My backyard reeks of cat's urine. I mean really bad, when I open my windows at the back the smell comes into the house.
The cats are from my neighbours so they are not strays.
Does anyone have a proven method of deterring cats? Would love to hear them!
Methods not involving getting an animal or condoning violence :)
Thanks
If you're unaware tomcat piss smells horrific. I've had problems off and on with an undesexed male cat spraying my front door and even with the door closed you know when he's done it because the smells hits you anytime you walk near the door. I love cats in general but undesexed male cats are an absolute menace with their spraying of everything they come across and fighting late at night especially in summer.
Plant Azaleas
Interesting suggestion, do they dislike the fragrance?
No… it's poisonous to cats. I'm joking.
Spray the area with lemon mertle
Follow the cat back to your neighbours house and proceed to pee all over their backyard.
As above I've had constant problems with a tomcat spraying my front door even though I don't own a cat and have considered hiring traps from the council and if I did and caught it before letting it out of the cage I would piss all over it before releasing it both to get it back and hopefully to deter it from coming back. Undesexed male cats should be illegal.
Agreed, used to have a non-desexed male cat come into my yard and claw at the door to get at the desexed female cat inside.
God save us, some cat-loving twerp has somehow managed to activate the mods into removing a couple of mild posts. Lord give me strength…
Were they referenced to paracetamol etc?
I was surprised by my pet chickens. Had a cat in our yard, one of the chickens jumped off our retaining wall towards the cat and ran at it, making all kinds of noises. Cat ran off and jumped over the fence and away.
Never expected that from a chicken!
So get a chicken to solve your cat problems!
I wouldn't rely on a chicken folks.
Sure rooters will attack pretty much anything (i have the odd scar), but not all cats will run.
Cats are master predators, and they're pretty astute operating within that role. Some cats won't bother, but others will take the time to explore the food chain…
Roosters. Oops-a-daisy…
Username checks out
you need a dog
Get a husky. Keeps any animal away. Kills giant rats and cats and birds and anything small and moving including babies
Husky says NOOO NOOOOOO!!!
Trap them and take them to the RSPCA. That's how I sorted out my neighbours cats.
Think I am going to give this a go, apparently my council even lends free traps. Sick of cats using my yard as a litter tray, my 3 yr old stepping in one of their turds and it squishing up between her toes was a particular high point, as is my yard stinking like cat piss, I suspect I'll have to make 10+ trips but will have a smile on my face for all of them.
My council came and picked up the trapped cats from me. Check with them to see if they do the same. The best bait I found was KFC. They went crazy for it.
I'll remember the KFC bit, I live in a small cul-de-sac and am planning on it being a bit more ananymous than the council's animal control vehicle rocking up out the front and me carry the neighbours pets out to it. I'd have a conversation with the neighbours about it if I thought they were reasonable about it but I'm of the view if they were being reasonable they wouldn't allow them to roam in the first place. I also don't know who's cats are actually coming in.
There's a deal on wheel clamps from Aldi. If one parks in your backyard, clamp them.
Send a bill of removal to the owner on their tag.
A good suggestion I heard was sprinkle cayenne pepper around.
Apparently they don't like the smell,
Or the taste
Make sure there are not spots on the ground that are only dirt (no grass/plants growing in them). Those dirts spots cats will use as their toilet.
You can put a pot or plant some grass seeds and water for two weeks until the grass starts to grow.
While there isn't grass growing I have found used ground coffee works so after every morning I make coffee I don't throw it away instead use it to keep the cats away.
I tried all of the suggestions here in the past and none of them worked. I bought a couple ultrasonic cat repellent devices which activate when they detect movement, emitting a very high-pitched frequency that cats dislike – this is inaudible to the human ear. This did the trick in my case. Recommended you give that a go.
The RSPCA and Australian government have released an 89 page discussion paper Identifying Best Practice Cat Management in Australia.
https://www.rspca.org.au/sites/default/files/website/cat-man…
I've always recommended trap and surrender to people having problems with cats in an urban environment, but according to the paper this has it's problems too, and in some states may be prohibited.
TLDR: Cats are a big problem. Governments - federal, state and local are inconsistant. No easy answers. Try to repel, otherwise trapping and surrender may be your best option.
Trapping and surrender? are you for real? ITS HIS NEIGHBORS CATS. you don't steal someones pet (be it on your property or not) and then release it somewhere away from its home. Wake up
If it were released where caught after desexing this would be good. A desexed male cat does not stink as bad as a tom cats urine.
By surrender, I am assuming he means at the local animal shelter. If his neighbours cared about their cat then they shouldn't be letting it roam free. They will either have to pay the cost to get their cat back, the shelter will sell it to someone who should take better care of it, or it will be put down. Any of these options will be a bonus for wildlife.
@tryagin is correct. Surrender to the local animal shelter. @B2 it's precisely your attitude as a neighbour that would have me do this. Your shouty and confrontational attitude is not the sort of neighborly relationship I want to have. I'm not stealing someone's pet, quite the opposite I don't want their pet at all. But that someone's pet in their yard can be a pest in my yard.
It's preferable to sort it out in a neighborly fashion and speak to the owner about keeping their pets off your property, however all too often this turns into open hostility. So should I risk a neighborhood war because I speak to you about your pet? Or should I anonymously turn your pet in to the shelter because it's trespassing on my property and making a pest of itself? In my experience ambivalence is preferable to animosity.
For example: A friend of mine breeds pet birds in a backyard avery. Unfortunately this attracts neighbor's free roaming cats that stalk and terrorise the caged birds. The result for the birds is stress, no breeding and sometimes death. He's taken reasonable measures to keep the cats out by fully fencing his yard but the cats are still there as pests. He's not sure where the cats come from, it's not up to him to find out the identity of every cat's owner if indeed that cat is owned at all. So he humanely (without harm) traps the cats and surrenders them to the animal shelter where he hopes the owner does the right thing, pays the fine and reclaims their pet and has a good hard think about whether their kitty should be roaming free.
Unfortunately this isn't ideal as there are not so great owners out there that haven't had their cat microchipped, or refuse to reclaim it leading to having to have the cat rehomed or destroyed. These are likely to be the same people that are hostile when approached about their cat being a pest to others.
So what does he do? Cat proof his property? Should everyone in the neighborhood who doesn't want cats in their yard be cat proofing the property? Or should pet owners be taking responsibility for their own pets and confining them to their own properties?
Realising that your pet can be someone else's pest might be hard, but we as owners need to consider not just our pets but other people and other animals too.
So yeah @B2, I am awake, I've read the report, and I consider the attitudes and opinions of others. I don't just cut straight to the TLDR, misread it and make a throw away agressive comment. I try to make a contribution, to make people think and maybe change their minds and their behaviour. I don't think it'll make a difference to you, but it may cause others to think about how they care for their pets.
@uzz30 i didn't read your comment because it was too long and i have better things to do. thanks for wasting your time. :)
Grate chillies and spread them over your garden beds, the furry little buggers don't like it on their little paws.
Finally someone said chilli!
We used to put chilli powder all over the garden beds
When they go to do their business they get a fire up there and don't come back!
Fill old plastic 2L bottles with water and leave them in the garden. Cats r scared of them for some reason
They hate the smell of citrus as well. So spray lemon or citronella around the affected areas
call your local chinese restaurant
Most councils have flyers that you put in mail boxes that go along with trapping - just do the flyers first
https://www.wyndham.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2016-06/T…
http://www.hume.vic.gov.au/files/3ef9c030-bd33-437f-a1a2-9e0…
This might scare the neighbor into keeping the cat in at night without having to trap them
If it doest work try a home made repelent
Ring up the bikies
Nerf Guns !?
Contact council. Acquire cat trap. Or purchase one hardware store, they are not expensive. Place in backyard at night, catch cat. Drop off at local pound.
A decent cat trap is about $150.
The ones in my local hardware store were $25. No idea on quality though. Hence why I said check with council. I borrowed one for about 6 weeks to clear out some feral cats. Picked up one or two non-ferals along the way and let the pound deal with them.
Just wondering - do you have a super sensitive sense of smell by any chance?