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Section II: Going to the Dogs
(Or Cats)
18. How do I get rid of cats from roaming my yard and pooping in my yard?
- Motion-sensitive sprinklers, which you can obtain at Amazon. Set them up along the fence line so they’ll squirt the cat or any other critter (hm . . . burglars included) that tries to get in.
- Bird spikes or carpet tack strips affixed to the top of the wall around your yard, if you have one.
- Mouse traps, unbaited but set, placed in all the places the cat likes to pee, poop, sit around, or stalk birds.
- Mothballs sprinkled around the perimeter of the property and in any places where the cat hangs out and around any objects the cat marks by spraying on them.
Another option: find a way to lure in a barn owl. One of my friends who has a cat-lady neighbor actually watched a barn owl catch and carry away one of her neighbor’s nuisance cats.
Or bait in the local urban coyotes. There’s nothing like a coyote to get rid of a stray cat.
My backyard is surrounded by a block wall that has a row of decorative, perforated cinderblocks at the top. I went over to Home Depot and bought a boxful of carpet tack strips and a large bag of UV-resistant zip-ties. Then I laid two rows of tack strips, side by side, along the top of the wall and zip-tied the things down. At the top of the support columns, which are solid (no decorative holes to secure stuff with zip-ties), I attached pieces of tack strips with heavy-duty double-sided tape.
The cats hate it and no longer jump into my yard to use it as their private toilet.