We are a feline-free island in a sea of cat owners. Therefore all the local cats think that our garden is their playground, operatic stage, wrestling ring, hunting ground and bathroom.
I love gardening and am fed up of discovering unwelcome piles of very smelly, semi-buried cat faeces. I also object to being woken up by cats squabbling half way through the night.
In an attempt to keep cats out of the garden I have tried numerous deterrents. Please don't get me wrong, I don't wish the moggies any harm, I just want them to steer clear of my garden. I also want to stay friends with all my neighbours...
In an attempt to solve the problem we talked at length to cat owning friends and did lots of research.
The first thing we tried was some incredibly smelly garlic granules. These were so effective that they cleared our garden and several neighbouring gardens of cats and humans alike.
Having been told that I should spray water near unwanted cats, I took to stalking the garden with a loaded water pistol. Whoever gave this advice had obviously never tried it because it is totally impossible, the cats very sensibly stayed out of the garden until I returned to the warmth of the house.
Sprinkling ground pepper and shredded citrus rind around the garden proved to be expensive, time consuming and didn't seem to work.
Convinced that the local cats were now laughing at me, I semi-buried plastic chicken wire. It was very fiddly to bury, made it very difficult to weed and even more difficult to extract cat faeces from...
Becoming increasingly desperate I forked out for a very expensive sonic device that emitted a high pitched squeal designed to deter cats. I think all the local cats must be deaf...
In an attempt to save money I placed freebie CDs around the garden shiny side up as cats don't like reflections...maybe our local cats are both deaf and vain?
I knew things had reached rock-bottom (please excuse the pun) when I tried to persuade Mr TH to wee in the garden as cats don't like the urine of larger male mammals. Mr TH vehemently declined citing indecent exposure as an excuse...
Frustratingly, we were still regularly removing piles of cat faeces and being woken up in the early hours by cat fights and operatic choruses. But when I discovered that all my carefully planted lettuce seedlings had been dug up so that the pot could be used as litter tray I declared out-right war!
I staked their toilet sites with canes...
I started to think like a cat...would I like having my paws prickled? Clippings of holly were placed on favoured bathroom sites, this did work but I had to keep up as they quickly found other toilet-sites around the garden.
I know that cats don't like to get wet so I strategically placed dishes of water around the garden. This combined with the holly seemed to work.
I then turned to their favoured entrances and exits to the garden. Surely a sudden noise would deter them? A (cat-loving) friend bought me an anti-cat rattle that I attached to one of their entrances to the garden.
Inspired by some online research, I scrubbed all the garden walls with biological washing powder to remove all favoured cat-smells and then sprayed with a mixture of third parts; water, alcohol and lemon juice.
I know that this is not a guaranteed solution. I will still be clearing their unwanted presents out of my garden for years to come. Cats like privacy to carry out their ablutions and somewhere sheltered to stalk and terrify the local bird population. The bird feeders in my garden will always be a draw for the moggies.
I also know that cats are discerning so maybe I should take their presence in my garden as an extremely warped compliment. They, like me, appreciate a good garden when they see it...or maybe I should just step up my continuing petition for a dog?
