Chasing cats away

Martin

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Since we've moved to this rural place a year ago, we find that the neighbors' cats like to stay around our garden a lot more than we like them to. And they do leave their droppings in flowerpots and any other accessible soil, recently even on concrete, daytime and nighttime. It is getting worse, the cats are getting more, and they are getting fatter (one neighbor feeding them a lot). They also leave dead birds and dead mice around.
My wife is upset while neighbors tell us that cats are a perfectly natural phenomenon and we would have to put up with it.
Well, I believe the cats here are badly educated, a lot different from the ones on my grandfathers farm.
So, I don't want them in our garden and tried various things to chase them away:

Smelly powder. It kept the cats away for a week, but just where I put the powder. After a week, cats were back. Another can at EUR 8 would have been needed for 25% of the garden area. Too much in the long run.

I set up a very loud ultrasonic source. Cat's immediately came looking what's going on and appeared not annoyed at all. I kept the sound on for some weeks. My neighbor had a marten visit every night, it left (later I found it had moved one house further). The women of my two neighbors complained about the ultrasonic sound, my wife too. Women apparently hear these high frequencies very well. I had to turn off the ultrasonic thing to keep the ladies happy. The noise has had no effect on the behavior of the cats. Maybe the frequency was wrong ?

I covered the heavily-frequented areas (under the trees) with sharp gravel. This indeed does work: Cats moved to other places in our garden. Well, I can't put gravel everywhere.

One cat I chased away permanently by repeatedly scoring hits with water, even hot water from the watercooker. But that was just one. There must still be 4 to 5 more of them regularly visiting.

I'm curious what suggestions you can come up with to keep cats away. Lasers ? Magnetrons ? Electric fence ? Light-barrier triggerd sprinklers ? A dog is not acceptable, by the way.
I'm trying not to injure any of the cats so that a neighbor could get upset. Frying my own family or even the postman who is bringing me flashlights should be avoided, too.
 

Martin

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Cool, DonShock. I wasn't aware that such a thing is readily available. Looks good to me.
 

BIGIRON

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The sprinkler works. I've a neighbor who kept losing his koi to cats, coons and great blue herons. The sprinkler fixed that very well. It surprised me that it worked with the coon.

You have a right to be free of the neighbors pets on your property. I support your policy of not injuring the cats. I believe you would be completely justified in asking the neighbors to restrain their cats and that if they refuse to do so, you'll live trap them and the neighbors will have to come and retreive them. If they fail to retrieve them, then have your version of animal control pick them up for whatever disposition they make.

This would be completely legal and acceptable in my area. I have no idea if it would in yours or not.

Ranging domestic cars and feral cats are the greatest destroyers of small wildlife there is. It's a real tragedy that people let their cats roam and some even feed the feral cats.

We've a number of "cat people" on the forum. I'm sure some will have some good sugggestions.

edit : yes, domestic "cars" do destroy a lot of wildlife. Ha. Recovering from eye surgery, so not proofing very well.
 
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Martin

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Thanks for confirming this can work, BIGIRON.
My neighbors are nice guys, I won't start a war. So the sprinklers are just perfect.

Even better, these sprinklers are not available in Germany, I will be the only one to have them. Should make our garden the most cat-resistent one in the village.
 

greenlight

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I have a couple of neighbor cats who visit regularly. I don't plan on setting up a sprinkler to scare them away. A pressure water gun seems like a good idea.
 

Pellidon

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Use the motion sprinkler and move it every so often. They will remember where an unpleasant event occured and usually won't go back that way anytime soon. Crumpled tinfoil and somewhat stiff plastic crumpled wrap that will make noise when they walk on it will deter them as well. That might not be that practical if there are lots of places for kitty to play.

The only other option is to make a trans dimensional communication device and talk to their superiors on their home planet to try to try to have them instructed to not use your yard. It is a well known fact that cats are not a product of this planet. That is why they have the attitude they are superior to everything.
 

TedTheLed

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Pelli is right; they did arrive here in spaceships, before they landed they checked for the presence of two things; waiters (otherwise known as humans) and mice..

seems they are all looking to your flower beds and pots as a place to dig a hole to poop in; if you provided them with a big pile of loose dirt or sand in an out of the way spot, they would probably be happy to use that instead..

I just hit on this method of taking care of my cat's morning ablutions;
I dig a deep hole with the dirt piled up alongside..kitty immediately got the idea and we walk to the dirt pile every morning together and he goes in the dirt right next to the hole..all I have to do is knock it in (hey is that a birdie?) and throw some dirt on it..
 
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yuandrew

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I heard they do not like the smell of red pepper; makes them sneeze like crazy. There is a commercial product someone up the street from me uses to keep animals out of his front yard that I think has pepper in it.

Try scattering some red pepper around your yard.
 

Martin

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Pellidon, the tinfoil is a great idea for the garden furniture. I wouldn't want to sprinkle in this area and my initial plan of putting it under high tension (steel furniture) could be a bit cruel.
 

leduk

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UK
Make sure there is no visible soil. So plant things everywhere. Herbs are great.

Small bamboo skewers where you have clear soil stops the furry f*****s getting down to business.

Lion/Tiger pooh! Get to your local zoo and get some lion/tiger pooh. Leave chunks of this at strategic places. Apparently the smaller animals get the sense there is a large predator about and skidaddle.

Cheers
 

Pydpiper

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Cayenne pepper is the one to sprinkle, unfortunately it has to be repeated after each rain, or heavy dew. The product being referred to is "Critter Ridder"..

Consult the neighbors, let them know you are about to take action on the animals, and why. It would be most effective in a letter form, keep it generic, not accusing.
If they refuse to take responsibility for their animals then it is your choice as to what approach to take.
My suggestion is to buy or rent a live trap catch the cats one at a time, then lay it to them with the hose. They won't come back. I have a lot of respect for animals of any breed, but any animal that imposes on your property in an unwanted way elevates its self to "nuisance animal" status, and at that point anything is fair game.
Call your local humane society and run it by them, they may have better ideas. I have even heard where they supply the traps and provide removal.
 

chmsam

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How about telling the neighbors you'll be putting up a sign that says you'll be making fur hats and tacos?

Actually, a buddy of mine has an old propane canister that he uses for compressed air (filling tires, toys and balls for the kids, etc.). A cat in the yard gets a blast from the compressed air hose and usually doesn't come back.
 

Cliffnopus

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How about business cards from your local Chinese restaurant sprinkled liberally around the garden. :laughing:

Cliff
 

BB

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Burying wire mesh (like what we call in the US "Chicken Wire") just under the surface of the soft soil they like to dig in can also help... The cats' claws catch on the wire as they do their "thing".

One addition to the automatic sprinkler--If there is also wild life around (like birds), they will set the sprinkler off for the water, you might wish to get a mechanical sprinkler timer to limit the amount of water if it gets too wet in your yard.

-Bill
 

Bright Scouter

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I am probably more out in the country than most. But most "pet" type intruders get a couple paintballs fired at them. Not lethal to most animals. Non pet types gets air guns shot at them. Also usually non lethal unless I intend it to be and use the high powered one. If you want a little less powerfull than a standard paintball gun, get an airsoft gun and use either the normal air soft pellets, or paint pellets.
 

smokinbasser

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I practice catch and release fishing and thought about using a paintball gun with flourescent orange paint to hunt and "tag" deer with the upside being other hunters will see blaze orange and hopefully hesitate long enough trying to decide what they are seeing to allow the deer to make good its escape.
 

IsaacHayes

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We had to deal with this, only it was feral cats. A neighbor was putting out her trash scraps so feral cats would eat it. Soon there was cats from miles away coming (well, far away) to eat every night. They were pooping in all of our yard, bushes/garden/etc. The smell when you walked outside into the yard was enough to make you want to puke. They were killing grey squerrils (no joke) and leaving them in our yard and driveway. Big bloody gray squriells. One we saw chewing on it's guts. Ugh.

No mistaking it, these were ferral cats. Then they had babies on the niebhors porch, two different times. She had 14 cats at one time on her porch/carport.

It is illegal to let your pets roam free here, but they only enforce it on dogs because they are easy to catch (come her boy! got ya). Yet the dogs don't cause the damage that the cats do.

The cats were out of control, and most of them were deseaised. We did not want to get on bad terms with the nieghbor by calling animal control. We tried low power bb guns shooting them in the rear thigh (multi-pump with just one pump). That didn't work. They kept coming back. Well animal control showed up at her house one day (she called them) because there was a sick racoon on her car port that ate her "cat" food she left out. No cats were around and he hauled off the racoon. There was also a opposum that fed WITH the ferral cats at night. Anyways, the animal control told her to wash everythign off as the racoon was sick and could infect her. We told her too that cat's can catch the stuff, and she seemed a little worried.

Lets just say live traps work, but you can't relocate or take the pet cats to the animal control.. It's a hard situtation, keeping on your neighbors good side but yet being firm about not having the animals tresspass. I guess you can take them to animal control, but your neighbors won't be happy when they find out you did this.

Bascially any repellent tactic does't work. The cats didn't seem to remember pain or to stay off of our property. We even used a blender to grind up onions, and harblano(sp?) peppers, and they didn't care about it!!

Thank god they are all finaly somewhere else and not bothering us, and the neighbor gave up feeing them. Now our yard smells normal and there isn't dead animals with their guts hanging out everywhere.
 
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savumaki

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Temagami, ON
smokinbasser said:
I practice catch and release fishing and thought about using a paintball gun with flourescent orange paint to hunt and "tag" deer with the upside being other hunters will see blaze orange and hopefully hesitate long enough trying to decide what they are seeing to allow the deer to make good its escape.

Try and get it up around the shoulder area, would you?
 
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