Pet & Animal: How to Repel Cats

Whether you're dealing with your own cats, your neighbor's pets, or some feral felines, you can learn to keep them away from your property safely, without harming the cats or the environment. There's a lot you can do to make your spaces less attractive to the cats quickly, naturally, and easily, whether they be indoor or outdoor cats. See Step 1 for more information.

Steps

Repelling Indoor Cats

Cover surfaces you want to keep cats off with aluminum foil. If your cat is constantly scratching at a couch, or won't quit leaving a layer of fur on the back of a chair, an easy and effective technique can be to line the surface with a sheet of aluminum foil. The sound and the texture of the foil is undesirable for the cat, and they'll usually avoid it. You can always remove the foil when you're using the chair or company is coming over.
- Some cat owners have also reported success using strips of masking tape on the arms of couches or pillows to create a strange texture the cats won't like. Sticky side up or down, it can be an effective repellent.
- It's also effective to use scented repellents on small sheets or pieces of foil to make the cat less attracted to the area. These scents are discussed in the following step.
Use cat repellent scents. Citrus-scented cleaners are the most effective at keeping cats off of surfaces, so citrus cleaners are great to use on counter tops, around appliances, and gently on furniture and other places in your home where you do not want your cats to go.
- Lemongrass, lavender, and coleus are other natural cat-repellent scents. Try tossing lavender and citrus peels in small bowls and place them on shelves next to breakable items, or other places where you do not want your cats to go. Add essential oils in those same scents to increase the smell, if necessary. Spray lavender or citrus fabric fresheners on rugs to keep cats out of certain rooms in the house. You can also use these sprays on other soft surfaces, such as curtains and bed spreads, to deter cats from those places.
- Commercial cat repellents are often made from fox urine, or the waste of other predators. It's probably not something you want to spray indoors, but the use of repellent is discussed in the following method.
Use water. If your cat won't stay off your fern, or keeps climbing up and messing with the couch she always claws, use a little water to flick onto the cat. You can keep a small glass of water close by to the place you're trying to repel the cat from, dip your finger in, and flick some water around to discourage the cat.
- Better yet, buy a couple small toy squirt-guns and hide them at strategic places around the house so you'll always have an armament close by. When you use it, aim at the cat's body. Avoid its face, as a strong stream might actually hurt the cat's eyes or nose.
- Do it calmly, without raising your voice. It should be the water that the cat associates with the location, and the discomfort, not your presence or your voice.^[1]
Don't make loud sounds to punish the cat. Clicking spoons together, snapping your fingers, or yelling are not effective ways at getting your cat to stay off of surfaces or objects. You'll get the results you want in the short term–the cat will run away and hide somewhere, probably. Long-term, though, cats will come to react that way whenever they hear the sound of your raised voice, two things clicking, or snapping sounds. You'll be training your cat to be skittish, but not to avoid the object you want avoided.
Provide alternative spaces. Is it any wonder your cat wants to curl up on your super-soft comforter and take a nap? If you want to keep your cat off your bed, you need to provide a comfortable and equally-inviting sleeping alternative for the cat. Not all cats like to sleep in beds, but little spaces with furry warm blankets are inviting and pleasant. Prepare a box with an old blanket, and sprinkle a little catnip in there to make it more enticing.
- If your cat is scratching furniture, it's absolutely essential that you get a scratching post and tend to the cat's nails regularly. Cats with their claws must regularly scratch things, so you need to provide them a surface to dig into.
- It's also a good idea to make surfaces you want the cat to avoid as difficult to get to as possible. Cats are obviously sneaky jumpers and creepers, so this can be difficult, but trying to remove jumping surfaces and other objects the cat uses to perch on can help to keep them off high surfaces and difficult-to-reach spots.

Repelling Outdoor Cats

Remove food sources. If outdoor cats are coming around your yard, it's because they're looking for food and probably finding it somewhere. If you have pets, make sure their food is indoors and impossible to get to, and that there is no extra food lying around where strays can get at it. It's also a good idea to make sure mice haven't taken up residence in your porch or foundation, or you might end up welcoming the extra feline security.
- Check all your trashcans for security, making sure the lids are secure and no food scraps are hanging out or easy to reach. Keep your trash pile manageable and secure so that no cats will come sniffing around the scent those tuna cans.
- Talk politely to the neighbors to find out if they've been feeding cats. If one person starts laying out food, it makes it very difficult to keep the cats away. It's also a recipe for overfeeding, which ends up negatively affecting the cats' health in the long run.
Use moving water sprinklers to scare cats off. Cats, even feral ones, really don't like water. Place motion-activated water sprinklers in strategic spots where you see cats regularly, and where you'd like them to avoid. Place them in areas where you know cats enter the yard, and in several other spots, as well, so you get good coverage.
- After a couple days, change the location up slightly so the cats will be sure to get scared off and won't be able to learn the new pattern. It shouldn't take many water scare-offs before the cats leave your yard alone.
Plant cat repellents. There are a variety of plants that look attractive in your yard, but are really unattractive to cats. Specifically, planting the herb rue in and around your garden will make cats stay far away. In the fall, you can harvest and dry rue to store it during winter and use as cat repellent. In the spring, sprinkle it in the garden to keep cats away from your starts.
- Other nice plants known for their cat repellent properties include citronella, lemongrass, eucalyptus and lavender. These are pleasant scents for people and attractive looking plants to have in your yard, but cats hate them with a passion.^[2]
Use cat repellent mulches. You can mulch the surface of your garden, as well as between outdoor plants, bird feeders, and other places you'd like to keep cats away, using citrus fruit peels, coffee grounds or pipe tobacco. All are known cat deterrents, and have nitrogen-fixing properties for the soil, making them excellent for the environment and for scaring cats off.
Bring out bigger guns. If you've got real cat problems and no pets of your own, you may not want to play nice anymore. Without being cruel to the cats you want to keep away, you can invest in more reliable and effective methods sure to keep cats away, including commercial cat repellent sprays and sonic devices designed to irritate animals.
- Try a commercially sold cat repellent. Usually, these are made of synthesized or collected predator urine, and a small amount around the perimeter of your yard should do a lot to keep cats and other animals away. Follow the manufacturer's instructions and make sure the substance won't harm the animals.^[3]
- Install an ultrasonic pet repellent designed to repel cats. These devices create high-pitched audio transmissions that humans and most other animals do not hear, driving them away enthusiastically. Do not use these repellents if you have pets of your own. You may also want to talk to your neighbors to find out whether or not they have pets if you want to use one of these devices.
Protect the things you don't want touched by cats. If you've got a budding garden and want to keep cats and other pests away from your vegetables and plants, you can create barriers that will make it physically difficult for anything to get in. Close off the entrance to sheds, porches or other areas that cats might enjoy sleeping or urinating in. Taking away their shelter may keep them out of your yard entirely.
- Put small rocks in the garden where there is exposed dirt to prevent cats from digging. You can also cut plastic carpet runners to fit between garden rows or any other area where a large amount of dirt is exposed. Lay them in the garden with the spoke side pointing up and then lightly cover them with soil. These spokes won't injure the cats' paws, but will deter them from stepping there. You can find plastic carpet runners at most office supply stores and carpet stores. They can be a bit expensive, but once you customize them for your garden, you can use them year after year.
- Lay chicken wire flat on the soil between rows as an inexpensive alternative to carpet runners. Use rocks or ground spikes to anchor the ends of the pieces and cover the chicken wire with soil.
Consider establishing a place in your yard for cats use. If you make the cat's usual haunts less attractive, you might want to provide them with an out-of-the-way area in your yard to decrease the chances of them returning to the forbidden zones. This is an especially good idea if it's your cat, or if you enjoy the cat's presence, but want them to stay out of your sugar-snap peas.
- Plant catnip in the opposite corner of the yard from where you want the cats, and allow the grass to grow significantly taller. Add a tall perch or two from an old bar stool or bench if there is not a tree, fence or other high spot available for the cat to survey its domain.
- You can provide outdoor cats a litter box by tilling the soil in a designated area or putting sand on the ground in that spot. Clean the area regularly to encourage them to keep using it.
Consider trapping and neutering stray cats in your neighborhood. Recently, the ASPCA has promoted a policy called Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) as a way of controlling feral populations. If you've got a serious problem with stray cats in your neighborhood, consider helping to control the population and help the animals in your neighborhood stay healthy by having them neutered and releasing them again.