Having your neighbours cat using your garden as a toilet can be a pain and people use various methods whether it be water in a bottle or if a person has a dog that might keep the cat out of your garden. One way that has been tried and tested by myself is black pepper or chilli pepper, sprinkle it around your garden and trust me no more cat poo, cats are very sensitive when it comes to smell so pepper is ideal to use.
I had the most resilient cats in my neighborhood. It seemed that no matter what method I used, it did not work. This included cayenne pepper, lavender and rue plants, keeping the area moist/wet, coffee grounds. Nothing would stop them! I resorted to catching them in a humane cage and having the animal shelter pick them up. Hopefully they have better homes now and a litter box.
I'm on the verge of this as well. We're mostly worried about the cats (who are strays, but my neighbor feeds them) pooping in our sandbox. We have it covered with a lid, but there is the occasion where one of my children leaves the lid off. I'm just waiting for the day I take a kid into the doctor and she has worms. Ugh. Anyway, cats in our neighborhood are a nuisance. When they are in heat once a year, we're fully aware. I'm about to get a cage as well and send them to the humane society. It is seriously the only thing that is going to get rid of them. I'm sure of the three we have roaming, at least one of them is female and having a litter every year also.
I've had excellent results with pepper myself. There was a cat in the neighbourhood that was insisting on using my raised vegetable bed as a litter box. Aside from the smell, this is obviously a bit of an issue when you're growing things you want to actually eat. I used ordinary black pepper, and had to be quite liberal in spreading it around. I also had to repeat every few days and more often when it rains (and this is Ireland, I ended up repeating a LOT...). After a while the cat did get the message, and didn't return even when I stopped spreading pepper around. Alternatively, I hear using a water pistol can be very effective, but you have to catch the cat in the act and your aim has to be accurate.
I have a small garden that I just recently started and have been having this problem. I'm glad I read this post cause it was driving me crazy that I had to clean out cat poop every day from my garden I am def gonna try the pepper thing. Thank you very much for sharing.
