Neighbours cat fouling our garden

Brock_and_Roll

I once had a neighbour who collected "rescued cats". This co-incided with the time that I had two small toddlers who obviously loved to play in the garden.

As such the mass of the neighbours cat poop in my garden was not just a stinking mess, it was a potential health hazard for my children.

I did contemplate climbing over her fence and laying logs on her lawn whenever I felt the need. However, I went round to her house and told her politely but firmly that I would take any of her cats that came into my garden to a vets and have them put down. I was not sure how exactly I would have done this but it did the trick and the cats stopped coming into the garden!

I am amazed that people think it is ok for cats to foul other people's gardens and kill their wildlife under the pretext of that "they are just behaving naturally". This is of course true but if I kept a tiger or a dog that killed their cat there would be uproar despite both animals behaving naturally!

Frankly if the problem happened again on a regular basis I would do the job properly & humanely myself with a captive bolt gun and no one would ever know.

SnooksNJ

Loopy28 wrote: »

Cats don't generally poo in their own garden, they poo elsewhere. I have three cats and am quite aware they poo in others gardens but what can an owner realistically do?

The best way to stop getting cat poo in your garden is to get a cat yourself. Cats generally don't poo on another cats territory.

Other than that a light water pistol is a humane way to deter them, cats have good memories! A quick squirt with a water pistol won't hurt them but it will make them think twice!

Or you could get a litter box instead of expecting your neighbors to clean up your cats poop, incur the expense of getting a cat, or monitor their yards 24/7 with a water pistol.

prowla

Maybe a high-powered remote-controlled sprinkler system would do the trick?

theyiddo

Here's a little thing my wife and I discovered by accident (or through laziness)!

We'd had problems over the last number of years with neighbours cats fouling our garden all the time. A couple of years ago we had hardly any mess in our garden though, and couldn't understand why...although with 2 children, we were very grateful. The same this happened this year - we've had hardly any cat faeces in our garden. Then we remembered, in both years, we had left the grass grow over the winter, and were the last people in our area to mow our grass in the new year - where previously we were generally the first.

Our only deduction is that cat's being the ponces that they are, do not like long wet grass, and therefore chose someone else's garden as their personal toilet for the year rather than traipse around our garden getting wet and possibly having their own crap rubbed on their fur.

Of course it might be a coincidence...but its our best guess.

adouglasmhor

ThumbsUpBoy wrote: »

What are my options next, how could I tackle it. Can I scoop the deposits and place it on my neighbours front door without being accused of trespassing?

Tradition dictates that you should place all the pooh in a paper bag, place it on your neighbours doorstep, start the bag alight, then ring their doorbell.
After they have stamped it out they will really love you.


Please do not really do this, it was funny when I was 13 though.

SerialRenter

ethank wrote: »

There is not a set of cat rights. They do not have a fundamental right to enter my property.

I suggest you serve your local cats with an ASBO.

Pont

This cat issue seems to cause so many neighbour disputes - isn't it about time this 'right to roam' is rescinded? Either a cat is a household pet and therefore the owner takes responsibility for their cat. Likewise if a cat was run over, the car driver would have to notify the police as per accidents involving dogs. Or a cat is wildlife and doesn't 'belong' to anybody and is treated accordingly.

This present half way house isn't helpful to anyone.

aileth

I think the 'deliverance' of poo back to the neighbour is utterly childish. They'd probably be more than willing to work something out if you didn't go face first with such a terrible anti-social attitude.

We have two cats, who always do their business in our veg patch or in the litter tray. One is a black cat. There are about 6 black cats in our area. We had a neighbour deposit poo on our front step, saying that it was 'obviously' our cat who had done it as it 'was black'.

I was in the garden the next day and saw one of the other black cats, who is like a fat version of ours, taking a dump in her garden. She came out all abusive, until I went inside, picked mine up and showed her that mine had been quite happily asleep on the sofa.

If it was certain it was our cat and she hadn't been so abusive and anti-social in the first place, I would've been more than willing to sort something out.

Of course, if the neighbours don't care, they have no obligation to do anything. In the word of the law, they are free-roaming and it is not the owner's responsibility to ensure their cat stays out of your garden. If you want no cats, you take steps to keep them out. However, this sort of attitude isn't going to help anything.

It's a shame a lot of people can't seem to act like adults, don't dump sh*t on their doorstep, if a neighbour raises a complaint about your cat, go and pick it up, even though you don't have to, simply to keep relations intact. Is it really so difficult?

mrs_sparrow

To the people advising to chuck the poop next door, that can actually find you up on an harassment charge with the police and, if it continues, you will end up in court for it.

I know this for a fact as I have been there with my nutty next door neighbour from a few years back. Started that whenever I came home from work there would be cat poo stuck to the front door, I was pregnant at the time so left it to hubby to clear up. It continued. I opened the curtains one morning to find her out there an lobbing it at the door, and at my car.

I had cats, every other house in the street had cats but it was only ever my house that she was throwing the poo at. I then told her that I had reported her to the police and if she did it again I would be pressing charges. I bought her loads of menthol smelling crystals for the garden, told her to ask when she needed more and she never mentioned it again.

mrs_sparrow

Holly leaves on the garden stop cats going on it as they do not like the prickles.