Friday, January 23, 2009

The Unending Battle versus Cats

As I might have mentioned before I have a problem with neighbourhood cats seemingly congregating in my flowerbeds for the purposes of defecation. Why in fucks name the cannot shit in their own gardens I do not know, but I am forever having to dig crap out of mine.

So I have for a while been trying various methods of dissuading them (I was persuaded not to use a pellet gun) with differing degrees of success. Coffee grounds and orange peel seemed to work alright, although both have to be refreshed regularly to keep the pungency that the buggers don't like to the max. Also jeyes fluid around the borders seemed to work well for a while. But any remedy only seemed to work for a short period of time. Cats seem to be like bacteria in that regard. They build up immunity.

Watching Braveheart I got me an idea which so far seems to be the best of all. Spears, lots of them. I bought a load of bamboo canes, cut them into six inch lengths and staked out the beds like some bronze age earthen defence works. And it seems to be working. With little room between each stake I reckon the cats find it hard to get a comfortable spot and move on. The can;t bury the shit like they want to and if they shit at all they just leave it on the surface which means no nasty surprises when gardening and also I can remove it quickly so the spot doesn't become their regular (which they seem to do).

Plus the idea of getting one up on the feline fucks makes me feel happy inside. I am a crazy man.

2 comments:

Colum said...

Ha ha I love the image of Marc taking ever-more-extreme steps to keep the cats out of the garden, culminating in an urban minefield full off pongee stakes and toe-poppers. Marc, do you also have a house full of confiscated soccer balls? Please say yes..

Marc said...

Nah mate, I spent my youth hopping over walls to get footballs back, so I wouldn't do that. The problem I have is my back garden abuts three other gardens so I have no clue where the balls come from. I just work in a clockwise manner.