Cats.......

[sjw64]

I can understand why they don't want to do their business in their own garden, because they prefer mine!

Im fed up of them. The pensioner next door thinks she is doing a good deed by feeding every moggy in the street but its my garden they come to drop their No2's in. Last summer it was in the patio area and now its started on the lawn.

Short of a harpoon is there anything I can do/buy/plant/aim/sprinkle/etc.

Last year I spent a fortune on powder repellent & Im not going that route.

 

[Deleted2797112]

Short of a harpoon is there anything I can do/buy/plant/aim/sprinkle/etc.

In order of effectiveness:

1. Physical exclusion
2. A dog
3. A supersoaker water pistol
4. Covering 'attractive' surfaces with something uncomfortable

In my experience, none of the spray, spread, sprinkle things work to any degree and you have to keep applying them. Tried them all garlic, citrus peel, mothballs, pepper, lion poo, half-filled bottles of water, coleus canina........... Waste of time, money and effort. I've protected seedlings with prickly cuttings to give them a chance to get established and that works and the water pistol works too if you can score enough hits.

At night, when the security lights on the side and back of my house are triggered, it rings a bell in the kitchen. Cats were setting it off 30-40 times a night. I worked out how they were coming in and made it as cat-proof as possible - they can no longer limbo under the side gate (rigid wire mesh attached down to the ground), they can't walk along the fence tops (2 parallel rows of taut invisible fishing line), where they were scrambling up an open slatted fence, it now has angled bamboo canes poking through. It's very very unusual now for the alarm to go off. I grow fruit and veg so really really hate with a vengeance having the disgusting mogs messing in the garden.

Have you tried explaining to your neighbour what effect she's having?

 

[JohnD]

I can understand why they don't want to do their business in their own garden

it's because they are clean and considerate, and do not want to soil an inhabited home.

Unfortunately they consider a garden to be uninhabited if no cat lives there.

If you get your own cat, or befriend one of the visitors, it will start to feel at home and defend your garden, and other cats will stay out.

 

[Deleted2797112]

....... or befriend one of the visitors, it will start to feel at home and defend your garden, and other cats will stay out.

I did that with my then next door neighbour's cat. Looked after it when they were away, played with it, fed it, generally encouraged it to treat my garden and home as its own. Unfortunately, even though it was a large (neutered) tom, it was a huge coward and fled at the sight of other cats who generally strutted around spraying to get rid of his scent. When the neighbours moved away, I built the barriers and haven't looked back!