Humanely prevent cats from crapping all over my yard

[workinwifdakids]

I live in a suburban neighborhood in SoCal. The next door neighbor has 5 cats at last count, and all of them use my yard as their personal litterbox. To be precise, anything covered in bark, they use. if it has bark in it, they use it to crap in.

I'd like to take a big dookie on her front porch, but I'm a busy man.

I've perused the internet, and found a hodgepodge of maybe-this, maybe-that sort of advice. Is there anything you know of that will positively keep these loose animals off my property?

[arctictom]

Supersoaker 1/2 amonia and water if you don't want them back, just water if your a cat lover .

[Steamforger]

Yep. Go to Costco or other big box market and load up on cayenne. It isn't all-powerful on the Scoville scale, but you're dealing with an animal that uses it's smell sense a lot more than you do and it is much more sensitive to boot. The cats are going to sniff out a good place to dig first.

A friend had good results on cats with cinnamon oil, but it wasn't what you'd call humane. Don't feel too badly though, he was hiding the bottle of oil from the owner (stuffed down the front of his jeans) and it leaked.

[308Mike]

Here's what I used when I had a similar problem with neighbor's cats years ago, doing the same thing in our rose beds (and I love cats):

Get a bunch of CHEAP mouse traps (NOT rat traps). Load them (without bait), and simply cover them with the normal tree leaves and/or bush leaves which are usually littered about the area. Even if they don't get caught by one of the traps, the snapping sound will scare the hell outta' them when triggered (I didn't say crap 'cause that's kinda' the point of the traps - to NOT have their crap in your yard).

Years ago when I had to use this technique, it worked WONDERS, and I even found one or two mouse traps out in my front yard as they escaped the mouse traps clipped onto various limbs (to be honest, I tried to lighten the snap pressure to help keep the cat from getting injured and so they could escape the traps easily) as they shook them off (I actually saw one of them flipping around all over the yard trying to escape the trap until it released - I NEVER saw that cat again).

I kept count of the traps in my planter boxes and never once lost a trap (assumingly stuck to a poor, suffering cat). I suggest you do the same thing if you choose to use this technique. This way you can say NO CATS weren't able to quickly escape the traps (really - you might want to weaken the springs depending on the cats in your area - if they're a bunch of hardy, fighting TOMS, document it as such and leave the springs alone (as long they wouldn't cause damage to your own finger). After all, what you're after is enough snap to scare the crap outta' them (on their owner's property) so they don't want to trespass on your property anymore, and NOT to hurt them. Remember, I love cats, and I'd prefer you not hurt one of my favorite predators (yet I recognize they CAN be a problem/nuisance).

The results of MY using this technique were quite dramatic. The cats IMMEDIATELY stopped using our rose beds as a cat box. I also made sure to keep the rose bed covered in old rose leaves, so they would have NO idea if a trap lurked underneath!

I hope you're as successful as I was in creating your "cat-friendly" cat-box deterrent!

Good luck!

[Yogimus]

1 can of tuna
1 tablespoon of antifreeze

mix, and serve.

[Erik]

I really don't care about the cat population in my yard, I'm kind of hoping they help to keep the rodent and snake population in check.

When I had cats myself I discovered that a squirt gun with water was an effective way to get them to respect where I didn't want them to climb. At least as long as I was around.
I'd probably go with a squirt gun/super soaker as an active deterrent, combined with the advice the others have given for when I'm not around. Cats are really good at figuring out when the coast is clear.

[Fivetoes]

It shouldn't be your onus to keep them out. Go pound on her door and tell her to keep her cats out of your yard.

[randy]

It shouldn't be your onus to keep them out. Go pound on her door and tell her to keep her cats out of your yard.

If they are a real cat person it won't do any good. Their minds just cannot fathom that anybody could not love their little darlings and have no concept as to why cat crap in your yard is an issue.

[Erik]

It shouldn't be your onus to keep them out. Go pound on her door and tell her to keep her cats out of your yard.

If they are a real cat person it won't do any good. Their minds just cannot fathom that anybody could not love their little darlings and have no concept as to why cat crap in your yard is an issue.

Well, you can collect the crap and return it to them. But it may not be worth it to disrupt the peace of the neighborhood, I think it's always better if you can get the desired result without the owner knowing about it.

I used to have a problem with dogs using my mailbox to mark their territory when the owners were out walking them. I considered following them home and return the favor on their mailbox, but decided it would probably be an unwise course of action. My next thought was to buy wolf urine to see if that would have any deterring effect, but before I got around to it the activity stopped. I don't know if the dogs found a better place or if the owners stopped it.

[blackeagle603]

Roxie's got the duty. No more catz in the yardz.

RoxieDoggles.jpg

There was a less humane treatment applied by an old shipmate with prize rose bushes involving corncobs and turpentine applied to the catz posterior. The trick was to coax them into his garage (and out of sight of his neighbor) and leave a open door -- they beat it out of there like pants on fire.