Natural Repellent Using Kitchen Essentials
Cats are sensitive to smells. Thats, in fact, the main reason why youll find them urinating in your garden and by your outdoor furniture cushions. Cats use their scents to hide the odour of other cats and therefore mark their territories. But, you can help to curb those bad habits by injecting scents that cats find unpleasant. Find out why cats pee on bean bag chairs.
We get it, a lot of homeowners feel strongly about using chemical products in their garden, especially if they have pets of their own. However, you can make a safe cat repellent that is harmless to animals and wildlife, but that will keep cats off your outdoor furniture cushions. Cats dislike the smell of vinegar, making it the perfect ingredient for your homemade repellent. You can use a small spray bottle to mix one part of white vinegar, one part of water and one part of liquid hand soap. The mixture is safe to spray on your outdoor furniture, including cushions. Be careful not to spray too much liquid, though, as it could create a moist terrain favourable for mould growth inside the cushion. Alternatively, if youre worried about stains, you can also spray it at the base of your furniture and at random in the garden.
Use Planters With Off Putting Plants That Cats Dont Like
You will often see cats chewing on plants or rubbing against certain plants some plants are safe for cats but some plants produce an odor that we humans enjoy but cats hate.
If you have a problem with cats on your porch it can be smart to put some of these plants right in the spots you want the cat to vacate. Obviously, you want the cat to get a smell of these plants and decide they are better off hanging out somewhere else!
So which plants can you use? Try these humans friendly cat deterrent plants in pots and planters around your deck and garden if you want to make your porch and garden unpopular with cats :
Lavender
What Can I Use To Keep Stray Cats Off My Porch
Use Unpleasant Odors You can make a simple, homemade cat repellent by mixing 1 cup of water and 1 cup of vinegar with dish soap, then putting it in a spray bottle and spritzing it around your home. Pay special attention to any areas that the cats already like to frequent, like your garden or under your porch.
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Making Your Cat Feel Safe
Does Vinegar Keep Cats Away
Vinegar does not have a physical effect on them physically, but they do not like it in any way. Vinegar can also be a natural deterrent to a cat if you want it to avoid certain areas. Vinegar is a great cleaning tool without the use of chemicals and has a much fainter aroma when diluted.
Vinegar has a strong, acidic odor that cats will find appealing, which is why it is an excellent natural repellant. Because cats have a strong sense of smell, vinegar is more likely to come into play than other foods. Apple cider vinegar is a type of vinegar produced from the fermentation process of apple juice. White vinegar, in addition to being more digestible, can be more flavorful and less strong than apple cider vinegar. If you have stray cats on your property, you can use vinegar to keep them at bay. Stray dogs, in general, have a much higher tolerance for acid smells than they do for vinegar. To keep cats away from certain areas, a little vinegar on a daily basis may be useful.
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Plastic Bottles Filled With Water
In some areas of Japan you can see water bottles everywhere to deter cats.
Some swear by it, others say it doesn’t work. In any case, this is a harmless and free method to keep cats away from your property, so you can always try and check for yourself if it is effective or just a myth.
Fill empty plastic bottles with water and leave them outside, the bottles will shimmer when sunny and rumour has it that cats dislike anything sparkly so your garden will no longer be their preferred outdoor little box.
Put Up An Oscillot Fence
Cats can scale up vertical surfaces very quickly. Thus, it would help if you deduced a means of making your fence impossible to climb. An oscillating barrier is handy in achieving this outcome. If it tries to rise, it will be unsuccessful and fall back.
The oscillating fence will keep off the stray cats from entering your yard. Additionally, it will stop your cat from leaving your yard. It is thus a perfect repellent.
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Sprinkle Black Pepper Around The Porch
Pepper is an irritant that cats will avoid coming close to. Scatter it around the porch area and ensure that it is inaccessible to other pets and kids.
It will repel the animals, keep them away as long as the smell is still present. Hence, to facilitate this, Keep applying the pepper once in a while, especially if it has recently rained.
How To Keep Cats Away From Your Yard
Here are some measures you can take to discourage cats from coming into your yard.
- Remove any food from the yard. Cats are likely attracted to any type of feed in your yard. Avoid feeding any pets outside and make sure any trash with food scraps is properly covered and sealed. Wash any grills to remove the odor of food.
- Create a rough area in your garden. Cats enjoy soft surfaces. Making your garden more prickly could stop them from visiting. Your garden bed could have twigs, pebbles, or chicken wire.
- Block off any shelter. Cats like to find shelter where they can raise their young. Board up any openings in your sheds or garage. You should also cover any opening to any decks or patios.
- Wash down their favorite spots. Cats like to spray to mark their territory. Hosing down the area where they like to congregate will eliminate their odor.
- Set up a security system to scare them. There are lights, sprinklers, and sirens available that are motion-activated. These are very effective at scaring cats away. I have personally used these Orbit sprinklers to get effective results.
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Cats Lounge In Your Yard Or Porch Or On Your Car
Reason: Cats tend to remain close to their food source.
4 Quick Tips:
1. Shift the cats food source to a less central location, where you wont mind if they hang out.
2. Apply fragrances that deter cats around the edges of your yard, the tops of fences, and on any favorite digging areas or plants. See Cats are digging in your garden for a list of cat-deterring fragrances.
3. Install an ultrasonic deterrent or a motion-activated sprinkler. You can find humane deterrent products at garden supply stores.
4. Use a car cover or place carpet runners on top of your car to avoid paw prints.
How To Keep Cats Off Outdoor Furniture:
No one in their right mind would want the expensive outdoor furniture to be in a miserable condition.
Cats can destroy a good piece of furniture in a few days, and if the one does not keep the situation under check, they will need to get new furniture frequently.
You can follow the simple methods in this section to get rid of the problem instead of buying new furniture. It is better to be safe than sorry.
- Use a scratching post in the household
In the following subsections, we will explain each technique in detail and help one understand the usage and repercussions of each method.
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Why Keep Cats Out Of The Garden At All
When feral cats make themselves at home in your yard, they do so by doing their business in your grass, on your patio furniture, or in garden beds. This wouldnt be much of a problem in the case of other animal interlopers, except that solid cat waste can carry harmful intestinal parasites and diseases, and certainly dont want that fertilizing your veggies.
According to the David Suzuki Foundation, cat feces contain parasites and pathogens that arent really present in herbivore manure, like the kind usually used in gardening. One of these harmful pathogens causes a disease called toxoplasmosis, which can affect your immune system, result in weeks of pain and fever, and create dangerous complications if youre pregnant. Diseases like these are the same reason we dont use dog poop as fertilizer.
As if that werent enough reason to stop stray cats micturating upon your lawn and pooping in your garden, cats are also the bane of songbirds. Sure, a stray or domestic cat in your yard might cut down on the number of mice or rats in your area, but they will also deter any would-be warblers from visiting.
Ways To Keep Cats Away From Your Home
Our cute furry friends are not welcomed everywhere.
There are some simple tricks to keep cats away from your property, but they are not the necessarily the most efficient.
Animal welfare charity Mayhew told Newsweek that “what would work for one cat probably wouldn’t necessary work for the other ten cats coming into your garden.”
For the National Feline Research Council, the most common way of managing feral cat communities is through the trap-neuter-return method. This involves cats being trapped, taken to a vet to be neutered and then returned to their habitat.
It says: “TNR can be an effective method for both reducing feral cat populations and reducing the number of cats and kittens entering local animal shelters.”
If help to professionally manage the cat colony in your garden is not available, here are some tips that may help keep cats away from your home.
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How To Keep Cats Away: 29 Ways
Cats are the most popular pet in the United States. Additionally, there are 88 million pet cats. When cats are feral or become strays, they can become a problem.
Stray and feral cats often carry dangerous diseases that can spread to humans. Rabies, the most common disease, is fatal if its transmitted to a human and they dont get treated. So clearly its best to keep stray and feral cats away from your property, especially if you have children around.
In an effort to help you with this issue, Ive put together a list of 29 ways to help you keep stray and feral cats away from your home.
Use A Commercial Deterrent Spray
You could buy a deterrent spray online and spray down your porch if you want to keep cats off that area. These sprays are full of natural ingredients that cats dislike. Cats sense of smell is far superior to ours so when they smell garlic, cinnamon, or citrus it comes across as an offensively powerful odor to them and they like to get out of the area and away from the powerful smell at the earliest opportunity.
Not so great at keeping cats out of your yard or away from large zones like the water and sound deterrents are but if you have an enclosed or small area you want to deter cats from entering or hanging around in then a deterrent spray is a decent option. Coming in at around the $20 mark, you need to spray regularly and probably wont see a reaction until you have laid down a good layer of odor. The smells are usually pretty mild and unexceptional to humans and the sprays are safe for children and the environment.
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What Can You Put Outside To Keep Stray Cats Away
To keep cats away from gardens, flower beds, or specific areas of property, scatter fragrant items that dont appeal to a cats sense of smell, like fresh orange or lemon peels, organic citrus-scented sprays, coffee grounds, vinegar, pipe tobacco, or oil of lavender, lemongrass, citronella, or eucalyptus.
Lay Down Chicken Wire To Keep Strays Away
Outdoor cats will look for anything that they can use as their litter box, and that includes your garden. To stop cats from peeing in your flower beds, lay down chicken wire flat in your soil before planting. You can use wire cutters to make spaces for your plants to grow through.
Chicken wire is excellent at keeping stray cats away because they dont like the feel of the fence on their paws. Theyll steer clear of any space where you place the chicken wire on the ground.
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Solutions That Worked For Me
- Using sprinklers: In my garden, I noticed that the cats usually showed up right around daybreak, so I set my sprinklers to come on then, and it really helped to keep the cats away. I have since purchased the Orbit sprinklers they will even chase deer out of your garden or yard.
- A super-soaker water gun: I have also had great success with a heavy-duty super-soaker water gun I purchased. I just sit quietly at the edge of my yard and soak down any cat that comes by. Water works better than anything to keep cats away. Once you soak down a cat once or twice, it won’t be back. I set up one of the Orbit sprinklers right beside where I park my vehicles, and I rarely, if ever, have any cat tracks on my vehicles.
- Use a motion-activated sound device and keep food away: It helps to think like a cat to determine why it is coming on your property. If they’re attracted to your pond, install either a motion-activated sound device or some sprinklers there. Food is one of the biggest reasons cats and other animals will come into your yard, so practice keeping your environment free of any food source and keep your garbage tightly covered. Your cat problems should go away quickly.
- Be consistent: Don’t leave food out sometimes and then freak out when they come to eat. Don’t give them mixed messages. After all, cats are not dumb animals, and they will learn where they are welcome and where they are not.
Lure Stray Cats Elsewhere
One of the best ways to keep strays away from some regions of your property is to entice them to hang out somewhere else. If you want to keep cats away from your garden or other spaces, set up a little hideaway in an area far away from where you dont want them.
Create an outdoor litter box by building a sandbox, or plant catnip in the corner of your property. The cats will gladly hang out there instead of pooping and peeing in your beautiful flower beds or getting into other kinds of trouble. Though this obviously wont get rid of the strays, it is a nice compromise to keep them away from the human-only areas.
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What Is The Most Effective Cat Repellent
The most effective repellents include activated sprinklers, ultrasonic devices, barriers around flowers, and commercial repellents.
Lets look at each one of them in detail:
Ultrasonic Devices
One of the unique properties of cats is their ability to detect sounds that humans cannot decipher. Ultrasonic repellents take advantage of this feature. They will produce a sound pitch that is scary to the cats.
Nonetheless, you dont have to worry about the sound being a nuisance as you will hardly hear it. For the cats, it will be a different story. They will take off and avoid coming close to the porch area.
Therefore, the best idea is to place the ultrasonic device in the path of the stray cats. The ZOVENCHI Ultrasonic Animal Repellent will be a perfect fit for scaring away the animals.
It has sensitive detectors that will identify the slightest motions. In turn, this will prompt the production of the scary sound.
Barriers Around Flowers
You do not want to have stray cats making your flower beds and gardens their litter box. If you allow them, they will destroy the flowers and plants and have a reason to frequent your yard. Hence, shielding the flowers is imperative in preventing this from occurring.
You can create the barriers in two primary ways. First, you can erect chicken wire mesh around the flowers. Alternatively, you can lay the chicken wire just above the soil surface. Cats will avoid digging where there is such a barrier.
Commercial Repellents
Natural Repellents