Cats are very cute creatures, but things get unpleasant when the stray cats bring their business to your property. The stray cats will be making things abrupt but the feces of cats contains dangerous toxoplasma that is deadly for pregnant women or people with a weak immune system.
Sometimes these cats also visit the surrounding properties searching for food or shelter. If once they find food or shelter, they will become an often uninvited guest on your porch.
In some cases, the dog owners are not comfortable with the presence of stray cats around their dogs. It’s because dogs often go crazy and start barking whenever a cat hits your property.
If you’re tired of stray cats often visiting your porch to destroy the furniture or do their nasty business, it is time to take action. Whatever the reason you want to keep cats off your porch, we have got you covered.
We will share with you the proven ways to keep the furry creature off your porch specifically and your property generally. So let’s get into it without any further ado.
Before Getting Started, Thoroughly Clean The Invaded Area
If you have been noticing that a specific stray cat is often visiting your porch, the first thing you need to do is thoroughly clean the area. The best way is to wash it out. Not only it’s necessary to get rid of any parasites or germs that the cat had carried with it. But, it’s a common practice among cats that they mark an entity as their own by urinating. So there are strong chances that the cat has marked your porch as her territory.
Once you have removed all the signs of cat ownership, it will be much easier to deter the cats off your porch. Now we will jump to methods of keeping stray cats off your porch.
6 Simple Strategies to Keep Stray Cats Away from Your Porch
Here are some tips and tricks proved to give you results and answers to the question of how to keep cats off your porch.
1. Use Textures Cats Dislike
Did you know that cats are very specific about what they will put their paws on?
Cats are very picky about which surface to walk on. Therefore, the first thing you can do to prevent stray cats from hanging out on your porch is to use a texture that cats dislike. They won’t be coming more often to your porch once they don’t like the feel of walking on the floor.
Wondering what textures cats don’t like? We will tell you.
Aluminum foil is something most cats don’t like to walk or step on. You can keep your porch and porch furniture safe from stray cats by placing aluminum foil on the furniture and porch area. The idea might not seem practical, but you would surely like to try it if it gets you relief from the intruding cats.
Luckily, the cats are not a big fan of the sticky material. You can put the sticky tape in the porch area to keep these creatures off the furniture and porch. Don’t worry; it will be short-term, and you must be careful not to scratch your own furniture with double-sided tape.
The underside of the carpet runner
You can also opt for using the carpet runner rugs upside down on your porch area to keep the stray cats out of your property.
If you have an open porch or patio or don’t want a cat to even enter your property, you can do more texture installation on your patio, lawn, sitting area, etc. Sandpaper, mulch, concrete, coffee grounds, pine cones, or gravel can also do your job because cats will not likely visit your property after it.
2. Cats Repellent Plants
You can also repel the furry invaders by using cat-repellent plants. The reason why to use these plants is that cats do not like the smell of certain plants, and they will never be around such plants. So you can try out using the planters on your porch to repel the cats. Some plants to try out are blackthorn, holly, lavender, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, rue, citronella, etc. You can also plant these plants directly on your lawn to keep the cats off your property.
3. Remove Everything Cats Like
Essentially, deterring cats from your property means adding things that cats do not like and removing things that cats like. So what should you look for on the porch? Is there anything that might be attracting the stray cats to become uninvited guests every other day?
Cats are always looking for fresh litter boxes. Inspect your porch for any box or area where the cat might be coming to do her business very often. Besides, the cats might be getting attracted to your porch due to food. In the case of food, you can just change the location to deter them from coming.
Creating a sanctuary out of the house or on your lawn can be a good idea if you specifically want to keep stray cats off your porch only. Once their food source is moved from one location to another, they will not be spending their time on the porch.
4. Use Water To Repel Cats
Water can also be used as a cat repellent, a great one indeed. Cats are not a fan of water, and you can control the misbehaving felines with a water strategy.
Repeling cats can be a very cost-effective thing if you’re using water to do it. There are many ways to use water to prevent stray cats from hanging on your porch.
- Spray Bottles can be conveniently used to warn the cats to keep their paws off your porch. However, this method requires you to be always vigilant and look for the cat’s invasions. After some time, the cat will have fear, and it won’t be coming back.
- Water Guns can be fun for your kids, but they can actually be used to control the misbehaving cats. You can get your kids down on the mission of deterring stray cats by spraying water from water guns as soon as a cat is found around the porch.
- An automatic Water Sprayer is also a solution for cats. The motion sensor of the sprayer detects the movement around and starts water spray. If you can invest in this solution, it will deter cats before they think of jumping into your porch. But the downside of this method is that sometimes undesired persons can become a victim of the spray. In some cases, the motion sensor fails to detect a cat’s entry, and it stays unattended.
Spray bottles and water guns are more practical than the automatic sprayer among all water methods.
5. Ultrasonic Device
An ultrasonic repellent device is a solar-powered motion sensor that gets activated as soon as it senses an animal’s presence around it. You can get one from Amazon to deter the stray cats trying to invade your porch.
Wondering how does it work to keep the cats away?
The motion sensor emits a combination of flashing light and a sound at a frequency only audible to the animals. As a result, the cats won’t be hanging around your porch. You have to place the ultrasonic device at an angle where the device won’t miss the cat’s presence no matter what.
You can check out the options available on Amazon, and we liked the one by Bird-X. The motion sensor can protect up to 4000 sq. ft and can be used in porches, patios, lawns, backyards, balconies, greenhouses, etc.
6. Repel Cats With Different Smells
As we mentioned earlier that cats like certain smells and dislike others. When the disliked smells are around, cats won’t be hanging there. So, you can deter stray cats from entering your porch to scratch the furniture and make it a litter box with different smells. You can use the following ones to control the misbehaving furry balls:
- Apple Cider Vinegar can be mixed in equal parts with the water and sprayed around the porch. Chances are very high that cats won’t be hanging in as they hate the smell.
- Mint is another no-no for the cats. You can use mint-flavored mouthwash by mixing it with water and spray.
- Citrus juice will also keep the cats away from your porch. Simply pour some juice and spread fruit rinds around the porch. Cats won’t be coming back until the smells remain.
Once you stop spotting cats trying to invade, you can discontinue the use of these repellents. In all cases, the smells fade after a while. Therefore, you would have to continue the practice for some days until the cats know that your porch will no longer be their partying floor.
Wrap Up
We have shared different ways how to keep the cats off the porch. We hope these tips and tricks will help you get a hold of the furry creatures trying to invade your porch and other areas of the home. We will end the article with advice on what not to use for keeping stray cats off your porch.
Mothballs, essential oils, and pepper are known to be cat repellent, but you shouldn’t use them. They can be harmful to cats, and we should not lose sanity when trying to keep stray cats off the porch. Essential oils can be deadly for cats if absorbed in the skin or go into the lungs. Similarly, mothballs can be problematic for animals.
More from Materialsix.com:
