[psiga]

Despite having not visited LPN in some time, I decided to stop by to see if there was anything interesting from Timbo. Indeed, a big fat bastard of an entry: http://largeprimenumbers.com/news.php?nid=274 It makes for a great epilogue to the State of Tokyo X series, in my opinion. Anyway: He mentions a stray cat.

I had to deal with a stray or two after moving to a new neighborhood with a slightly higher population of them. There don't seem to be enough of them to think that it's a feral cat problem; they're probably spayed and neutered and all that. But Tim seems to be having a problem with a really shitty one, so that got me thinking of ways to make cats leave. I'm presuming that Japanese animal control is either nonexistent or gives up as easily as most Japanese agencies seem to, so we'll just dwell on personal tactics.

Some things to consider are that they have more sensitive noses than we do, and preen themselves a lot. If you, say, put down pepper spray where you know they will walk or rest, it'll get in their paws, annoy them, then punish them when they preen it out. After a while, they learn to stay away from those regions. Cayenne pepper itself works as well, but the red powder will stain horribly. They dislike the smell of oranges, blood, and anything with 'aluminum and ammonium sulphate', though I don't have experience with those methods personally. Moth balls work well, though they are toxic, and so should be kept away from stupid animals/children; this is the method that I have used personally.

If a cat is shitting up a storm in a relatively small yard area, consider the possible cost effectiveness of chicken wire or tinfoil. They tend to hate walking on it. If you're fortunate enough to have a wall that the cat needs to climb over, then lovely possibilities exist there, depending on how devious you are: Caltrops, crinkly things, and strips of upturned tape, for example. For some reason I'm smiling at the idea of tape with cayenne pepper on it, because the cat will instinctively go trying to get the sticky stuff off.

Motion-activated toys might work to varying degrees if the cat is particularly skittish. There are also motion-activated water guns, but they tend to be expensive.

These methods are designed to make pretty much any cats learn to stay away. In the particular case of Tim's unwanted guest, it sounds like it's feral and reproductively active, as well as a terrible nuisance, so I wouldn't hesitate to put it in a situation that spells its certain demise -- however, it's hard to say whether there are other cats that could be harmed in the process, so one might as well try the deterrents instead.
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[rabite gets whacked!]

Growing up, we had a cat who'd pursued our neighbor's chickens (shit buddy, perhaps free-ranging those things in the middle of the woods wasn't the greatest idea) and wound up with a .22 bullet permanently lodged in his throat, as said neighbor "tried to shoot behind him to scare him off." He survived and lived a good full life with no side effects except a voice scratchy enough to make Tom Waits jealous.

I have no idea if this incident dissuaded him from further pursuit of chickens.

You might try working up some traps and transporting them to some other location, though.
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[Adilegian]

[Mr. Apol]

:(
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[diplo]

tim108: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
a cat
just walked across my balcony
hobbling
i noticed uhhhhhhhhh
he's now missing a leg
and blood was SPURTING out of the stump
wow
wow
wow
he bled on my balcony
that's disgusting
how am i supposed to clean this up?
it's like, blood on STONE
me: i don't believe it
pics now
tim108: im not going to take pics of a drop of blood on concrete
it's boring
i'm not even going to clean it up
i just poured a glass of water over it and it mostly washed away anyway
me: there must have been some feline rage occurring in the streets
tim108: can a cat BITE another cat's leg OFF, though?
i mean, you see cats missing legs all the time
yet you never stop to wonder how that happens
there are like five cats in this neighborhooed
one of them, i'm considering killing
me: no :(
tim108: i want to buy cat food and then put some rat poison in it
no seriously
this cat comes to my window and SCREAMS all night
every night
sounds like someone screaming "HELLOOOOOOO?!?!?!?" while gargling a glass of water
tim108: then he goes to the gravel outside the apartment window and digs for about ten minutes
and then takes a fucking monster shit
which stinks the whole room up :(
mostly it's the defecating that makes me want to kill the cat
though the CONSTANT MEOWING is annoying as well
seriously, the fuckin thing meows for HOURS
with no interruption
me: maybe you could like try to lure it near another cat
and then they would fight to the death
tim108: no i think rat poison is the way to go
me: well ok
tim108: or maybe just a whole bunch of aspirin in cat food?
do i even need to buy rat poison?
me: i don't know
tim108: i dont even have any meat
i would have to buy fuckin cat food to poison this cat
i'm sure it'd eat whatever i gave it
then hopefully it'd die as far from my apartment as possible
i dont want to touch a dead cat
though i guess if it collapsed, like, RIGHT after eating the rat poison
i could pick him up and carry him a couple blocks away and leave him atop some garbage bags or something
this would work best on a night before garbage pickup!!
man why dont i just throw the cat into my garbage and seal it shut?
the garbagemen would just throw it into the garbage truck

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Disappointed this isn't about the band.
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[Koji]

Disappointed this is about dying cats/killing cats.
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The Ants Parade.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

disappointed but quite wiling to believe that tim wants to and will kill this cat if it doesn't get itself killed first

[psiga]

If I thought that it'd be possible to safely capture the cat with a rented cat trap loaded with nip, then that'd be dandy.

But animal control would probably kill it anyway.


Also:


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[The New Ska]

Oh God, strays are impossible to get rid of without some sort of brutality. There's sort of an epidemic in my neighborhood. About a week ago, for instance, I heard some noises in the living room, so I looked over from my computer only to see an unfamiliar cat in the litter box.

That was the puzzling thing. They are litter trained.

[DaleNixon]

Cat Haven here in Baton Rouge simply traps feral strays, neuters them, then releases them back into their environment.

I guess the idea is that they'll still keep their territory somewhat, but they won't procreate.

My neighborhood has a bit of a stray problem. There are the old ladies who buy traps competing with the old ladies who PUT OUT FOOD for the strays.
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[Toto]

some of them are so cute :( you can't help but want to feed them

[Rud31]

[Churippu]