I have had this problem for years mainly because I have been using a bark mulch which keeps the weeds down and preserves moisture but attracts cats. Over the years I have tried pepper, lemon scent, electronic cat scares, thorn bush cuttings, carpet gripper rods, netting, canes with string trip wires, scary metal cat with marble eyes, half filled water bottles, jeyes fluid, coal tar soap and the cats keep coming back, lately I have been using cut up orange peel which has at last done the trick but the cat which seems to have some sort of stomach problem by the way as its scat is something to avoid at all costs, has taken to doing its dirt right on the edge of my plot so I have had to resort to sprinkling the peel just over the boarder into my neighbours garden. The cat doesn't seem to like my neighbours soil anywhere as much as it likes my bark chippings.
Yes, for some strange reason cats find both anti-freeze and diluted Jeyes Fluid almost irresistible - apparently they taste sweet - many vets will confirm having treated cats poisoned by it, either deliberately or accidentally - it contains phenol as do other disinfectants which turn milky when mixed with water - and is lethal to cats. http://www.icatcare.org/advice/keeping-your-cat-safe/cats-and-poisons
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Barry, it's not just them drinking it, they need to lick themselves clean. Takes very little to kill a cat in a very cruel way. Even at my most frustrated I could never, ever be cruel to an animal - any animal.
Chilli pepper worked (works for squirrels too) & coffee - go to starbucks and ask them to give used coffee grounds. Best solution we had was to adopt our own cat! Someone badly needed a new home for it, although a dog was more my thing. When we got our cat, we found he uses a disused church behind our house for a toilet, and strangely just one neighbour. When they finally told me, I cleared it all up, apologised tons and got them an electronic scarer - he never went in there again.
You can also get special spikes that you nail to the top of a garden fence, this really does work with many cats. Amazon sell them and they are reasonably priced. Those things are sharp and will not rot unlike carpet grippers.
Phillippa, please don't believe all the hype about cats killing everything. There was an excellent TV doco about the secret life of cats where it tracked cats for a while. The amount killed by cats was much less than previous thought. It was put down to the fact that cats are so well fed now. I am not saying they are a saint, but I do not like the fact that cat's get such a bad rep over this when we humans are much much worse over the destruction to our wildlife.
And I write this from more of a level-head rather than a mad cat lady! Honest '-)
There are too many cats though- I wish people would neuter their pets.
I have 5 cats but they were all unwanted/ homeless. If there weren't any cats to rescue I certainly wouldn't have gone and bought 5 from a breeder. No chance.
chilli/ pepper etc will blow or get rained off fairly quickly.
used tea bags, sprayed with deep heat/ other pain relief muscle spray scattered around the area will deter cats and last longer as the spray is oil based.
hi this is a chicken wire fence which we bought from ebay half a metre wide so that it tucks over the wooden fence around our back garden. Since my husband put it up we have had no cats in the garden. We have seen them look at it and then go into our neighbours garden so we are highly delighted that we do not have the cats doing their business in our garden. Our next door neighbour has three cats and cats do not like to do their business on their own property. My friend had this fence installed in her garden she is one of the lovely people who like to keep her cats in her own garden. She has two cats and they never go outside her garden. We do not want to hurt the cats and this is the ideal solution it might not look pretty but it does the trick,. There are no rough edges around the wire so cats do not hurt themselves. I think the reason is that they do not want to jump on the fence now is that the chicken fence moves if they jump on it and I know cats like to feel secure. Hopefully in the future we might be able to take the chicken fencing down as the cats get used to their other route of moving around., will keep you informed . So far after 3 weeks we have seen the cats in other neighbours garden but not in ours and no dirt anywhere. We tried Lions Roar and pepper but this only worked as long as it did not rain.hhaha and as you kinow in England we get lots of rain and we did not like using the pepper incase the cats were ill so this is a good way of deterring the cats.
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I have had this problem for years mainly because I have been using a bark mulch which keeps the weeds down and preserves moisture but attracts cats. Over the years I have tried pepper, lemon scent, electronic cat scares, thorn bush cuttings, carpet gripper rods, netting, canes with string trip wires, scary metal cat with marble eyes, half filled water bottles, jeyes fluid, coal tar soap and the cats keep coming back, lately I have been using cut up orange peel which has at last done the trick but the cat which seems to have some sort of stomach problem by the way as its scat is something to avoid at all costs, has taken to doing its dirt right on the edge of my plot so I have had to resort to sprinkling the peel just over the boarder into my neighbours garden. The cat doesn't seem to like my neighbours soil anywhere as much as it likes my bark chippings.
Jeyes Fluid will kill cats in a very painful and unpleasant way - I'm glad you've stopped using it to keep them away from your garden.
I find that a well-aimed water pistol works, now that I'm at home during the day to use it.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
How will watered down jeyes fluid kill a cat are they tempted to drink it? I would have though that they would have given it a wide berth.
Yes, for some strange reason cats find both anti-freeze and diluted Jeyes Fluid almost irresistible - apparently they taste sweet - many vets will confirm having treated cats poisoned by it, either deliberately or accidentally - it contains phenol as do other disinfectants which turn milky when mixed with water - and is lethal to cats. http://www.icatcare.org/advice/keeping-your-cat-safe/cats-and-poisons
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Barry, it's not just them drinking it, they need to lick themselves clean. Takes very little to kill a cat in a very cruel way. Even at my most frustrated I could never, ever be cruel to an animal - any animal.
Chilli pepper worked (works for squirrels too) & coffee - go to starbucks and ask them to give used coffee grounds. Best solution we had was to adopt our own cat! Someone badly needed a new home for it, although a dog was more my thing. When we got our cat, we found he uses a disused church behind our house for a toilet, and strangely just one neighbour. When they finally told me, I cleared it all up, apologised tons and got them an electronic scarer - he never went in there again.
You can also get special spikes that you nail to the top of a garden fence, this really does work with many cats. Amazon sell them and they are reasonably priced. Those things are sharp and will not rot unlike carpet grippers.
Phillippa, please don't believe all the hype about cats killing everything. There was an excellent TV doco about the secret life of cats where it tracked cats for a while. The amount killed by cats was much less than previous thought. It was put down to the fact that cats are so well fed now. I am not saying they are a saint, but I do not like the fact that cat's get such a bad rep over this when we humans are much much worse over the destruction to our wildlife.
And I write this from more of a level-head rather than a mad cat lady! Honest '-)
There are too many cats though- I wish people would neuter their pets.
I have 5 cats but they were all unwanted/ homeless. If there weren't any cats to rescue I certainly wouldn't have gone and bought 5 from a breeder. No chance.
chilli/ pepper etc will blow or get rained off fairly quickly.
used tea bags, sprayed with deep heat/ other pain relief muscle spray scattered around the area will deter cats and last longer as the spray is oil based.
I never found that with chilli pepper, used to sit in the soil quite nicely, even after rain. Potent stuff, didn't need too much!
hi this is a chicken wire fence which we bought from ebay half a metre wide so that it tucks over the wooden fence around our back garden. Since my husband put it up we have had no cats in the garden. We have seen them look at it and then go into our neighbours garden so we are highly delighted that we do not have the cats doing their business in our garden. Our next door neighbour has three cats and cats do not like to do their business on their own property. My friend had this fence installed in her garden she is one of the lovely people who like to keep her cats in her own garden. She has two cats and they never go outside her garden. We do not want to hurt the cats and this is the ideal solution it might not look pretty but it does the trick,. There are no rough edges around the wire so cats do not hurt themselves. I think the reason is that they do not want to jump on the fence now is that the chicken fence moves if they jump on it and I know cats like to feel secure. Hopefully in the future we might be able to take the chicken fencing down as the cats get used to their other route of moving around., will keep you informed . So far after 3 weeks we have seen the cats in other neighbours garden but not in ours and no dirt anywhere. We tried Lions Roar and pepper but this only worked as long as it did not rain.hhaha and as you kinow in England we get lots of rain and we did not like using the pepper incase the cats were ill so this is a good way of deterring the cats.