Scat, Cat!

We’ve had an escalating problem with the neighborhood “outdoor cats” coming into our yard to sit on our cars, leaving dirty paw prints, but far worse are the deposits they leave in the flower beds. These barely buried poops stink up the whole porch and yard, and attract swarms of flies – yuck! We tried spreading red pepper powder (three $5 bags) but that gets washed away when we water. Then we read (online) that cats don’t like certain smells, especially citrus, and we thought we had the solution. There is plenty of free citrus – our neighbor’s grapefruit tree overhangs the driveway – so Mercer sliced, diced and scattered the fruit around the plantings. No change, cats kept pooping. Last Sunday we went up to the local nursery and inquired about repellents but their recommendation was a $12 spray – which again would dissipate with watering. I’d also read that marigolds were icky to cats, so we bought four 6-packs and headed home. Mercer then had a brilliant idea: we have an abundance of terracotta roof tiles removed when we remodeled, and if we broke them up we could cover the target dirt with an attractive (to humans) mosaic that would block cats from their favorite litter box! Photos above show the winning solution: marigolds around the tree, surrounded by broken tiles, several of which are strategically placed pointy side up. We also covered a good portion of the dirt planting bed along the porch, another cat fave, and so far there has been no smell…a cheap, environmentally friendly and pretty new look. Now if we could just get the dogs – walked by criminal owners who don’t pick up after them – to stop using the grass for their toilet. Sigh…a fence or hedge is probably the only dog-owner deterrent.