urban gardening and cat poop

How do other urban gardeners deal with it?  There are 3 mad cat ladies in my street, I'm one so some of the cats are mine, but most of the cats in the neighborhood are using my garden as a toilet.

I have a small, partially shaded urban garden which is on clay and builders rubble.  I had my patio extended and some paths put down to make it easier for me to manage and new soil put down earlier this year.  Whilst I have spent a lot of money on plants, they don't seem to fill an awful lot of space, and as fast as I have planted the slugs have moved in and chomped their way through things.  All the bare soil has been an invitation to the cats...  I hope that all the GW offers I have taken up (the lavenders and perennials) will cover more ground next season.

What is the best was to deal with the cat poop?  I had invested in a dog loo that was burried at the bottom of the garden, but there was so much poop it silted up within a couple of months.  I'm currently considering composting it - not in my compost bins, but in a separate system as I had seen dog poop composters.  My aim is to manage the quantity, there is so much of it  and make it easier to "handle" before getting rid of it, rather than produce a prduct to go in my garden.

All ideas welcome, so long as they do not involve cruelty to cats.

Sorry -you have lost me-but as someone who has had problems with neighbours cats in the past-do not even think of storing,composting it or doing anything else with it-just bag it it up and put in the waste bin with the rubbish for the bin lorry-or in a bin that says it takes bagged dog -waste.

What are you storing any of this for?

Dog and cat faeces are full of unpleasant organisms-not something I would want in my garden.

I am like you Janyce - I have two cats of my own and they tend to prefer to poo in my garden rather than the neighbours.  I just bag it up and put in the dog poo bins (although I know you are not supposed to do this really but we have to get rid of it don't we) in the winter I may put it in my wheely bin but definately not in the summer as it will smell. 

What a joy that we are such a civilised society that we can employ badly-paid menials to go around disposing of our smelly, disgusting domestic animal droppings.

Hi i was so glad to read this today as sometime ago i really said my piece on cat mess ,we have just purchased a house and have no pets,we have had to spend so far over £300 on chicken wire set in the hedge to stop them using our rear garden as there loo,it got out of hand and really upset my partner as the cats also killed lots of  slow worms we used to see daily,were hoping the hedge will grow and hide the new fence as its not great to look at,,We now have the cats using our front garden just the same but i cant fence it off as its not feasible,4 lots yesterday and one more this morning and counting,can anybody tell me why these cat owners who sometimes have 3 or more are not held responsible and made to keep there pests on there own property, instead the majority only see there cats when they let them out and then at the end of the day when they return for food,, these people are my neighbors also and  its time something was done ,all other pets have to be kept under control,  iv spent fortunes on cat deterrents and they don't work for long  i would really like to know the legality of this nation wide problem  cat owners really do need to get it sorted and half of them don't give a monkies AND its never their cats its somebody else's  so Jance weve got the same probs i could list the things that dont work  but its too long

Alan  

Go on the internet,go on any gardening forum mention cats mess and the response is always the same-there have been many discussions on here that can be found by using the search facility-type in "cats" and it produces a massive 399 results

http://www.gardenersworld.com/search/cats/

The basic thing is once a cat has found you garden they will continue to do so-I did find that roses prunings deterred my neighbours-but it has just gone elsewhere-not in his garden- because there is no freshly dug earth-whiich is what they home in on.

They cannot be controlled and there is nothing you can do-except one thing-you can do what I do- return it over the fence

Unfortunately you cannot train cats from going where they want to go.  I have two elderly cats and they don't wander very far so do it in my garden but they did used to when they were younger and out hunting and wandering about all day. 

You cannot keep cats in your own garden, they jump over the fence and gate.  It is their natural instinct to wander and go hunting.  I do appreciate, however, it does bother people who do not have cats of their own and they have the mess in their garden but no matter how responsible the cat owner you cannot tell a cat where to go.  They are not like dogs.

My daughter has a bad cat problem, hers doesn't go out because of the neighbours cats, she has strung fishing line tight, backwards and forwards across the top of the fences, they don't like that, also, cover the bare soil with bramble cuttings, just until your plants are large and established.

I wouldn't recommend keeping any animal poo. seal it in a bag and pop it in the bin.

its one of the major problems us urban gardeners face. i have two neighbours who live in a block of flat with no gardens but about a dozen odd cats. i try as much as possible to cover all bare ground with plants. during the winter months, its futile, so every few days i go into the garden and pick all the stuff and lob them over the fence. i am always chasing them, so as soon as they see me they run off, but they still come back in the night or when noone is around. i have tried all manner of products which only work for a few days, so i dont waste money on any products, but use the cash on new plants instead. these bleeding urban cats are a pain in the backside. lol

This is why I unashamedly advocate making cats' lives as unpleasant as possible - short of physical violence. Scare them in any way you can: throw things towards them, shout or hiss at them, stare at them until they begin to lose confidence and then run or throw at them, make sudden loud noises, whatever else you can think of.

They do learn whose territory it is, and I have had no cats in my garden for years despite all the surrounding houses having at least one cat. It took about three months to become cat-free, with hardly any effort.

Get a dog

Exactly what i was going to say Discodave! We inherited a dog and she goes for walks on a lead, rarely poos in public(always gets cleaned up by me -THE OWNER) but most of all keeps those darn cats out of our garden!

Hi Janyce the latest didn't work trial was believe it or not turpentine sprayed in the area they are using but no good,  But iv had 3 days clear after using Jeyes fluid  in the ready to use spray , if this does not work i just might be falling out with a neighbor, i hope not but they dont seem to care