1y ago

How to prevent cats from shitting on my lawn?!?

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.

169 comments

Cats are territorial, you have to take a bigger shit on top of theirs to show dominance.
- This guy dominates.
- Drop a stinker on those 4 legged trespassers

Robot lawnmower.. Damn
- It's like an outdoor Roomba. Very common in Europe, nothing special at all.
  
  "nothing special at all" he says...
  I grew up using a push mower.
  
  I feel like this can't possibly be true... The cheapest one I can find is $650. Like, these are not affordable for most folks.
  
  You say that like Europe isn't comprised of like 50 countries and near a billion people
  
  I’m from the UK and I’ve never seen an automatic lawnmower unless it was on tv
- Lawn mover!

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

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.

Sprinkle catnip all over a neighbor you don't like (the owner?) yard.
- Maybe that’s what the neighbour did to op lol

Accept that animals shit outside.
- Cool, Imma just let a dog shit on your lawn and when you get annoyed you can just accept that dogs shit outside.
  
  I've already accepted that animals shit outside. Why would it upset me?

@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.
- 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
- 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.
  
  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.
- I wouldn't trust anyone whose lived in a hundred different places about anything at all
  
  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.

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.
- Using this method, OP could guide the cat poop in the owner's yard.

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.
- 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.
  
  100%?

Go with it, not against it. Make a small sandbox. Cat would favour that as a toilet over anything else.
- 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
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.

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.
- Sure looks like a cat to me.

Get a dog
- Cat shits in garden at night. Dog is in garden during day, eating and rolling in the cat shit.
  Source: my dog.
- There was an old woman who purchased a dog.

Put in a sand pit somewhere you are ok with them shitting. Training domesticated cats is an undertaking that in my limited experience comes down to giving them an option they'd prefer over their current behavior. Trying to dissuade a feral cat from shitting where they please humanely seems like a loosing battle.
- I am OK with them shitting not on my property. If I'd wanted cat shit, I'd get a cat. I don't, so I don't. These aren't feral cats.
  
  The irony being that cats don't shit in their own gardens, best way to stop getting cat shit in your garden is to get a cat.
- It's best to just trap them and relocate them far far away. Or bring them to whatever shelter will sell these cats to more families that will then have more outdoor cats.
  
  That’s a horrible thing to do to someone’s pet
  
  I m sure my neighbors will be sad. And later get a new cat.

motion detection water sprinkler?
might be the most harmless and probably affordable
- That seems like the way to go for sure. On top of being affordable, it’s quick to set up, safe, should work quickly, and can quickly be taken down to return the lawn to normal. Or quickly put back in place if necessary.
- This is the one. If you're tech-savvy you could probably find a way to activate a cheap wifi valve based on motion detection from your camera. Otherwise, there's this: https://www.orbitonline.com/products/yard-enforcer-motion-activated-sprinkler

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/

Easy. Get rid of the lawn. Animals live outside. If it's not this cat, it'll be something else.

Plant non toxic cat repellant plants:
https://pondinformer.com/plants-that-repel-cats/

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.
- Don't some varieties of Lemon Grass kill cats? Something about shutting down their liver if eaten.

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.
- For dog poop I remove it and sprinkle coffee grounds on top to confuse the scent.
- What do the moth balls do?
  
  Apparently, fuck up the environment, so forget I said anything
  
  Smell

I have a section of dirt next to my driveway. All the other suggestions here worked for a few days max, but the solution ended up being laying chickenwire fencing on the ground. Cats won't do that on ground they can't dig.

Find the owner and tell them the cat is shitting on your property. If they tell you to pound sand, call city/county animal control to see what your options are. Alternatively, pick the shit up before your robot lawnmower runs it over.

Partially jokey answer: An automatic sprinkler and a motion detector
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElcviGYMb3U
Serious answer: I don't think there's much... I used to have a problem with cats pissing on my bicycle (which used to be parked outside) and the only thing that would keep them away was a bike alarm - at the expense of mine and my neighbors' sleep. Covering the bike made no difference, they just pissed on the cover instead. The fix ended up being just parking my bike inside.
If you let the garden get a little bit overgrown, do they still come and drop their shit there?
- I don't think this is a joke answer. This was the only way a buddy could keep the cats from going in his kids sandbox.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/watch?v=ElcviGYMb3U
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- let the garden get a little bit overgrown
  Doesn't help. No mowing while I was away and it was bad when we came back. Oh, the stink :-(
  On the regular, I want my lawn to be nice, not overgrown.

Look up ultrasonic animal repeller. I've never used one, but it may work for you. It makes a high pitch noise that should stop cats and other animals from wandering into your yard.
- I'm skeptical about how well those things work. There are a few houses with them on our walking route, and they definitely bother me much more than my dog. He couldn't care less about the noise, while it gives me a headache. Maybe cats would be more sensitive to the noise than my dog, but like I said, I'm skeptical.
  
  I'm the same as you, I find them really painful, I think people don't realise how much these can affect humans.
  
  My neighbors across the street got those as a deer repellent for their garden.
  Although it was pointed out of the garden toward the street. So whenever it triggered we could definitely hear it in our living room. They ended up taking down after I talked with them and it wasn't really keeping the deer away anyway.
- Hypersonic deterrence have never been proven to work.

My family drops mothballs which isn't an environmentally friendly solution, but it's more humane than what my stepdad wanted to do.

I saw a guy on YouTube make an automated water turret that shoots the water hose (not a water gun, but the actual hose) at anything that the camera recognized as a cat on his lawn. It was awesome. I tried finding the video, but can't remember his name.
Side note on the chili idea, it doesn't really work on many shorthaired cats. Neither does cayenne pepper powder. [E] That was a problem I had at a previous house. I had a neighborhood cat that kept meowing hella loud in the middle of the night right outside my window. The cayenne and chili actually attracted him and more cats, and I ended up with three visiting cats, instead of the one original. Just be aware this could be your fate, too, if you use foodstuffs.
- I think your looking for I Did A Thing's video.

Shit on your own lawn to establish dominance.

Cats can be territorial. Shut on your own lawn. Claim it for yourself.

You need to make your lawn less appealing than your neighbors. They might not care as much or even notice the cats shitting in their yard. A plastic owl works with birds... maybe a lawn ornament of a predator would do

Go xeric and nuke the lawn or motion activated sprinklers.

Yeah, I saw pictures of how Roomba smeared dog shit all over the floor once, so I can imagine how a robot lawn mower could make it worse

Sorry buddy it’s their lawn now, smells like them.
Don’t like it? You gotta shit on your lawn to show them who it really belongs to

Get a dog.

You can have a dog, but then you'll have a problem with dog shit

Bushmasters are good for this.

@PlutoniumAcid a small pile of sand in a corner of yard would be preferred by most cats. other than that, as someone said above, “accept that animals shit outside.” besides, climate issues will soon make lawns go away anyway. 😢

You kidnap them and give them a sandbox.
End of story.

Learn to love cats. Then they'll leave you alone forever.

Someone with a robot lawnmower whining about cats?
Wow, entitled much?
- There is no way you genuinely believe OP is entitled for wanting to avoid piles of shit.
  
  OP has a robot lawnmower. This means they could absolutely afford installing a fence.
  Think about that before you defend their whining again.
- Why he wouldn't? Can I go and shit at your lawn then? He has the right to not wanting a cat to take a shit on his lawn that's disgusting.
  
  He's free to do something to try and prevent it, as long as it doesn't hurt the cat and its a wild cat
  
  Yes he has a right to do that. Having a right to do something does not preclude a person from being entitled by doing it.
  
  exactly, and who wants to clean cat shit off a lawn mower blade in the hot sun?

169 comments