Cats and how to stop them 'soiling' my garden.

That’s putting it politely as I could.

Sick and tired of coming home to find my gardens stinking of freshly-laid cat toffee. Direct neighbours have three on one side and two on the other. Think those that back on to my house have one or two as well…

I’ve put down bark chippings, gravel and broken slabs to deter them, but they still crap on those. Got nice planters, urns and tubs at the front of the house and they perch on the edge and crap into them. Then dig up the bulbs I’ve put in them and chuck the compost everywhere. I’ve ended up ‘planting’ shards of broken plastic around the edge of the urns but that’s hardly attractive. Even the lawn was covered in it.

Short of getting my OWN cat, paving over the whole garden and/or hanging out the windows 24/7 with a Nerf Super Soaker, what can I do?

Your sensible remedies would be appreciated.

Next door’s cat stopped crapping in my garden after I coated the compost in the pots with a liberal layer of ultra-hot chilli powder and old coffee grounds.

Have had success using one of these:

Rentokil Sonic Deterrent

bark/small stone chippings etc encourage them as its akin to cat litter. I put cotswold gravel all over my front garden once and it became the neighborhood toilet!!!

Replaced this some years later with plum slate and never had another turd laid 😀 Guessing the sharper edges and larger size of slate deterred them.

Now in second house and front garden is too slated, no cat toffee to report in 3 years 😆

Bark chippings and gravel are probably the worst things you can put down, that’s exactly what a cat wants!

I’ve stopped my own cats crapping in my planters using heavier pebbles, looks pretty good and also stops weeds growing around the edges – something similar to this (although I used white pebbles):

Helps they’re my cats so I don’t begrudge the expense, I can see how that would be irritating if they weren’t mine!

With or without the vicious spikey plants?

There’s something about my yard that attracts cats.

There’s also something about my yard that means the easiest/fastest way out for a panicking cat is to run towards the house, and then turn left.

Which means: when i squirt them liberally with a full drinks bottle, they run towards me.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

As a cat owner… I love this video & the follow up

Slate chippings are OK, but desperate cats will poo anywhere.

Try Lion’s poo (silent roar), some people says it works.

Bark chippings and gravel are probably the worst things you can put down

Really? I’d heard otherwise. it is quite ‘chunky’ bark and gravel. More ‘stones’ than gravel, actually.

You think you have problems…

I was awoken at 5 this morning by a strange noise coming from under the bed. Got down for a look and there was the farm cat half way through eating a baby rabbit. ON MY NICE WHITE WOOL CARPET! 🙂

You gotta love em.

Stick said cat in the wheelie-bin on the morning of collection-day… 😉

my aunt has 12 cats one side, 3/4 behind and 4 on the other side, she has an immaculate garden, its her hobby, she reckons she gets 30 plus toffees a day, a bucket full after a couple of days…I told her to just empty it over the fence..

ON MY NICE WHITE WOOL CARPET!

Why would you ever have white wool carpet?
Oh well under the bed so you can’t see it.

These do work, but you need to keep a constant watch. Get the kids involved!

A mate did this to his neighbours cat. Pissed in a super soaker gun filled rest up with water. Sat in garden he saw the cat. Soaked it’s head with the gun. Cat never came back in again!

Problem solved.

Cat repellant pellets supplemented with pee pee

.22 air rifle. Job done.

I also use “Cat Stix®”, my own invention, which solves the problem of not always having my HW100 with me. Basically, 18″ lengths of hardwood sticks, around 2″ in diameter. I leave these leaning up against all the trees in my wood.

If I see a cat, I toss a Cat Stix® gently onto the ground next to the cat to persuade it to leave. It’s perfectly safe and humane… In 2 years, I’ve only killed 6 cats using this technique. 😉

Similar problem with dog in the common path on the way to my house. sprayed some of this (amazon) and never saw the dog again

Honks a bit for a couple of days but they’ll get the picture quick enough

As a cat owner… I love this video & the follow up

Zippy,

I now have a coffee keyboard because of this video…

Rat poison?

I have a supply of tennis balls that I throw at them just to let them know my garden is a bad place to be.
Also, short grass doesn’t seem as appealing as long.
http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?275568-Cats&highlight=Cats

What Can Kill Your Cats? Be Careful — You Probably Have These 8 Things at Home

The simplest answer (if you like cats) is to get a cat yourself…

Isn’t peeing on the garden (or getting the wife to) the usual solution?

EDIT I think it helps if the cat sees you doing it, all territorial like, so using a bucket is less effective.

…Obviously not a shy and retiring one….

Isn’t peeing on the garden (or getting the wife to) the usual solution?

Only if you video it…

Our cats love bark chips and crap all over them. They don’t even bother digging them up and burying it!

i had the same problem last summer so i bought one of those sonic cat repellers and it worked….i’ve noticed that they have started to make a return but that will be because the battery needs replacing.

Lurcher

These do work, but you need to keep a constant watch. Get the kids involved!

I tried one of those and the cats just looked at me and carried on.

The Rentokil one further up though, that seemed to work but you need lots if it’s a big garden.

I’m thinking a Ridgy might be what I need!

Know anyone with snakes, snake crap does it! Cats may do our garden once , they don’t come back a second time. Either that or the well named Catapult.

I had this problem and tried everything. Until this http://www.diy.com/nav/garden/garden-care-watering/pest-weed-control/animal_control/-specificproducttype-cat___dog_repellents/Defender-Mega-Sonic-Cat-Repeller-10777804?ecamp=SEAPLA11268390&ef_id=YQ9P5sJTvWIAAAAy:20140409171323:s

Never came back. 8)

Know anyone with snakes,

Bizarrely, yes I do 🙂 Girlfriend’s ex-husband breeds them.

I’m onto a winner.

Nerd gun the big 50cal sniper one they brought out last year is my current fav doesn’t do any lasting damage and scares the living sh#t out of them great fun and they don’t come back more than twice mores the pity 😀

We found the ultrasonic cat scarers worked very well on our tiny front garden bit (which was covered in pointy gravel) and on the back garden when we moved into our last but one house. We moved with them to the new place – but cat poo has never been an issue at this place.

One theory (from our cat owning neighbour) was that a lot of the crapping is territorial – a bit like a Singletrack thread, actually. If cat A craps somewhere, cats B, C, D, E and F through to Z feel obliged to also crap in the same place. Stop it all at once, and it stops being a problem.

We found that once all the cat poo has been cleared away (yay…) and the cats successfully scared off, they tend to leave well alone.

By the way – those big Nerf darts make an eerie whistling noise.

Two ways….

1. Hire a tiger or lion to shit in your garden (small cats don’t like big cat poo)

2. Spread used coffee grounds all over the bare soil. (small cats hate coffee…not sure if tigers do or not)

I thought i had cured the problem but on venturing out with the lawnmower this afternoon i had to remove 5 soft centred cat turds before i moved any further into the front garden, so i’ve deployed a mesh fishing net pegged out with canes across the grass and i’m going cat fishing! – hopefully get my first catch tonight and if i do it’s getting drenched from the hose.

1. Keep lawn very short
2. Any stones should be large beach pebble size
3. No bare soil…plants lots of plants or put netting over bare soil if you are trying to sow seeds eg veg patch. This could work over your pots before the bulbs have come up.
4. Get a dog
5. Super soaker any determined cats