Curfew for cats?????

First of all, no offense to my cat loving friends...............

But, yes, it's true, the city of Walla Walla, Washington is putting a curfew on cats at night. Any cats that are out after curfew........................go to the "pound".

I actually think this is an awesome idea. Whoever knows me, knows I absolutely can not stand cats. Never liked them. Not even when I was little. My nightmares contain cats. I despise cats.

So, back to the curfew....................what an ingenious idea. This cat problem is getting bigger and bigger here in post falls, and I am assuming in many other cities around the country.

Joe and I have actually had a huge problem with cats roaming in our neighborhood. Ever since we moved here we have tried to deter cats from coming on to our property. We have sprayed the bushes with deterrent, put a gel in the soil they were "frequenting". To no avail, of course. These cats have used my garden beds as their litter box for years. I am sure this is just handy as ever to the cats owner, as they do not have to clean out the litter box at their home, the cat just comes over here to use "mine". Nice.

We have figured out who owns the cats and then gone and confronted the owners. Their favorite response is........"You can't keep cats inside or on a leash, it is natural for cats to wander all over.....". So???? I really could care less. I had a toddler that wanted to play in her sand box. There is no possible way she could have, as the cats had adopted it as.............well, you know.

My front yard garden beds were full of this crap, also. It is so disgusting.

I called the "animal control" for the city of post falls. They currently and never have had any regulations regarding cats. Now if it is a dog, it is another story. I truly don't think either one should wander around town off a leash. What's the difference between cats and dogs, I ask???

Then, I asked them if we could shoot the cats with a B-B gun. (not to harm them, just to scare them.......)Nope. Against the law. Even if they are on my property???? That is crap.

So, the animal control suggested "trapping" these cats in cat traps. But, they were currently out of their lendable traps. Seems like others are having this problem also. And when you trap these cats, you need to bring them to the local shelter in order to stay within the guidelines of trapping these animals. Oh, and then they informed me that you can not just drop them off, you need to pay a fee to drop them off. Well, Joe was not hearing it. He liked the trapping idea, but not the forking over of our money.

So, we purchased a trap. Put tuna into it, and what do you know, it became the most popular place in the neighborhood for these visitors. We were trapping them left and right. Everyone was running around wondering where their precious feline was. We of course, acted like we did not know what they were talking about............(No, we did NOT harm these cats, if that's what you are wondering. We stayed within our legal range.....and these cats are currently back at thier homes, using their own litter boxes...........)

So, one morning, after we had the trap out front of our house in the morning, we had our neighbor, not a cat owner and the pastor of a local church, knock on our door and let us know that we currently had a cat in our "trap" and it was "screaming" in there and obviously wanted "out." "Thank you, " I replied. "I will let my husband know...." I acted like I was not involved in this act at all. But I still feel really stupid about it. So, we stopped trapping and we continue to have this problem, 8 years later. It is ridiculous people, just plain ridiculous.

Anybody have any solutions to share??????????? We would love to hear them!!!