Cats, Cats and more Cats!

I'm looking for some help!

I work for a large outdoor community that has accumulated numerous kitty friends. Most left behind and not fixed; left to continuously poplate. We have come up with a few ideas and although work tirelessly with the local shelters and animal control to adopt them out (especially the new kittens), but many are too feral to do anything about. I have come up with some ideas to try and solve our problem but it can be sensitive to discuss with residents and management at times. Any experience out there with this issue? Is it worth it for us to catch, spay/neuter, and release? If not and I catch them and there is no shelter to take them what do I do.....CATCH 22!

I have this same problem except I have neighboring buildings that think of these ferel animals as their pets so when we have trapped in the past they have called the company to have them released.

There are several trappers in our area that will only euthanize if the animals are ferel and adopt the others to no kill shelters. Gerry had given me some great ideas (that I cannot find now) in regards to items you can plant to have the cats go elsewhere and we will implement it this year.

Hi Ashley,
Chrissy and I had this discussion about two months ago.
You have to alter the comfort zone by making your property 'unattractive' to the cats!

Here are some things that I suggested to Chrissy.Can you borrow a friend's dog for the weekend. Once they realize a dog has come to town, the property will look MUCH less appealing. You would have to do this repeatedly to make it work.

If you have a sprinkler system, turn it on next time they are in the yard.Or you can just use a hose and spray them when you see them. They won't want to come to a place that sprays them. Cat's tend to freak out when they get soaked! I know this is hard to do on any property, even when you have a full time grounds peson!!

There are also various sonic devices that may or may not work. And they can be expensive!

Grow a garden of plants that are repulsive to cats. Plant peppermint, geranium, rue, lavender, garlic, lemon grass and thyme along the perimeter of your buildings to keep cats from entering.

Spraying the area where they rest with the following may help. Citronella oil works well, as well as citrus scents such as orange or lemon, cayenne pepper, lavender oil, lemon grass oil, peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil, and mustard oil. Spray hot pepper formula around the flowers and on top of the mulched areas. Or get a 2lb bag of fine ground pepper and sprinkled it liberally around the areas the cats visit.Try coffee grounds or pipe tobacco. "Havahart's Cat Repellent" uses capsaicin pepper and oil of mustard as its active ingredients. It repels by both taste and odor, has a lemon scent.

Cats are strange critters!! Every cat responds differently to each of these. Some will not be phased by them and others will not.

I applaud you for caring and not wanting to put them to 'sleep'. They are just doing what they know how to do and that is being a cat!!

I have a seniors community, and we have the same problem. Many of my residents are cat/animal lovers, but have pets of their own, so they can't adopt the strays. Of course they were feeding the cats because they felt bad. Because I knew there was no way I was going to keep residents from taking care of them we came up with a compromise. I allowed a resident to build a "cat house" and place it in a wooded area. This kept the trash and mess from food and water containers off the property, but still allowed to residents to care for the strays. We also trapped as many as we could and had them fixed free of charge at our local SPCA.
There is no real way to keep cats off your property, but this was a win win for us all. I was able to keep the residents who were complaining about their neighbors feeding strays happy while allowing the soft hearted residents to feel like they are helping.

Stephani, that is such a cool idea!! Congrats for thinking OUTSIDE the box!!! Great job!!

Hi Ashley,

You're receiving some great suggestions! The truth of the matter though, is that without a trap/fix/release plan the cats will never go away as someone will always feed them and worse yet, the over-population of the cats will lead to their demise one way or another. There are simply too many cats for the shelters to adopt out even if they are caught and will eventually be euthanized. I would highly recommend contacting Best Friends Animal Society/Sanctuary for assistance: www.bestfriends.org/aboutus/staffdepartments/

They have networks reaching from coast-to-coast that can help with a trap/fix/release plan and may even be able to provide you with verbiage or information to share with residents regarding your efforts.

Good luck!