up for it with bird boxes - preferably for useful birds like robins and thrushes - what the hell, put in some bird boxes anyway to make up for your neighbours having cats  ;D Win-Win.

On the subject of where cats 'go' - they are territorial and will tend to mark their perimeter. Infantilising them (the knife) will suppress this in some but not others. For this reason one answer might be to get a cat yourself, or if you already have one get a less anthropomorphised one. Not an entirely unselfish solution but make up for it with more bird boxes! (not for verminous pigeons though - they will really annoy every sane person in the neighbourhood).

Cheers.

[jono]

Morning,
My parents have a motion sensor that when triggered sends off a high pitched noise, although I do lend them our Gordon Setter from time to time too.
One old wives tale that I have heard is to put human hair around your boarder, apparently this works too. I have a dog who is a companion to the family, one rabbit and 2 guinea pigs who are my sons pets and fun to have, and 3 chickens who supply us with food. I dont see the point of keeping cats. They are as loyal as an 18 year old boy, mearly coming in for food and somewhere to sleep and no respect for where they releave themselves. Opinions are like areseholes, everyone has one just some peoples stink!
Anyway good luck!

[Vinlander]

I don't have a cat but live in the suburbs; we've always had lots of foxes about but used to have surprisingly few cats.

At the time we had a problem with rats due to a nearby railway line - this was about 10 years ago when the council was prepared to trap and poison them for free. Over a year of this didn't seem to make much impact and then  budget cuts meant the ratcatchers stopped coming.

I've lived in other places and by comparison we seemed to have remarkably few cats at the time - obviously other people put 2+2 together and families in the area started to get cats.

I started to see what I'd call 'normal' numbers of cats about - and soon after I started seeing a lot less rats. Within a few months I stopped seeing any. Though there is still occasional evidence of either rats or mice in outbuildings they don't stroll around like they used to... in fact I haven't seen one in the open since.

About 20 years ago I heard a story (only second hand) from a friend who visited the Greek island of Hydra regularly. He said he'd gone there that year and found it impossible to stay.

The previous year the government (local or national I don't know) had decided to kill all the cats. Hydra was notorious for excessive numbers of partly-starved cats, but instead of culling the sickest ones they had killed all unclaimed cats (my friend said they weren't particularly assiduous about checking before killing). The following year my friend went there to find a plague of rats in progress.

I can't find this story recorded anywhere else but the next one is accepted history:

There was a well-documented upswing in plague cases in London 1665 - it was immediately after they killed all the cats in the mistaken belief that only an animal they touched could be a vector.

If foxes could be relied upon to take a few rats I'd be in favour of them too, but I've never heard anyone say they do without a 'maybe' or a 'probably' in the sentence.

Foxes certainly attack bins and leave their distinctive calling cards in prominent places - often on an upturned flowerpot or some such. Charming.

I also find dog mess just about everywhere - not as much in public places as there used to be - the concept of consideration is creeping downwards through the dog-keeping classes and seems to be improving round here.