I love cats and always have. So don’t take this the wrong way:

If you live in a city/suburb and have multiple outdoor cats (more than 2 per household) and don’t care that they turn your neighbors yards into stinky, messy litterboxes, I don’t like you.

To be fair, here’s another gripe:

To whomever used 200pounds of small tanbark as decorative yard mulching for this house that we bought, I don’t like you, either.

The front yard has too many dirt areas near the front door and the windows, and the last month I’ve noticed the smell whenever I have the doors/windows open. It stinks and it permeates the house worse than my own cat’s indoor litterbox. I am not happy.

The entire area under front bedroom window was a litterbox, with the tanbark scrunched up in visible little piles of kitty-burying-activity. So I’ve spent some considerable time the past couple weeks trying to turn the front yard into an area that cats will not, generally speaking, want to pee and poop in.

Rocks as a groundcover in one spot. Shoveling most of the befouled tanbark into garbage bags and then more rocks and cheap cement pavers. That will do for a start. But after that, there’s the backyard, with more dirt strips under the back bedroom windows and all around the backyard fencing that need to be dealt with. Perhaps some chicken wire on the ground for those areas, because the backyard would equal at least a few tons of river rocks, and that’s a bit much to deal with. A long and tiring project. I know about the motion-sensor water deterrent thingies, but they might also keep the squirrels away - as well as humans - and while I’m currently really PO’d at neighbor cats, I still love squirrels. Same thing with the ‘get a dog’ ideas. :P

The occasional cat turd/spray is no problem…that’s life in the suburbs. But apparently our yard has become the claimed super-bathroom territory of the (one) neighbor’s 4 or 5 cats, and I’ve had enough. I shouldn’t have to clean up after YOUR pets simply because YOU don’t want to clean litter boxes in your own home and dump your cats outside. And you better believe if I see a cat in the yard, I’m chasing it away with a hose. And maybe a tossed shoe.