There is no law (as far as I am aware of - on trespass by cats. Cats roam over quite a vast area and cannot be kept from doing so, unless they are housecats. Unlike dogs - owners are liable by law to be responsible for their dogs - there is no liability for cats. I would also be very careful, if I were you, of returning offending cat dirt. It could only lead to bad feeling toward you from your neighbours and may go even further. Just dispose of the cat dirt and keep on friendly terms as I have seen this happening before and life is too short...
Reply to cat-lovers and cat-haters: I think from now on I'll keep quiet about my cats, so many comments have been sent for this blog entry.
I remember being in New Zealand many years ago and every front garden in Aukland had large plastic lemonade bottles half-filled with water, strewn about the lawns and borders. They were to keep cats off. How or why this was meant to work I don't know, nor whether it did work. But I came to the conclusion that I'd rather have cats than litter.
I put bells on the collars of my cats, but one keeps losing them. I even found one collar string up in the apple tree. Maybe one day I'll find the cat strung up by its own collar in the tree.
Our two cats bury their own faeces pretty well, and they don't seem to be a problem to us or our neighbours. The dung is broken down fast, by beetle and fly larvae because I only treat the cats with systemic flea-killer if they have active flea infestations. One of the problems with dung is that it can be made insecticidal by chemical treatment of the animals dropping it. With cats and dogs this can be through flea-killing preparations put regularly into their food. It may get rid of the fleas, but the dung becomes poisonous to would-be dung recyclers. There are similar worries about cattle being treated for parasites leaving cow pats undecomposed all over the fields.
And finally a word of reassurance to mireille. Toxoplasmosis, the sight-threatening infection with a microbe found in animal dung is not very widespread and infections in children are not so very intimately linked to animal faeces. This was demonstrated by a study that found the children of dog-owners (who were therefore much more likely to come into dog dung than non-owners) were no more likely to show the disease. Finding animal dung in the garden is pretty unpleasant and children should always wash their hands after playing out their, but please let's not panic.
I love all animals wildlife & birds, my cats are too slow to catch a cold! By the time they are ready to pounce the bird has gone home to roost!I have 2 cats and they don't stop the birds from coming into our garden. I've counted as many as 5 cats in my garden + our 2 and the birds have still been feeding whilst they were there. Some humans are good and some are bad and it is the same with animals except animals don't know any better. So please live and let live!
does anyone know who i can contact to identify a shrub or small tree that has just produced flowers for the first time since i planted it in my garden 9 years ago .i have looked in my rhs encyclopedia and am not sure what it is.
I think cats are a problem....they need to be locked up like dogs. Dogs cant wander free but cats can. Cat destroy things. I have a neighbour cat the wanders and destroys things and there is nothing we can do. To all cat owners keep them inside or on a lease like a dog. If not then don't have one.
Hi, unfortunatly where I live there are 5 cats living within 200 yards of my property.At the back of my house is a large garage compound and every day I find mess.I despise cats and the owners.I have a dog and always clear up after him.I know the owners,unfortunately they know of my dislike towards cats and we dont talk,no loss to me.My nextdoor neighbour runs what I call a cattery,he has a open door policy and entices these cats in,kind of a second home for them.Again I don't talk to him.The other morning I caught a neighbours cat in the act outside the back gate,I went mad and shovelled up the mess and threw it by the owners garage.If I see a cat in the garage compound I will try and scare it away immediately and flick the mess over the other side.Other thing is all these cats are out all day and night.Sorry but I love animals but cats NO!
I have 3 cats myself and i have a dedicated area of the garden for them to do their business which they use. As for the flower beds i don't want them to ruin i have put down the green netting you can buy. I did this about 3 months ago and so far it is working. My neighbours have also told me they never catch my cats doing their business in their garden and have notice some of the other cats in the street come and visit my cats garden toilet. Unfortunately i haven't persuaded my youngest cat voles aren't toys but i will be buying a bell tomorrow for her.
I'm really frustrated. I have three doggies and the woman next door has three to four cats who do not have any collars on. They defecate in our garden on a daily / nightly basis. Everyday I have to pick up their mess. Unfortunately, one of my dogs ate some that I had missed and we nearly lost him due to a bad case of gastroenteritis. On Christmas day another one of my dogs had eaten some and then was violently sick all over the front room carpet. It has cost my husband and I several hundreds of pounds to treat our dogs and to clean carpets as well as buying treatments to try and stop cats defecating in the garden to absolutely no avail. It has got to the point where we cannot let our doggies out unless they are on a short lead to stop them finding it. We have tried chilli, citrus fruit, water guns etc and nothing is working. Lately, I have heard of a type of Coleus plant that may help to keep them out of the garden. Has anyone heard of this or tried this and if so has it proved successfull? If anyone could let me know I would be very grateful, we really are desperate. Thanks!
Update. Cats, like foxes, really seem to have polarized opinion. You either love the little cutsie-pies to bits, or would like to blow the little brutes to bits. I'm slightly surprised that the main annoyance is cat dung. I'm much more affected by dog dung on the way to school with the children. My affection for cats is not unqualified though. When we first moved to Nunhead, we bought a half-derelict house to do up. Our neighbours had befriended an un-neutered tom which was always spraying its foul scent on the back door. One day it got in through a half-open window and sprayed the bed, the bath, the television, the walls in several rooms and a pile of freshly laundered woolen jumpers. Yeuch. I spent several hours cursing the bloody thing as I tried to clean up. The final act was discovered the next morning when I put some bread in the toaster for breakfast. As the heating elements warmed up the kitchen filled with an acrid gagging stench of mustard gas.
Posts
I remember being in New Zealand many years ago and every front garden in Aukland had large plastic lemonade bottles half-filled with water, strewn about the lawns and borders. They were to keep cats off. How or why this was meant to work I don't know, nor whether it did work. But I came to the conclusion that I'd rather have cats than litter.
I put bells on the collars of my cats, but one keeps losing them. I even found one collar string up in the apple tree. Maybe one day I'll find the cat strung up by its own collar in the tree.
Our two cats bury their own faeces pretty well, and they don't seem to be a problem to us or our neighbours. The dung is broken down fast, by beetle and fly larvae because I only treat the cats with systemic flea-killer if they have active flea infestations. One of the problems with dung is that it can be made insecticidal by chemical treatment of the animals dropping it. With cats and dogs this can be through flea-killing preparations put regularly into their food. It may get rid of the fleas, but the dung becomes poisonous to would-be dung recyclers. There are similar worries about cattle being treated for parasites leaving cow pats undecomposed all over the fields.
And finally a word of reassurance to mireille. Toxoplasmosis, the sight-threatening infection with a microbe found in animal dung is not very widespread and infections in children are not so very intimately linked to animal faeces. This was demonstrated by a study that found the children of dog-owners (who were therefore much more likely to come into dog dung than non-owners) were no more likely to show the disease. Finding animal dung in the garden is pretty unpleasant and children should always wash their hands after playing out their, but please let's not panic.
Unfortunately i haven't persuaded my youngest cat voles aren't toys but i will be buying a bell tomorrow for her.
Cats, like foxes, really seem to have polarized opinion. You either love the little cutsie-pies to bits, or would like to blow the little brutes to bits. I'm slightly surprised that the main annoyance is cat dung. I'm much more affected by dog dung on the way to school with the children.
My affection for cats is not unqualified though. When we first moved to Nunhead, we bought a half-derelict house to do up. Our neighbours had befriended an un-neutered tom which was always spraying its foul scent on the back door. One day it got in through a half-open window and sprayed the bed, the bath, the television, the walls in several rooms and a pile of freshly laundered woolen jumpers. Yeuch. I spent several hours cursing the bloody thing as I tried to clean up. The final act was discovered the next morning when I put some bread in the toaster for breakfast. As the heating elements warmed up the kitchen filled with an acrid gagging stench of mustard gas.