Cat Owners

Yeah, I'm not a fan of people letting their cats run around. I think if they're going to go outside they should be in a 'cat run/enclosure', mainly for their own safety, and for the safety of wildlife too.

However, some people really have no choice but to keep them outdoors. And with cats often being stubborn and hard to train it's difficult to make them do what you want. They also might not even be aware that their cats are causing problems if they work all day. But it isn't the cat's fault either.

So it's a tough one. I can see it from both sides - I have several cats, all indoors except for one stray that adopted us, two that were abandoned by a neighbor, and a feral. Luckily, mine mostly stay in my yard and don't cause problems for the neighbors.

 

It's rare that cats pee to mark their territory unless they have not been fixed. Maybe it would be helpful to sit down with your neighbour & have a chat about your concerns. It won't really help you to stew in the frustration. Perhaps, having a conversation & making helpful (not judgmental) suggestions will open a door between you & the neighbour as well as taking care of the issues at hand.

 

I live in an area that is technically the "middle of nowhere" and our closest neighbors are 3 doors down the road from us. I keep both of my cat inside, mostly because they're both older but also because letting your cats roam around outside is careless. Just talk with the cats owner and tell them about the dilemma, nicely. Don't do what my co-workers mother did. She had a neighbor who had several indoor/outdoor cats, and my co-workers mother hates cats with a passion, so she mixed rat poison in with some cat food and left for the neighbors cats and killed several of them.

 

Omg that's horrible It's quite common too, I hear a lot about animals eating poisonous or sharp objects that were clearly left for animals to find. People like that are insane and clearly have no heart.

 

I mean, I don't think it's normal for people to leave animals wreck stuff for neighbors. We had a neighbor that had a cat that would roam around on our (shared) backyard, but that was fine and we were all okay with it since there was nothing he could wreck, and he didn't even pay attention to the veggies and stuff growing there. Just took a walk and came back home. If he was doing something bad, we would probably haev a serious talk...

 

That's so cruel. She should have just talked to her neighbor instead of poisoning their cats. Did your co-workers neighbors found out about what she did? They can file a complain for animal cruelty if they want to. Over here, PAWS does that to irresponsible pet owners or humans being caught abusive to animals.

 

It is a difficult one as cats do like to roam, but as a previous poster said it is only unfixed male cats who spray to mark territory, so that could be a helpful point of discussion. I let my cats out as they enjoy it but I have never had any complaints about their behaviour!

It is the foxes who attack our bins, but other than securing them there is not much to be done about that, I would certainly not condone harming or poisoning any creature. In the UK at least people can be (quite rightly) prosecuted for deliberately harming any animal.

 

I don't like cats either, but killing them is so cruel. Cats are cats, they act as cats and killing them because you don't like them is horrible. Well, the one thing I don't like about cats is perhaps the smell of their waste. It stinks that I can smell it at a far distance. They also tend to knock out things and makes a lot of mess in our house. My cat died due to old age and after that, I vowed not to have cat ever again.