"Corepaul" wrote in message
...

How can I keep the neighbor's cats from using my raised rose beds as a
litter
box? I hear that moth balls work but I have several questions:

1. Does anyone know if this will actually discourage cats?

2. Moth ball is a generic term for three very different compounds: 1,4
dichlorobenzene, camphor, or naphthalene. If the answer to question 1 is
yes,
do all three compounds work (as they obviously do for moths) and if not,
which
do? Is any one preffered for this use?

3. Does their use in a rose bed adversely effect the roses? If so, can
any
soil treatment offset the adverse effects? Are the effects worse than the
ammonia in urine (in relatively large quanity)?

Any other methods to discourage the cats will be appreciated.

posted for Sandy.


Hello Sandy and Paul,

Do not use mothballs around your house or garden, period. There are two
different types of moth balls used to combat the moths. In one type, the
main ingredient is naphthalene, and in the other it is paradichlorobenzene.
Ingestion of naphthalene or p-dichlorobenzene mothballs is a frequent cause
of accidental poisoning of children (Siegel and Wason, 1986). Infants
exposed to naphthalene vapors from clothes or blankets have become ill or
have died (U.S. EPA, 1990). The effects in infants have been associated with
maternal naphthalene exposure during gestation (U.S. EPA, 1990).

The best thing we have found so far is to get several feet of chicken wire
and cut it into small squares and then bend them at the middle. Place them
around the beds where the cats usually
do the damage and make sure they are not covered by any soil, mulch or bark.
They are difficult for the cats to move and impossible to get away from.
They will not harm anything, and children are not curious about them as they
would be about mothballs.

We have found that also spraying the same anti-deer mixtures like DeerOff
works well to keep the cats from the beds. But that may have been in
addition to the cut screen.

Hope this helps and good luck keeping the strays away,

Allegra