The Cats #2

My neighborhood's feral cats are alive and well. I have to respect them. They're survivors.

I've tried oh-so many ways to keep them from pooping in my yard. I've read all kinds of advice and have spent a good deal of money trying to keep my yard poop-free.

I've tried:

Pepper - "Cats dig and don't like the smell and the feel of pepper. It irritates their paws." Baloney! I've used black pepper, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes. These cats haven't been phased.

Ammonia - "Soak rags in ammonia and cover areas where cats have defecated." The rags seemed to keep cats from pooping in their old territory so they pooped right next door and, soon, they were spraying the rags. The result? My yard smelled of ammonia, poop and urine. Not cool.

Bagged powered coyote urine - I bought packets of coyote urine to hang in my tree above the area the cats viewed as their own private sand box. "It may take a week or two but cats, afraid of coyotes, will soon abandon the area." Ha! I'm surprised they didn't climb the tree and smack the bags around. I left them in the tree for a month. No difference.

Spreadable powered coyote/fox urine - This fairly expensive stuff was supposed to be "the ultimate weapon to keep cats out of your yard". I bought boxes of it and spread it all around the area, in my yard, behind my wall - which the cats had also discovered - and it seemed to work for a few days with fewer poop-piles, but it was no magic bullet. I bought more, spread it thicker. Soon the cats seemed to prefer where the powdered stuff had been spread, and we were back to the same old patterns.
Oh dear.

Plastic drop cloths - I thought if the cats couldn't get at the areas they so passionately desired, and they had to find new places, maybe I could break their habit of using my yard. I took plastic drop cloths, covered the ground and anchored them with bricks. I pulled them up each morning and put them back each night so the ground didn't get moldy or diseased or who knew what else. This worked. After about a month of the daily routine, I left the sheets off. It took about two days for the poop-piles to reappear. Damn, those cats were persistent!

Chicken wire - This is the best solution I've been able to find. I bought rolls of vinyl chicken wire or netting. After I cleaned the area thoroughly and watered it down to get rid of as much smell as possible, I cut and laid the netting over the whole area and secured it with stakes. I continued to spray the area with water to clean the dirt of smell. At first this wasn't perfect. If I left even a small space between the sheets, the cats pooped there so I pulled up the sheets and over layered them. I also found that if there was even a speck of old poop left, the cats would simply defecate on top of the netting. Again, I pulled up the sheets and recleaned the area. I also continue to water every other day. So far, so good. It's been about a week without any poop-piles. But I'm not holding my breath. It's hard to believe how driven these cats are to keep their old territory.

If this doesn't work,  my next step will be to live-trap the cats and take them to some hermitage or humane society.

So what's the old saying - no good deed goes unpunished? I sure hope Leona has learned her lesson.