Rescue cat upsetting my neighbour

As this is over five weeks old I wonder if the fencing has been done

I m puzzled as to why fencing on top of walls or existing fences will deter hedgehogs they don’t climb the walls

We are currently being invaded by cats and they all poo in the garden, front and back!!! I have taken to building little wigwams out of sticks and small branches in the favourite areas in the back garden to try and deter them and i am using the peel from oranges sprinkled over the front garden as i heard they dont like citrus smells. There are four which come in, all from new neighbours,who moved in recently. They sit and try to catch the birds from our three feeding stations and bird baths.I dont want to harm them but they are becoming a real nuisance. I am worried when in the spring i want to grow salad etc is it safe to grow and eat food where they have been to the toilet?? Has anyone found a way of getting rid of them?

Fox's poo smells terrible, worse than cat's poo.
Cats would normally scrape away in your nice soft flowerbeds or tubs and cover their poo.

Am I right in thinking that fox's poo has pointed ends?

Has she considered that hedghogs poo on the grass and don't bother covering it up? Does it have a point at each end? (the poo, not the hedghog)

If you can get a loan of a CCTV or a wildlife camera, a few days/nights of recordings might identify exactly who the culprit is.

it is part of a cat's nature to roam about outside and climb trees and fences and just be a cat.

I realise that (and sometimes they roam too far and get into trouble!) but I still don't see what is wrong with deterring a cat from coming into your garden, using water. Cats aren't stupid, they'll work out where to go and where not to visit. Water won't hurt them but they re3ally dislike it.

Our next door neighbours when I was young used to stick a flag in any cat poo they found, so my dad could go and clear it up.

If your neighbour is going to put a pot over the poo and wants it cleared by 7am I would take a photo and make a note of the time. You will then be able to ascertain whether or not a cat is fouling her lawn when yours is indoors.

Make sure she doesn't put a pot over some poo that appears before 7am or you'll be making a rod for your own back.

Thank you all so very much for your help. We are thinking about the special fencing. We have realised we can cover up the hedgehog highway during the day, and open it at night when our cat is inside and the hedgehogs roam. It will be expensive as we will have to fence the side which is not our responsibility - if the private landlord for next door will allow us - as well as buy the special cat fencing. But hey-ho, it is definitely a contender. Thank you so much shysal for the link re cat deterrents. My husband and I were just talking about deterrents and he suggested I asked you lovely people if you knew if any worked! Perfect timing. My husband has been to speak to the neighbour. She has agreed she will put a note in our door when any poo appears on her lawn. She will put a pot over the offending matter, so we know where it is. Either my husband or I will then clean it up, but she wants it done by 7am. We are happy to comply. I think our cat only does this in her garden a couple of times a week anyway. A friend has asked her vet friend if he could offer any suggestions. He thinks our cat is probably marking territory, and the problem could stop once the neighbourhood cats have sorted out their hierarchy! I do hope so. I feel for my neighbour, I really do, and I don’t want to fall out. Thank you all for your help and support.

Watching a TV programme a few months ago called The Secret Lives of Kittens, it was quite interesting to see how once the kittens were old enough and big enough to get outside their own garden, a tracking device was fitted to them to see what distance they covered. Between 5 - 10 miles was the average and most of the kittens started to develop a regular route of their own. Although it is unpleasant to have cats messing in your garden it is part of a cat's nature to roam about outside and climb trees and fences and just be a cat. Some people I know have trained their two cats to use a litter tray indoors since moving house as they did,nt want them wandering off back to their old home territory. However at the first opportunity they sit by the back garden door waiting to be let outside for a roam around. Most cats will try and cover their mess, and sometimes another person's cat will automatically get blamed for something it has,nt done, just because it lives close by. As this programme showed the average cat roams for several miles a day given the chance so it could be anyone"s cat using her garden. Foxes and their cubs often leave their mess on lawns without covering it up and cats often get the blame for this as well.

jacalpad, I wonder if your neighbour would be prepared to use a deterrant in her garden if your supplied it? It could be worth suggesting it.
www.deckinghero.com/reviews/cat-deterrents

What's more if I had a well-manicured lawn etc, I'd put pepper down if a cat continually pooped on it. It wouldn't do it again.

My cats used to eat the grass between her paving stones, not poo in her garden. She was the type of person who didn't like anything or anyone. The family rarely visited and I soon found out why !!

Was this neighbour a nasty old bint generally or just because she was thoroughly fed up with your cats going into her garden?

It's not just the poop - it's the birds which they catch. More than once I have seen unknown cats trotting along through our garden with poor little birds in their mouths.

What would happen if the nasty neighbour had a dog which decided that the cat would make a good prey?

Really you expect the next door neighbour to cover her lawn in pepper that's plain ridiculous. So is suggesting people not use weed killer in their gardens because others cats may become ill. I've had cats and tbh always thought they were my responsibility and no one else's to keep safe.
The OP has options but prefers to view the hedgehogs rather than prevent her cat pooping on next doors grass, so best get used to being shouted at by her neighbour as the only way to stop that is to keep her cat confined.

There used to be a nasty old bint living near me who hated my two cats. They were no trouble and would just wander around outside then come back in to use their trays. One day both cats appeared unwell and I realised they'd been poisoned so I approached the woman and she told me that she'd put weedkiller between her paving stones to stop grass from growing. I gave her a long hard look and at that point could have choked her and the supercilious look she had on her face.
Not long after she must have scared one of the cats who ran across the road and was killed. She was just a most ghastly character and I was ever so glad when she moved away.
Presently I have 3 cats-----1 rescue, 1 stray who was feral and which has taken all of 2 years to " normalise " and the third did belong to someone but preferred to stay here with me.
The rescue cat had been a stray which I'd fed outdoors until it ran inside my bedroom 3 years ago and produced 4 kittens. It went into the hands of the RSPCA and I purchased the mother 6 weeks later-----a beautiful cat with a lot of Persian in her obviously thrown out because she'd been pregnant.

If the neighbour doesn't want poop in her garden she should put pepper down in the offending area .

The water won't hurt your cat but he will dislike it enough to remember not to use next door as a toilet in future.

Oh dear jacalpad ... well, if you want everything - cat, hedgehogs and happier neighbour, it seems to me you need an indoor cat (or indoor hedgehogs ) because your neighbour has a genuine gripe about the poo, even if she is exaggerating the situation a bit.

Suedonim, thank you for the Feliway suggestion. We used Feliway a lot when our little boy first arrived, and still use it if he has to go in his cat box to the vet etc. Perhaps it would help to use it again in the sitting room. I will try it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all your help and suggestions. Thank you sparklefizz for the information regarding the fencing solution. Looks really good, but my husband would take a lot of persuading to do this as we would have to stop feeding and encouraging our hedgehogs. We currently have a little archway cut in the bottom of the fences on each side of the garden, so there is a hedgehog ‘highway’. We set up a nature camera each night and look the next day to see who has visited! The archways are not very big but our cat and others do go through. My husband would be upset if he lost his little hedgehog friends because they could no longer get in to our garden. However, it is something we must consider. Our little man is neutered, so that is not an issue here. We know there is another cat that does not cover his poo on the soil in our garden - we have seen him occasionally - but we also know our cat does this, as we have seen him. Our neighbour says she has seen our cat pooing on her lawn (her garden is all lawn and a few pots, no borders or soil), and I do believe her. Our neighbour told me she would bee shooing my cat away and also spraying him with water. Not nice in an ideal world, but perhaps not desperately cruel and I do sympathise with her - this is not a nice thing to be happening in her garden. I am not a confrontational person, and find my bossy neighbour’s outbursts very difficult -especially as she says my cat is upsetting all the neighbours, which I know is not true. I think I will ring the animal shelter tomorrow and ask if they have any suggestions to help too. Thank you all so much for your support, and your cats are beautiful Sue!

Have your cat neutered, he won’t scrap with cats as much.
Try and cat proof your garden to contain him as much as possible.
Ignore the horrible neighbour, cats do what they do, most accept that.

There are a number of systems that work well to keep cats in their own garden, BIL has recently installed a pole system that goes along the top of existing fences but is on special rotating brackets so when the cat jumps up it rolls them back into their own garden.

Jacalpad - as a real cat lover myself, I think the best thing for your poor cat is if you would enclose your garden so he cannot get out. He would be quite happy once he got used to not being able to go over the fence. You would have peace of mind, and it would shut up your unsympathetic neighbour too.

This idea is getting more common, partly to protect the cats from getting run over. You can make your garden interesting, with some high spots (away from fence) where he can sun bathe, and some bushes to hide in. Something of this type :

protectapet.com/cat-fence/?gclid=CKvQ4teJ274CFQrjwgod4qAAqQ

I'm sure the pigeons give us a wink before they sit in the tree and poo on the car.

The squirrels are fun, until the time they ate my tulips.