Neighborhood cats shit right in the middle of my lawn. It stinks and the robot lawn mover makes it even worse.

I do NOT like cats, and this is not helping.

What works to keep them from shitting on my lawn?


The votes have spoken. Some people are cat lovers; thanks for the great advice from the rest of you! I will not go out of my way to accommodate other people’s pets that aren’t welcome on my property. My first weapon of choice will be chili because it’s simple and cheap. Other ideas have been noted.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    A motion activated or retomely deployable sprinkler system would work wonders. No need for drenching the critter, just interrupt or annoy the cat. After a few forced baths, the cat would associate shitting on your lawn with getting wet and just move to safer grounds.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    1 year ago

    motion activated sprinkler

    predator pee scent in your lawn

    hot pepper flakes around your lawn

    put trap boxes out with bait inside, catch the cat

      • jet@hackertalks.com
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        1 year ago

        depending on your jurisdiction, but especially in rural and farm areas you may be permitted to cull feral animals on your property.

        In ecologically sensitive areas, (basically Islands, the Americas, Australia) cats are a invasive species, and put local small animal species in extreme danger. There may be a government program to assist in your effort. i.e. Australia’s Cat Free Kangroo Island initiative https://conservationbytes.com/2021/05/20/killing-feral-cats-quickly-and-efficiently/

        • constantokra@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          It’s pretty amazing to me how angry people get about dogs pooping in their yards and owners not picking it up when anyone with a cat who ever lets it out makes zero effort to keep that cat from pooping in other people’s yards and most people don’t seem to mind.

          The older the cat, the less they bury their excrement. Sometimes it’s just enough to obscure it so you step in it. Sometimes it’s notburried at all. It’s so much more offensive to me than dog poop that I have to assume there’s some sort of genetic marker that some of you lack that makes me smell it as one of the most foul smells i’ve ever experienced. I’ve lived next to someone with 20 some cats and barely any yard and they made it completely impossible to enjoy my yard at all, and unlike dogs putting up a fence does nothing.

  • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All these psychopaths saying kill the cat or catch it and relocate it are fucking deranged. Talk to the owners if you know who it is… firstly, I’m sure they would at least be receptive to the problem and if they’re not then maybe look into legal outlets. If you’ve gone out of your way to post on lemmy you’re technically savvy enough to look up local laws. people have also posted actual remediation methods that aren’t terrible and could actually improve your lawn in some scenarios as well so maybe try those out if you’re into them.

    I’m positive that no one wants to lose a pet in any capacity. Just some simple communication with the owners could solve this, and if not, there are other options.

    Sorry you’re going through this though, shit sucks. Pun intended.

    • socsa@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I can 100% guarantee you that the owners will just be extremely confused about the idea that people might not want other people’s “pets” in their yard. I can 100% guarantee you that the response will just be “well it’s a cat.”

      And it means that if something ever happens to this small animal, OP will get blamed for it if he says anything to the neighbors.

        • socsa@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, I’ve dealt with this situation before. People who let cats roam free like this seem to live in a world where there is precisely one socially acceptable exception to otherwise generally accepted neighborly decorum - cats. Suggesting that you don’t want their cat on your property makes you the asshole in their eyes, because they literally cannot comprehend any solution to the problem. Obviously the sky is blue, and cats are allowed to shit wherever they want. Thus spake the toxoplasmosis.

  • iquanyin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    @PlutoniumAcid i’m 64, i’ve lived in over a hundred different places, including rural and suburbs with lawns. literally never ever had this problem. not even when i owned cat! so it seems you’re cursed. you need to find the witch or wizard you offended and make amends.

    i’m really amazed this would even happen, as cat prefer to bury their waste so they like places they can dig miles more than lawns. i wonder: did your u maybe see one cat, once, poop and now you think all poop is cat poop? because dogs are a lot more likely to be doing this regularly than cats.

    • Turkey_Titty_city@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      yeah, cats bury their shit. they don’t shit on grass and leave it exposed.

      only time cats shit in the open is to prove a point. OP probably pissed off this cat

    • MrsDoyle@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Elderly cats don’t bury their shit. A neighbour’s cat used to bury stealth bombs in my garden until he got too old and decrepit to bother. The pinnacle was a gross runny shit on top of a creeping thyme. I was thrilled when he died, but then she got a young feisty cat that slaughters birds. Sigh.

      • socsa@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        In general, many feral cats do not bury their shit. I have no idea why people keep saying this like it’s a fact - I have dealt with this exact same, well, shit at several places I’ve lived. Most of the time it is cats shitting in the raised beds, but I have also seen some who like a certain plot of grass or weeds.

    • downpunxx@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t trust anyone whose lived in a hundred different places about anything at all

      • Bo7a@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Can you explain this a bit? I am having a hard time understanding how living in different places would make someone less informed. I would assume the opposite by default, but I’m interested in your thought process.

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I’m guessing that their thought process is something akin to, if they have had to hop THAT much, their judgement can’t be good since if it were, they would have settled before reaching the high number of 100. I don’t agree, but that’s my guess

  • chepox@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Place a box with sand near the area you want to protect. Move it further away a feet or so by day. In 10 days that cat will be shitting wherever you guided it to. Leave the box and or the sand. Done.

    Low cost. Low effort. No animal cruelty. No dealing with neighbor. Effective.

    • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Go with what…continuing to allow people to have strays? No thanks… relocate the cat or give it to the SPCA to be sold to someone who ACTUALLY cares about the animals wellbeing.

      Don’t cater to neglectful owners by providing places for them to shit in the wild. Disgusting

      • macisr@unilem.org
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        1 year ago

        Throughout history, humanity has had to adapt to nature instead of trying to change it to suit humans in various ocasions. Where a cat takes a shit is one of those times lol. That said, cats are normally clean as fuck. My cats live free in the backyard and I have never seen or smell where they shit because they bury it very well and never in the middle of the yard. I don’t know how op is having problems with that, it is just weird.

        • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Cats are domestic animals. We literally altered nature then flew them around the world. They are not native to NA. Keep your cats leashed or indoors and monitored when outside.

          • TheWeirdestCunt@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            They aren’t domestic animals they’re tame animals, they still haven’t diverged from wildcats and there are a bunch of wildcat/house cat crossbreeds because of that.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Ignoring strays, you do realise there is no practical way for a cat owner to control where their cat takes a shit?
        That is not negligence, it’s nature.

        You can’t tell a dog where to shit, the difference being you’ll pick it up where you can, and it probably can’t climb fences.

        • socsa@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          There literally is. You can respect your neighbors by not letting your cat roam free, the same way I don’t let my dog roam free. I really do not understand why people have trouble with this very simple concept.

        • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Yeah…keep it inside and give it a box of whatever to shit in. This also isn’t just about their shit but the utter disrespect for the animal to allow it to roam free, unsupervised and the disrespect to the other humans who are forced to live with the animal you chose to set free

      • lol3droflxp@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The cat is happy to go outside. It’s their natural behaviour. Doesn’t mean I approve but don’t spin this as being neglectful.

        • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          No shit. Dogs like going outside too, but it’s considered neglect if you aren’t in direct supervision.

          It’s neglectful. You don’t know when it last ate, you don’t know what diseases it gets…it’s uncaring, and neglectful to the animal.

  • BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Are you sure it’s cats?

    Have you seen the cats pooping or just sniffing the poop?

    Depends where you are, but foxes would be a more likely bet. Fox poop stinks too - really foul stuff. Cat poop generally is quite inocuos once it drys out, although a lawn mowing bot slicing it up would make sense for making it worse.

    I have never heard of cats pooping in the middle of a lawn before. Normally they like private and safe spaces to poop as they’re vulnerable when pooping, and normally they’re fastidious about burying it where possible.

    iF it really is cats, then maybe get a gravel section next to your lawn that they might prefer to go in? A litter box essentially.

  • Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Plant some lemongrass.

    When that shows to only be partially effective, accept the fact that you can’t control the ongoings of the world in every fashion.

  • eltimablo@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My parents used to have this problem with dogs (our neighbors loved to let them shit everywhere but their own yard) and had a great amount of success with lining the perimeter of the property with moth balls.

  • 8000mark@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    We bought a couple of plants that have a smell that allegedly repels cats and other animals and had good results planting them around our patches. But we also left the dog in the garden more often which might have helped even more. The plants are called plectranthus ornatus … but there are others which might also work: https://horticulture.co.uk/cat-deterrent-plants/