Getting ready for company at my house for 4th of July picnic so I quickly go out to water the flowers around my porch and the smell was awful. Apparently one of my neighbor's 3 (yep, 3) cats has decided to use the mulch as his liter box! We usually enter/exit from the garage door area (side of the house) and very rarely use the front door. But company is coming & will! I guess I will have to get hubby, not me!, to scoop it out this time. But do any of you have suggestions to KEEP those darn cats out of my flower beds? Thanks in advance!
Thanks so much for the ideas. I was in quite a panic especially with the fact that so many will be here shortly. You've given me great ideas to try. Just thought I'd throw this one out there in case anyone else is having the problem - I talked with my sister-in-law and she said she heard that sprinkling cinnamon around the perimeter WEEKLY will keep the cats out. Not sure if it works tho since she hasn't dealt with the problem but just she heard a friend say that it worked.
What about good olde coyote urine? You can typically pick it up from Home Depot as a powder - just add water or something like that - if they smell a more dominant animal's urine in your yard they will not want to come back, this will ward of other animals too!
You can put slim stakes in the ground so that there's no room for a cat to find a place to poop and dig. My sister put green stakes in her pond to keep the raccoons out and stop them from eating her fish.
You can also sprinkle ground white pepper. It's not toxic and if a cat gets a sniff, it won't likely continue on to do it's business there.
I never heard of the cinnamon trick. But, your best bet is to try to place stakes around that will blend in and make it impossible for a cat to have room to find a comfy squat space.
Best wishes.
I have the same problem,occasionally, with the neighborhood cats. Anywhere I dig in the garden used to get pooped in almost immediately.
It looks silly, but what worked for me was to put a bunch of sticks into the area I want to protect. I place the sticks so that they stick straight up about 3"out of the ground about 4" away from each other. This looks very silly, but does the job.
There are also chemical repellents you could likely pick up at Home Depot/Lowes/Hardware store. Or you can do what I did for our potted plants... use pinecones in the bottom of those planters. They are just cumbersome enough to make the area not inviting. Note, though, that do need a lot of pinecones.
Some might suggest using cayenne pepper on the ground; I'm not a fan. The cat really doesn't know any better.
For a permanent fix, river rock will also work to keep them out. You do, however, have to garden 'around' it.
i am late in the game, but heard a while back that coffee grounds would do the trick
Thanks for your questions, I am going to try to the coyote urine see if this works, We have an infection of them.
I tried to red peppers and orange skins don't work.
You can scoop the poop but the cat pee just stinks - they are marking their territory.
Motion activated sprinkler will squirt them hard when they come around.
If worse comes to worse, bait a hav-a-heart trap with tuna and take them to the pound.
Letting an animal roam is cruel since it can be run over, shot, poisoned, attacked by people and animals, decimates birds and other wildlife and makes a mess on others property like you are experiencing.
If anyone wants keep an animal - then KEEP it inside and with you where you can keep it safe.
I don't poop on my neighbors property and they can keep their animals from pooping on mine.
