cats + car = stress

Casual

I have a problem that has no obvious solution but doing nothing isn't a great option either.

I recently got a car, it's fairly old but it is (was) in good condition and it makes me happy. Trouble is I live in a house that is seperated into two houses so I share a back garden with the male equivilant of a crazy cat spinster. He has at least three cats possibly more and they use my car as a jungle gym/scratching post.

This leaves me with several problems. Firstly my car is now covered in muddy paw prints and cat claw marks all over the roof and boot. I havn't spoken to the guy yet because while I'm pissed off as hell what am I supposed to say? "Keep your cats of my car"? I'm a reasonable person so I know there isn't a lot he can do to stop them but that doesn't mean I'm happy to carry on letting them cause $fuck-knows-how-much worth of damage to my car.

We share the back garden so I can't ask him to keep his cats out of the yard either. My concience and the law won't allow me to kill the cats. It's really the only place I have to park it as well so moving it isn't an option. I don't even know if I'm legally allowed to hold him responsible for the damage his animals are doing to my paintwork?

I want to be able to sell it one day but because the car is kind of old the cost of having it re-sprayed wouldn't be reflected in the extra money I'd get at sale.

TL;DR Neighbours cats are fucking up my paintwork.

So in short what should I say? Is there anything I can do? Or do I just have to take it?

That_Spoony_Bard

I know it's less than ideal, but you could always try using a car cover.

urahonky

Yeah... Nothing short of the car cover will help you here. You could build some sort of motion-sensing-loud-noise generator to keep the cats away but that might be really annoying at night.

admanb

I feel like if you're that worried about your paint job, you should be using a car cover. If it's not cats, it's going to be a raccoon, or randomly thrown rocks, or hail.

Casual

There's no racoons or similar animals here, the paint job can stand up to hail easily and since it's in my back yard no one is throwing rocks at it either. The only issue here is those damn cats using the car as a scratching post.

So it looks like I'm going to have to shell out for a car cover and hope the cats don't fuck that up too.

What about the damage already done? And trust me there's actually quite a lot of damage not just a few scratches, one of these cats went ape-shit on the boot. There's scratches running from one side of the car to the other.

Can I hold my neighbour accountable for that?

Deusfaux

as someone very experienced with cats, I'm just going to say that the suggested behaviour from these cats is very very odd.

are you absolutely sure cats did the damage you see/are describing?

most cats I see might leave little prints on a car's body, but that's it. they climb up, sit on top, and come down after a while. claws just aren't really involved, let alone doing anything with them to the paint...

Casual

99.9% sure yeah. I see the cats sitting on it, there are cat paw prints all over it and the scratch marks I'm seeing are the exact size of cat paws/claws. Add into that that NZ (at least my corner of it) lacks any wildlife along the lines of foxes/raccoons there isn't anything else it could be.

So I'm as certain as I can be without catching it on tape that the cats are scratching the car up.

baudattitude

In Japan, I saw a lot of cars with little plastic spike mats on the hood; quicker to roll up and take off than a full car cover, but since they're plastic they're nothing that's going to actually hurt the cat, just make it uncomfortable for them. I haven't seen them for sale in the US, but maybe they're available in kiwiland.



I'm going to say, though, that cat claws can be sharp but they're not made of metal and most cats aren't that heavy; if they're causing a lot of damage it might be that your paint has degraded from being parked outside in the sun and rain instead of in a garage.

illig

motion activated sprinkler

these are usually for pigeons or other flying pests, but they work great on cats as well

they're even recommended here:
http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_KEEPING_CATS_OUT_OF_GARDENS_AND_YARDS

John Matrix

Aren't there certain smells that cats hate? I would suggest spraying that scent around/on the car to deter them so long as the spray doesn't contain chemicals that would harm the paint/rubber on your car.

bowen

Citrus. The car cover is the best way. The only thing you can do for damages is to record his cats doing it and take him to small claims court. I can't imagine the damages are worth having a bitchy ass neighbor though. Maybe a few minor scratches that you can probably buff/fill in.

bwanie

stil is very odd behaviour...

the only time i've gotten a cat to scratch painted metal, was when i bopped one on the head that was snoozing on my asshole neighbour's car (i know i know) and i remember being very dissapointed with the resulting damage.

maybe they are scratching really old paint from your car, but then there's no need to get upset. because you're going to have that repainted anyway

Casual

bowen wrote: »

Citrus. The car cover is the best way. The only thing you can do for damages is to record his cats doing it and take him to small claims court. I can't imagine the damages are worth having a bitchy ass neighbor though. Maybe a few minor scratches that you can probably buff/fill in.

*sigh*

I figured this was the case I just wanted to hear someone else confirm it. Also Thanks for the citrus tip, wouldn't it corrode the paint though? And the motion activated sprinkler will be looked into further. :winky:

I know this is odd cat behaviour but what can I say? Evidently theres something about the car that pisses them off. The paint isn't old at all. It's metallic paint and it was in good nick. The scratches aren't deep as in reaching the metal but they are there and they are visible. And there's a lot of them.

bowen

Grab a car cover and citrus it up. After a while they should stop going near it. Or, they'll just destroy the shit out of the car cover.

Veevee

Have you tried talking to your neighbor about it? That's usually step 1

Elin

I don't know about laws in your area, but a lot of places in the US have laws against letting animals roam free. If you exhaust all other options you may be able to see if your humane society/animal control will come collect the cats.

Spudge

If the scratches aren't deep (just nicking the clearcoat) a good solid buff/wax ought to take the scratches out or at least make them much less visible

You could go all the way with wet sand/claybar but that's an asston of work

Bionic Monkey

Elin wrote: »

I don't know about laws in your area, but a lot of places in the US have laws against letting animals roam free. If you exhaust all other options you may be able to see if your humane society/animal control will come collect the cats.

This is an option, but I wouldn't recommend it except as a last option if you don't mind instigating an outright war against your neighbor.

FyreWulff

Can you tell if he's properly trimming their nails? They really shouldn't be using their claws to maintain traction, but if they are not being trimmed they are going to end up (unintentionally) scratching everything they walk over.

that being said, if you cherish your paint job that much you should probably just invest in a car cover anyway.

hatedinamerica

In my experience, cats really really hate vinegar. I don't know how corrosive it is, if it would be bad for your paint or whatever, but if there is a cat fucking with something I don't want it to fuck with, I spray some vinegar water on/around it and they usually leave it alone forever.

Casual

Veevee wrote: »

Have you tried talking to your neighbor about it? That's usually step 1

That's half the problem. What can I really say? He isn't going to keep them inside all day or have them de-clawed on my account.

Elin wrote: »

I don't know about laws in your area, but a lot of places in the US have laws against letting animals roam free. If you exhaust all other options you may be able to see if your humane society/animal control will come collect the cats.

I don't know much about the laws here because I've only been here a couple of months, however I seriously doubt there is anything illegal about letting cats roam.

Spudge wrote: »

If the scratches aren't deep (just nicking the clearcoat) a good solid buff/wax ought to take the scratches out or at least make them much less visible

You could go all the way with wet sand/claybar but that's an asston of work

This is good advice I'll try that.

FyreWulff wrote: »

Can you tell if he's properly trimming their nails? They really shouldn't be using their claws to maintain traction, but if they are not being trimmed they are going to end up (unintentionally) scratching everything they walk over.

Knowing this guy I doubt he does anything of the sort. I've seen him leave his birds outside in the sun for hours at a time.

hatedinamerica wrote: »

In my experience, cats really really hate vinegar. I don't know how corrosive it is, if it would be bad for your paint or whatever, but if there is a cat fucking with something I don't want it to fuck with, I spray some vinegar water on/around it and they usually leave it alone forever.

Huh, this could be a solution. I use vinigar/water solution to clean windows anyway so maybe I'll spray a shit ton of it on the glass and see what happens. Thanks.

John Matrix

They're also just cats, get out there and scare them away when possible. Escalate where necessary.

Casual

I'm pretty sure this is happening at night since the car is away most the day and it's nearly impossible to catch them at it.