Getting rid of cats & keeping them out of MY yard ?? ! ??

[CorCentral]

Ok , here's the situation ..............


My girlfriend & I have 5 cats of which are all fixed & kept on our fairly large screened in patio . Inside cats for the most part as we have one go AWOL every once in awhile but go to retrieve it when it occurs . (we're giving away two this mth. to friends btw)

Our neighbor has 10-15 cats of which ALL of them are strays & kept outside & just feeds them & lets them roam free & do as they please .

My gripe is that they're getting into my trash & everyone elses trash & are a nuisance as they're also digging in my yard & using it as they're local toilet !!!
I called Animal Control but they said that they'd give me a trap so I can retrieve them myself but I'm not going to F*****g trap the damn cats & waste my TIME !!

Don't get me wrong , I like cats but when someone as irresponsible as this neighbor is as with feeding them & just letting thier population grow & grow & grow , someone has to take action .


I thought Animal Control came & retieved animals themselves ??? I don't know .

Any suggestions on what I could do would be helpful .
A friend suggested rat poison but I don't think that would be too bright .

 

[MrBond]

Nothing you can really do. Cats will be cats, and they will roam. They make ultrasonic pest repellers, but I don't know how well they work. You might try mixing up a batch of dry hot pepper,black pepper, and flour and sprinkle it around the yard perimeter. I use that in the vegetable gardens at home, and it keeps them out for a little bit. It takes quite a bit of pepper to work, and it should be STRONG. Someone mentioned in here earlier that there's a bitter apple spray you can get that cats hate, I think it was Azreale.

 

[gittyup]

I don't think anyone should be feeding a pack of cats that size. I feel that cats should strictly be an indoor pet. Since your neighbor is not being responsible, I would trap the cats one by one and send them to the pound. I say this because it pisses me off when I see cats on the side of the road after being hit by a car. Those cats are probably not fixed and will just produce more cats that live outside and get hit by cars. I do like cats and have one of my own that never leaves the house.

My 2 cents...

 

[rocmonster]

sending them to the local pound will probably result in euthanasia for the cats, as local city or state run shelters usually only hold strays for around 10 days or so. Try to contact a local not for profit "no-kill" animal shelter, they usually will address the problem directly (go pick up the cats) because they care about the welfare of the cats, will most likely spay the animals, and will board or foster them until they are adopted.

good luck

 

[CorCentral]

Problem with trapping is....... is that most of the cats are kittens (10-15 mths) & won't leave "HIS" yard & will also make me look like the bad guy with the trap .

I'd like to keep it as anonymous as possible by not letting everyone know who's responsible for getting rid of them .

 

[loosbrew]

dude, i completely understand your situation. im in the same freaking boat, except i dont have cats, but my inbred neighbors do. about 20 of them which started out as only 2!! they sh!t in my garden, in my compost bin, in my front bushes, and every morning when i leave for work i am refreshed, not by a breath of fresh air, but that of CAT SH!T!!! they chase away the squirrels and im afraid that my dog will get some sort of disease from them. he hates them too, chasing them out of the yard. we've tried talking to them, but they claim that the cats aren't theirs, and that,"There are a lot of wild cats around, you cant prove that thier mine!!" they even scratched up a neighbors hood on thier new car! if i had a gun i would excersise my right to kill the f&ckers if they came into yard! i can kill any animal that is not welcomed in my yard. we've trapped two and let them go very very very very far away, but that didnt help. after a few months you see them back home, pissing on the garage!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....i hate people who take care of thier pets!

loosbrew

 

[loosbrew]

also, dont bother with the "no-kill shelters" you probably want these cats dead....i know the cats next door are very inbred! they look all defromed and not like normal outside or indoor cats. who cares if the pound kills them, theres too many stray cats around anyway. dont get me wrong, i am very much against animal cruelty, but i think its worse to let this cat starve and suffer than to kill it. id prefer the cats next to my house be extingquished , as i know there are many more cats that are deserving of good homes in the pound. also, no kill shelters expect money for each animal. i had to give away my two persians when i became allergic to them, and i found a no kill shelter that would let them be adopted together and wouldnt seperate the two. had to pay 40 bucks each donation fee! not too much for animals i wanted to make sure stay alive, but for dirty scummy worthless wild cats....pfffft.

can you tell i hate wild cats? i think they do more harm than good!

loosbrew

 

[Emulex]

get a dog.. big mean rott, problem solved.

 

[loosbrew]

emulex, the problem is...when a dog chases the cats, the cats can scratch and cat claws are probably one of the least sanitary places in the world! if you get scratched by a wild outside cat, dont be surprised to see it infect in a day or two! i wouldnt want to put a dog through that...thats why i let simon chase them, buut he's wwwaaayyyyy too slow to even imagine catching one! he just likes to "do his part"!

loosbrew

 

[Nestico]

Check with your local city ordinance, Where I live it is illegal to have more than 3 cats over the age of 6 months.
I have a friend who has a neighbor that lets his 10 cats terrorize the neighborhood. One of which snuck into his garage at night knocked over a pool ladder onto his newly painted and restored Camaro, denting it up real good.

Cats are just as bad as rodents IMO.

**edit** in Australia cats are such a problem that there are people that kill them for a living

 

[Emulex]

So give your dog a dose of antibiotics in his food every day.

Bow & Arrow are legal to possess in most states.

Just sit on the roof at night and pick them off. Do your neighborhood a favor.

You think the other neighbors are going to turn you in? hell no. They want them gone too.

You start nailing them in their yard, and crucifying them to their front yard, they'll keep their pets inside...

 

[JohnnyKnoxville]

Wild cats are yummy on a barbeque.Try marinating them overnite with soy sauce and garlic

 

[Nestico]

We had to dissect a cat in Anthropology, The meat is too stringy

Man, you think cats smell bad from the outside... wait till you cut one open:disgust:

 

[CorCentral]

Loosebrew ........... Smell of Catsh!t ? ....... Piss is more like it here .

I just need someone to come & pick them up & be done with them .
Maybe I'll contract it out ....... $5. a cat ! **LOL**

 

[NuclearNed]

Try putting moth balls around the areas where you don't want the cats. They can't stand the smell. If these don't work, there is a product you can find at your hardware store that is supposed to repel snakes - it's basically the same stuff you find in moth balls but more concentrated.

We're having the same problem, but with dogs. We keep our dog restrained, but our neighbors don't and it drives me crazy.

 

[Nestico]

I have seen a "Dog & Cat Repellent" at Home Depot before, It's in the same section as the bug zappers

 

[FluxCapacitor]

This is the very reason I don't like cats.

There's no "leash laws" or any way to restrict them running around. There isn't even any real way to prove it was your neighbors cat that just ruined the new paint job on your car. People seem to think it's ok to let their cats roam around outside, but would they let their dog do that? No. So why is it ok to let cats do that? Would you feed a wild dog running around your neighborhood? Not likely. Why would you feed a wild cat? Don't people realize these cats can, and often do, have diseases and carry fleas, ticks, lice, worms and all kinds of other nasty critters around on them?

Look at it this way. If these people that feed stray cats really cared about them, they would take the cats to a shelter where maybe they will get adopted and have a good home. Problem is, most of these stray cats you go to adopt have a "wild" mentality, and when you do try and adopt them (like I did once) they normally tear up your house, bite your children, and make a total nusiance out of themselves. They've never been trained, and by the time you get them, it's too late.

Don't feel about about trapping these cats and taking them to a shelter. 1) It'll tell your neighbor you're serious about what you say. 2) The rest of the neighborhood will thank you. Ok, maybe not in the beginning, but after they realize what a nuisance the cats were, they'll come around. 3) He/she will be less likely to feed them in the future. 4) If he/she gives you any sh*t, let them know it's your legal right to trap them and get rid of them.

Don't let misplaced sentiment for these animals deter you. They're not doing anyone any good. Left unchecked, they'll just multiply until they run out of food. Reason they're digging in your trash is that there's already to little food to go around. Why let them slowly starve to death. Take em to the shelter. If they are still kittens, there's a better chance they'll get adopted and can still be trained. Why wait?

 

[warcleric]

I kill them whenever they are in my yard, then put their severed heads on top a stake in the yard to warn the other cats. Seems to be working for now.

 

[Nestico]

I tried that, but the flies are too much



j/k

 

[Amused]

Go to your neighbor and discuss the problem. Be civil. Tell her she's being extremely irresponsible if she's not fixing the cats. Explain to her the damage they are causing to your property, and if she doesn't get the cats fixed, you will trap them and hand them over to animal control.

OR, you could trap them, and get them fixed. Outdoor cats don't live nearly as long as indoor cats. If they're not breeding, your troubles will ease in a few years.

If you've talked to her already, forgive me for assuming you haven't.

 

[Amused]

Also, letting cats outside is NOT always bad, so long as they're fixed, wormed, have flea control, and are generally well cared for. They not only keep the rodent population down in the owners yard, but in all neighboring yards as well.

A neighborhood without cats will quickly become a literal mouse and rat's nest. Ask Australia.

 

[Vikaden]

Smear Vix all over the place, my cats hate the smell of Vix, they wont come out for hours if they have smelt it.

 

[Edski]

There are live traps that you can use, some city pounds let you use the ones they have. Trap the cats one by one and take them about 50 miles away and leave them in the country somewhere, take them to a pound, or kill them yourself. I like the bow and arrow idea, but since some people dont have the stomache to shoot and kill animals, you can get what is called a blunt tip. It basically knocks the animal out without doing any major harm. I used to use it on squirrels that would climb on my bird feeder, I never killed a single squirrel with it and they got the idea to never go in my bird feeder.

 

[Thump553]

Edski:

I don't know about cats, but transplanting wild animals is a real good way to spread their dieases faster. Here in New England we had quite a problem with rabid raccoons a few years ago & most communites put an outright ban on the type of transplanting you talk about.

 

[scorp00]

The neighbors cat used to sit on the hood of my car and it got scratched once when I chased him off. So I told the neighbors that if they didn't do anything about it, I was. So about a week later I found him on there again, and I took all of my anger out with a tennis ball on his back end from about 5 feet away. He limped home and never came back.