Neighbours cat....

elff

My neighbours live in a first floor flat, with no cat flap. If they are at home they may leave the door open so the cat can come and go but if they go out for the day (quite often) they leave the cat out for the day... same thing if the cat isn't in when they go to bed they shut the door and its left out....

We have a lovley cat and a cat flap.... next door's cat regually comes through cat flap and i often find it in our kitchen eating MY cats food or worse still on the worktops:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

I ALWAYS chase it out of the house when we see it as i cannot afford to feed that cat as well.... (upstair's cat also wanders in - but he wont each wet food:D) It also seems to have taken over our garden - I likes to c**p on the grass and sleep in the kids wendy house

I use to feal really sorry for the poor chap as he had no where to go if it rained etc.... but we decided on one cat...not 2 and i dont see why i should be feeding it!!! as well as having to clean up its crap (houses back on to huge fields/woods never had a problem before this cat)

I have spoken to neighbour about cat he just says somtimes they 'put it out' because its annoying them:cool:

Everytime time i see it in the house i shout/run at it and it bolts for the cat flap but it tends to come in over night (when we asleep) as we find it on the sofa in the morning (our chap has free range of kitchen (where cat flap is) living room.

Any ideas on how to get rid of this cat? its the climbing all over the worktops and eating all mr cat's food

Edited to add we have a magnetic cat flap already..... although so does upstairs so he wanders in and it would appear nextdoors cat also has a magnet thing on it collor?? can you get a specific identity cat flap? Are they expensive?

McKneff

2 thoughts

Lock the cat flap on a night

Get the collar off the cat, up stairs will soon get fed up of replacing it.

Poor little cat, its not half as loved as yours.........................

Griizelda

I'm confused. In the first sentence you state that the upstairs flat doesn't have a cat flap and then go on to say that upstairs does too?

I'm assuming that you're talking about three cats in total (yours, the one in the flat upstairs and the next door neighbours). If you don't want the other two coming into the house, do as McKeff says, and lock the cat flap at night before you go to bed (I'm assuming your cat is in at nights, otherwise you'll be locking him out too). For the interlopers during the day/evening when you're there, have a water spray handy (a plant mister would work) and spray it at the cat. It won't hurt them, but cats don't like it and will hopefully associate your house with being sprayed with water and keep away!

Edit: Unless you really need too, don't leave food out for your cat as this is probably the reason you have such frequent visitors.

Personally, I feel a bit sorry for the upstairs cat as he/she sounds rather unwanted and unloved

925dancer

You can get cat flaps that read microchips, Petporte and Sureflap.

pipscot

I don't understand why next door's cat has a magnet if they don't have a cat flap??? Agree with the poster who said you could just remove the magnet from the collar of next door's cat!
You can get try the infrared type of catflap - they are more specific as to which cat can enter (but if next door buy one with the same frequency then this won't work and they also don't work if your cat likes to hang around near his own cat flap since it is unlocked by proximity of your cat) - they are about £40 from Amazon and £60 from Argos - but read the reviews first!
More expensive again are catflaps that operate via your pet's identity chip. Haven't tried these but they are about £100 (and obviously your pet will need a microchip).

shelly

We got a Petporte microchip cat flap for pretty much the same reasons as you talk about elff. Neighbourhood cats were coming in and eating my cats food and Lily really didn't like it. She's naturally shy/timid around new people and cats and she took to peeing in the house with the stress of it.
We got her chipped and bought the first version of the petporte. Yes it was expensive at £100 but it's been money well spent. Lily now knows that other cats can't come in and she is back to her usual happy self.

I bought Lilys flap from Petplanet and I have seen they have the newer version on sale for £69.99. If you want to use all the functions you need a power supply nearby but the flap will work on it's most basic setting via battery.
http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=933&pf_id=51010

If you don't have a power supply nearby then the Sureflap might be better as that runs entirely on batteries.

IMO a microchip catflap is well worth it if you can afford it.

Hope that helps.

elff

Thanks - he was a rescue cat so is microchipped, vet thinks he is about 2ish so hopefully we have him for a good few years yet - It may be worth looking into in a couple of months as with my boys i tend to have the patio doors/windows open when its nice so the kids can play in teh garden - unfortuntley it means the cats tend to wander in as well... maybee i could get a toddlar/cat flap and put special collors on the todlars

Fire_Fox

Magnetic cat flaps are fairly easy for a determined cat to break into.

If the cat is locked out in bad weather, call the RSPCA as the owner is responsible for providing adequate shelter. In the mean time if the cat is coming in for food and shelter, take those away and he will soon find a new hotel! It may be a pain but bring the Wendy house in/ collapse it when not in use, barricade the cat flap closed at night, feed your cat wet food on a schedule and refrigerate/ bin any leftovers, get a microchip flap as soon as you can afford to. As the cat is pooping on your grass and not burying it in soil, this suggests the cat believes your home/ garden is his territory and is scent marking accordingly. You might try replacing it with your cats or next door cats poop, but that is still an issue for your children. Most other child safe deterrents will also deter your own cat. Again the intruder may become less interested in this part of his territory if there is no shelter or food available.

BTW I like the idea of the toddler flap, you should patent it!

pigeonpie

this might not be practical for you, don't know your circumstances, but if you feed your cat at regular times, rather than leave food out, then next door's won't find anything to munch and will soon lose interest? I also suggest the microchip flap if you can afford it
poor visitor cat sounds like it doesn't get any love or enough food.

elff

pigeonpie wrote: »

poor visitor cat sounds like it doesn't get any love or enough food.

Thats why part of me feel's guilty about not letting him in... especially when its cold/windy/raining

Then he c*aps on my grass..... and i dont feel bad at all:D

KxMx

elff wrote: »

Thats why part of me feel's guilty about not letting him in... especially when its cold/windy/raining

Then he c*aps on my grass..... and i dont feel bad at all:D

So your cat never goes in anyone else's garden *rolls eyes*

Don't have any advice i'm afraid, anyone with a standard cat flap runs this risk.