Some time ago we had a spate of cats fowling our lawn. Very unpleasant. We bought some crystals off Amazon and I sprinkled them about several times and it seemed to do the trick.
Over the past week the problem has returned. Two instances now. Any tips on how to discourage/prevent? Also any advice on how to hygienically and effectively remove the disgusting fowl smelling messes? Thanks.
It won’t please the wife, but the most effective thing you can do is go to the pub, neck a few beers and then spray your manly wee all over the place and stake out that garden as your own. Depends on neighbours too!
Cats usually move on to a new place quite quickly in my experience. And none of the suggested products make any difference, again in my experience.
One of our cats used to dig up our neighbour’s flower beds and use them. She bought a “cat scarer” which detected the presence of a cat with a movement sensor and then making a loud whistle at a frequency above what humans can hear. This had two settings “cat” and “dog”. My wife was called round by the neighbours one evening to have a G&T and enjoy the joke that our cat was fast asleep just in front of cat scarer. When the neighbour phoned the cat scarer manufacturer’s helpline, they said “Curious, how big is this cat?” She replied “He’s huge, like a lion.” The reply came “Well switch the scarer to Dog then!”
But that didn’t work either.
We get fox poos on our lawn here often and I find the best way to deal with them is to pick the mess up with toilet paper as best you can and flush it down the lavatory. Then wash my hands very thoroughly!
Decades ago when I had several cats, and clean garden, I believed the hype that tells owners that cats bury their business. Roll in a few years, when not having cats but living close to people with cats, I discovered the truth: everybody else’s garden is their toilet. Heard that lion poo is a good deterrent. I’ve not had a chance to try for myself, though I guess that availability of the lion to do its business might be at least as big a deterrent!
I’ve tried all sorts of things, and the only thing successful has been physical prevention: A mesh fence high enough for them not to be able to jump worked for one garden, simoly keeping cats out. Here, with no chance of doing that, and with the main problem being vegetable plots when freshly dug, we put pieces of wire mesh fencing shaped loosely into ooen boxes over freshly dug soil and seedlings, and between small plants as they grow, lying horizontally with the mesh 2-4 inches above the ground.The holes, about 1.5", are of a size that would be difficult for them to walk across. It seems to work.
Cats don’t seem to use the lawn here. The only thing we get there is what I believe is hedgehog poo. Not as big, not as smelly, nowhere near as unpleasant. It can just be left, or picked up and disposed of in the bin or preferably toilet.
Install a large dog, not very well fed, in the garden.
There would be lots of dog fouling to deal with then!
Maybe you need to get some sheep too - if sheep eat dog poo (they seem to eat just about everything else).
You could turn the garden into a veritable menagerie!
Cats often poo in a place to mark what they consider over their territory border, so an excellent plan of action is to befriend every cat you see in your garden, make them feel welcome, give them some treats (like a few cat Dreamies) and hopefully they will soon adopt your garden as an addition to their territory which means they will loose the urge to dump on it.
However this may cause them to deposit it in the garden next in line instead; that they don’t consider their territory 
How interesting, I never knew that. We have had plenty of cats in the past but none at the moment. Two delightful cars, Woody and Rex, live next door and tend to treat our garden as an extension of their own, yet we don’t seem to suffer from poo problems. Touch wood!
I like cats very much and have no wish to harm them at all. Just don’t want them to consider my lawn as a toilet. Flower beds fine - but not the lawn please. Perhaps I should put up a printed sign to that effect? It would be as sensible a thing to do as many of the suggestions here.
I wonder if it’s because the dry weather has made the soil too hard to dig. Maybe you could dig a bit of the flowerbed for them. It seems a bit OTT but may be better than them using the lawn. Cat poo is pretty horrible.
Just scoop the stuff up and dispose of it properly.
We don’t own pets but we are familiar with at least a dozen cats and two foxes who use our back garden as a thoroughfare. It’s a green corridor on the edge of town. Pooh happens and we deal with it.
I am sure that is a typo - but thank you it did make me smile.
Although I had a friend and she always named her cars.
We all need an excuse to smile!
A while back, a guy (let us call him Julian) who lives the other side of the next road came to complain to me that one of our cats was as he put it “defecating on my lawn”. What was I going to do about it? I don’t know what he thought I could do and anyway I wasn’t sure he had fingered the right cat, although to be fair he probably was right. I apologised and said that the cat would move on soon. I considered saying that he could let me know when it happened and I would come and deal with it, but something told me I would certainly come to regret such an offer. So I kept quiet.
A couple of times in the next few days he actually carried the offending cat poos up the road on a shovel and scattered them onto our drive. It all stopped a few days later, probably because our cat had indeed moved on to another lawn.
That was about 15 years ago and that cat is sadly long gone, but Julian is still known as poo-man by us and our next door neighbours.
Cat Scarers as sold in various places seem to work for us but we need another one to cover the garden properly.
Depends on the cat -see my story earlier in the thread!
You want to stop other cats coming in your garden?
Get a cat.
From a french cat site online :
« If you want to repel your neighbor’s cat from your private space, there are many solutions available to you. We therefore recommend that you start with the most basic option: the use of a natural repellent. These come in a wide variety of forms. You can thus plant certain plants whose smell is unbearable for many felines: geranium, lavender, lemongrass, thyme, sage, rosemary, eucalyptus or basil are for example known to have a repelling effect. The herbaceous perennial Coleus canina is also famous for its nickname “anti-cat plant”. In the same way, other particular scents strongly disturb the sense of smell of felines. It is possible to put citrus extracts (peels, zests or whole fruits) on your flowerbeds, or to rub them on the walls, the fences of your garden or the pots of the plants. This tip also works with pepper, vinegar, or coffee grounds, which create an uncomfortable aroma that cats find difficult to bear. Keep in mind, however, that these recommendations will not necessarily work for all felines, as some have developed a resistance or increased tolerance to these odors. However, they remain safe, including for the inhabitants of your household.«
