Cats can be a real menace in residential neighbourhoods, killing wild animals and leaving their disgusting mess in your nice lawn or garden beds. The problem with cat mess seems to be worse if you don’t have a cat yourself – they seem to be more attracted to your garden when there isn’t another cat to ward it off.
When you’re working in the garden there’s nothing worse than coming across a pile of cat crap. So how can you stop them from using your lawn as a toilet?
This generally involves deterring the cat from entering your property by making your lawn an unpleasant place your the cat to be.
Ways to achieve this usually involve creating smells or sounds that discourage the cat from being in your garden.
Smells to deter cats from your garden
There are some weird and wonderful examples of smells that can deter cats. These range from things like ground pepper that your sprinkle around the area to more exotic deterrents like lion poo.
People have reported that lion droppings, either fresh from a zoo or a dried mixture that can be bought online called Silent Roar, can create the effect of there being a ‘bigger cat’ in the area that has taken up residence in the garden. And the idea is that your neighbour’s cat doesn’t want to be around when the ‘big cat’ is nearby.
One of the main problems with creating these smells, assuming you can get hold of something effective, is that you need to keep reapplying the smell. After a few days the smell will be gone and the problem cat will return.
Sounds to deter cats from your garden
A cat can hear sounds that are ultrasonic. That means it can hear frequencies that are above the normal hearing range for humans.
Sonic cat repellers work on the principle of creating unpleasant sounds in the ultrasonic range. They create load annoying sounds that only the cats can hear.
Most people lose the ability to hear frequencies in the upper range as they get older, but children and some adults with really good hearing may still hear a slight high pitched whine from these sonic deterrents.
Two of the best ultrasonic cat repellers are,
– the PestBye Ultrasonic Cat Repeller– a battery powered cat deterrent that can be staked into the ground or screwed on to a wall. This device includes a motion sensor to detect cats moving into your garden.
It has a 40 foot operating range, meaning that if a cat is within this range it will be detected and the ultrasonic noise will be generated. It is fully waterproof so there is no issue with having this deployed in your garden throughout the year.
It has a couple of adjustable settings, where you can tune the frequency of sound produced to deter other animals apart from cats if you want to, including foxes, squirrels, rodents, various insects and cockroaches.
You can also adjust the range over which the PIR (passive infra-red) detector is triggered by animals, in case you want to reduce the operating range, perhaps for a smaller garden or to avoid people triggering it unnecessarily when approaching your door.
– the Defenders Mega-Sonic Cat Repeller – another battery powered device to scare cats from your garden.
Previously know as the Big Cheese Cat Repeller, this device works on the same principle as the PestBye with a PIR (passive infra-red) detector to sense cats entering the protected area, and an ultrasonic noise that will be unpleasant to the ears of cats.
This device also features a test button which temporarily lower the frequency range of the device so that you can hear it and know that it is working, and a LED that illuminates when the device is triggered.
With both of these ultrasonic devices, the manufacturers say that the best results can be had over a period of a few weeks.
This is mostly due to the cat learning over a period of time that it is them entering your garden that is triggering the annoying, unpleasant ultrasonic noise, and they will learn that they are better off leaving your garden alone.
With a bit of luck, and assuming your unwanted cats are not deaf and insensitive to ultrasonic noise, you will hopefully rid yourself of the plague of having cats frequent your garden and using your lawn and flower beds as their toilet.