"aboleth" wrote in message
...
I've read the FAQ, I accept it's hard to reliably stop neighbours'
cats pooing in your garden. Cat's are like children, one's own are
lovely, other people's....

Anyway, I want to redo the surface in part of our garden. When we
moved in it was covered in bark chippings, which had become more poo
than bark over the years. We shovelled that out, and put plastic tarps
down as a temporary measure. Now, 4 years later, it might be time to
do something! So are there any hardwearing soft surfaces that cats
won't poo on?

I was thinking of short astroturf, or maybe those rubber-mulch
chippings made of old car tyres? Or maybe heavy flint gravel? I just
don't want to go to a load of effort only to find next door's three-
legged wonder has done his usual on it.

Cheers,

John

The first thing to do is get rid of the cat's scent. A cat will always
return to its own scent sites to re-mark, over-mark another cat's scent and,
of course, to defecate. Getting rid of the scent is not easy where there
are plants, but quite possible on your unplanted site. Try Jeye's Fluid;
that should do the trick. However, this will be *very* harmful to the cat.
If you are on speaking terms with your neighbour(!), tell them what you're
doing and why, in as nice a way as possible. They will hopefully keep their
cat in for a while.

There are few soft, or relatively soft, surfaces that you can put down that
will deter the cat. If it's a loose surface, the toileting will continue;
if it's an entire soft surface, the cat may choose to sleep on it. The only
advantage of the latter, is that the cat won't defecate on what it perceives
as bedding.

My best suggestions would be large sharp-edged stones, which will be too
uncomfortable for the cat's paws, or an entire hard surface such as tarmac
(or even paving stones), which will be easier to clean up and disinfect. It
is just possible that the cat will refuse to toilet on this sheer hard
surface. Cats usually like to bury their poo, which would be impossible on
this surface. However, dominant cats *do* poo in the open. I doubt this
3-legged cat is dominant, but your garden could be taken over by another
cat. Indeed, this may already be happening since you are finding cat poo on
your tarpaulin surface.

It is a difficult problem to resolve, but I hope the above will help in some
way.
Good luck,
Spider