Neighborhood cats shit right in the middle of my lawn. It stinks and the robot lawn mover makes it even worse.
I do NOT like cats, and this is not helping.
What works to keep them from shitting on my lawn?
The votes have spoken. Some people are cat lovers; thanks for the great advice from the rest of you! I will not go out of my way to accommodate other people’s pets that aren’t welcome on my property. My first weapon of choice will be chili because it’s simple and cheap. Other ideas have been noted.
motion detection water sprinkler?
- might be the most harmless and probably affordable
This is the one. If you’re tech-savvy you could probably find a way to activate a cheap wifi valve based on motion detection from your camera. Otherwise, there’s this: https://www.orbitonline.com/products/yard-enforcer-motion-activated-sprinkler
That seems like the way to go for sure. On top of being affordable, it’s quick to set up, safe, should work quickly, and can quickly be taken down to return the lawn to normal. Or quickly put back in place if necessary.
Get a dog
There was an old woman who purchased a dog.
Cat shits in garden at night. Dog is in garden during day, eating and rolling in the cat shit.
Source: my dog.
Go with it, not against it. Make a small sandbox. Cat would favour that as a toilet over anything else.
The cat is happy to go outside. It’s their natural behaviour. Doesn’t mean I approve but don’t spin this as being neglectful.
Ignoring strays, you do realise there is no practical way for a cat owner to control where their cat takes a shit?
That is not negligence, it’s nature.You can’t tell a dog where to shit, the difference being you’ll pick it up where you can, and it probably can’t climb fences.
There literally is. You can respect your neighbors by not letting your cat roam free, the same way I don’t let my dog roam free. I really do not understand why people have trouble with this very simple concept.
Throughout history, humanity has had to adapt to nature instead of trying to change it to suit humans in various ocasions. Where a cat takes a shit is one of those times lol. That said, cats are normally clean as fuck. My cats live free in the backyard and I have never seen or smell where they shit because they bury it very well and never in the middle of the yard. I don’t know how op is having problems with that, it is just weird.
They aren’t domestic animals they’re tame animals, they still haven’t diverged from wildcats and there are a bunch of wildcat/house cat crossbreeds because of that.
Cats are semi-domestic at best.
Learn to love cats. Then they’ll leave you alone forever.
ULPT: Get simple cat traps. Then bring this cat to shelter.
Get ultrasound devices triggered by motion. E.g. from AliExpress.
Someone with a robot lawnmower whining about cats?
Wow, entitled much?
There is no way you genuinely believe OP is entitled for wanting to avoid piles of shit.
OP has a robot lawnmower. This means they could absolutely afford installing a fence.
Think about that before you defend their whining again.
How does a fence do anything about a cat?
lol I hope you don’t think I’ll respect your tone.
A fence is a lot more expensive than a Roomba, and isn’t necessarily permitted where they are.
You must be kind of stupid.
A robot lawnmower costs between $700 and $3000. A fence starts at around $5000 and can get into the $30,000s easily. It’s almost like you have no idea what you are talking about. Additionally, if the person needs a lawnmower then having a robot one isn’t a much bigger expense.
Finally, to really highlight how stupid your responses are, you do realize that cats can jump fences, right? A normal house cat can jump 6ft quite easily, and outdoor stray cats jump onto our 8ft tall privacy wall all the time.
Why he wouldn’t? Can I go and shit at your lawn then? He has the right to not wanting a cat to take a shit on his lawn that’s disgusting.
Yes he has a right to do that. Having a right to do something does not preclude a person from being entitled by doing it.
exactly, and who wants to clean cat shit off a lawn mower blade in the hot sun?
Yes of course and the suggestions have been non harmful such as sprinklers.
How is hurting a feral cat a criteria for what he is allowed to do? A coyote would certainly have no compunction, why should he?
We bought a couple of plants that have a smell that allegedly repels cats and other animals and had good results planting them around our patches. But we also left the dog in the garden more often which might have helped even more. The plants are called plectranthus ornatus … but there are others which might also work: https://horticulture.co.uk/cat-deterrent-plants/
@PlutoniumAcid i’m 64, i’ve lived in over a hundred different places, including rural and suburbs with lawns. literally never ever had this problem. not even when i owned cat! so it seems you’re cursed. you need to find the witch or wizard you offended and make amends.
i’m really amazed this would even happen, as cat prefer to bury their waste so they like places they can dig miles more than lawns. i wonder: did your u maybe see one cat, once, poop and now you think all poop is cat poop? because dogs are a lot more likely to be doing this regularly than cats.
Elderly cats don’t bury their shit. A neighbour’s cat used to bury stealth bombs in my garden until he got too old and decrepit to bother. The pinnacle was a gross runny shit on top of a creeping thyme. I was thrilled when he died, but then she got a young feisty cat that slaughters birds. Sigh.
In general, many feral cats do not bury their shit. I have no idea why people keep saying this like it’s a fact - I have dealt with this exact same, well, shit at several places I’ve lived. Most of the time it is cats shitting in the raised beds, but I have also seen some who like a certain plot of grass or weeds.
I’m guessing that their thought process is something akin to, if they have had to hop THAT much, their judgement can’t be good since if it were, they would have settled before reaching the high number of 100. I don’t agree, but that’s my guess
It’s the narrow thought process of one who has always lived in the she spot, I would imagine.
yeah, cats bury their shit. they don’t shit on grass and leave it exposed.
only time cats shit in the open is to prove a point. OP probably pissed off this cat
For dog poop I remove it and sprinkle coffee grounds on top to confuse the scent.
Smell
My family drops mothballs which isn’t an environmentally friendly solution, but it’s more humane than what my stepdad wanted to do.
All these psychopaths saying kill the cat or catch it and relocate it are fucking deranged. Talk to the owners if you know who it is… firstly, I’m sure they would at least be receptive to the problem and if they’re not then maybe look into legal outlets. If you’ve gone out of your way to post on lemmy you’re technically savvy enough to look up local laws. people have also posted actual remediation methods that aren’t terrible and could actually improve your lawn in some scenarios as well so maybe try those out if you’re into them.
I’m positive that no one wants to lose a pet in any capacity. Just some simple communication with the owners could solve this, and if not, there are other options.
Sorry you’re going through this though, shit sucks. Pun intended.
I can 100% guarantee you that the owners will just be extremely confused about the idea that people might not want other people’s “pets” in their yard. I can 100% guarantee you that the response will just be “well it’s a cat.”
And it means that if something ever happens to this small animal, OP will get blamed for it if he says anything to the neighbors.
100%?
Yeah, I’ve dealt with this situation before. People who let cats roam free like this seem to live in a world where there is precisely one socially acceptable exception to otherwise generally accepted neighborly decorum - cats. Suggesting that you don’t want their cat on your property makes you the asshole in their eyes, because they literally cannot comprehend any solution to the problem. Obviously the sky is blue, and cats are allowed to shit wherever they want. Thus spake the toxoplasmosis.
Partially jokey answer: An automatic sprinkler and a motion detector
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElcviGYMb3U
Serious answer: I don’t think there’s much… I used to have a problem with cats pissing on my bicycle (which used to be parked outside) and the only thing that would keep them away was a bike alarm - at the expense of mine and my neighbors’ sleep. Covering the bike made no difference, they just pissed on the cover instead. The fix ended up being just parking my bike inside.
If you let the garden get a little bit overgrown, do they still come and drop their shit there?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=ElcviGYMb3U
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
let the garden get a little bit overgrown
Doesn’t help. No mowing while I was away and it was bad when we came back. Oh, the stink :-(
On the regular, I want my lawn to be nice, not overgrown.
