Cat Advice Required

I think the cartoon above explains it all. We have a lot of cats visiting our garden as if they own it; and I am getting fed up with it.

The cats belong to neighbours from all around who let their cats wander wherever they wish, but mostly in our garden it seems. I've tried talking to them gently, the neighbours that is, not the cats, but I might as well be talking to the cats for all the good it did. The neighbours replied politely that cats are free creatures who like to roam wherever they wish and it is their right (the neighbours) to let them go wherever they wish. I argued that the rhinoceros is also a free creature who likes to roam freely and if I had one as a pet and it went through the garden fence, or rushed and head-butted their Jeep (or other off-road vehicle) as you see on TV, they'd soon have something to say about it. Somehow, this argument did not seem to gain traction with any of them.

What I find particularly irritating is when I open the window in the morning and there in the garden is a cat sitting comfortably, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, as if he owned the place. I try to shoo him away and he doesn't move, and looks at me as if thinking "Why is this idiot waving his hands in the air for?"

What is worse is when they leave their deposits all over the lawn. They say that cats always bury their deposits; well I tell you this is not true. Even if I leave a spade nearby in the garden to give them a hint, they take no notice. They leave their poos on the lawn and walk away happily expecting me to clean it up. It is worse when I miss a poo and it gets caught in the lawn-mower and flies in the air in a million pieces. What would happen, I wonder, if I went in the neighbour's garden and left my poo on their lawn? They'd soon have something to say about it, I tell you.

We've tried all sort of things to get rid of the cats. We bought little silhouettes of cats which you place in the garden to frighten any visitors. This did not work. We tried pellets which are meant to smell bad and get rid of cats. That did not work either. We tried electronic devices that sense a cat nearby and either let off a sound or a spay of water and that did not work either. Nothing seems to work.

Eventually I invented a cat trap on a spring. It's a platform on which I place some food. When the cat goes for it; it triggers the trap and the cat flies through the air into the neighbour's garden.

That did not work either on two counts - no, three counts.

1 When it has been triggered, I have to go out again and set it all over once more.

2 The cats enjoy flying through the air and they have invited all their friends to come and try it. Now we have even more cats visiting us.

3 The mother-in-law stepped on it and she flew in the air and got wedged between two branches of a nearby tree. It was embarrassing with her dress flying in the air revealing her enormous underwear. It took the fire brigade people over an hour to dislodge her and bring her down again.

So there you have it. We have cats visiting our garden leaving their deposits all over the place and we can't get rid of them. (The cats, not the deposits).

Any ideas anyone?

DISCLAIMER - No animals or humans have been harmed in the writing of this Blog. It all happened in the writer's imagination.

The mother-in-law was brought down to terra firma safely although one fireman had a slightly bruised shoulder in the process.