Behold, the Poocat Barrier...
The Poocat Barrier is composed of Mixed Containers filled with water for weight. This is all I happened to have sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to take to the recycling, so it's just another reason you should procrastinate as long as possible on this sort of thing, one day those empty pasta sauce jars and cranberry juice bottles will come in handy, and you don't want to be the sucker who takes care of his recycling regularly.
Why construct such a formidable structure you might ask? It is my hope that it will be enough of a deterrent to protect me from the worst of the Poocat advances for approximately the next two weeks. I didn't know for sure which of my two neighbors, whom I share the patio with, was the owner of Poocat, but today I found out.
I suspected it was my nearest neighbor, and so today I knocked on his door. He initially apologized for being too loud (he had music playing) but I told him that was not my concern as relative to previous tenants he was as silent as a crypt (that's another story, and another blog, perhaps Noisy And/Or Smelly People That Live Beside Me). He confirmed that he was in fact the keeper of two cats, and that he had already been fined as the Resident Manager knew about them, owing to the fact that some 9 or 10 months ago the bylaws of the building were amended such that no new casts or dogs were allowed in the building (existing pets were allowed to stay).
I posed my situation to him, that being my apartment smelling like cat urine and feces, as Poocat used the gravel immediately outside my patio door as a litter box. My neighbor apologized, and offered to clean up any Poocat deposits, which I declined as it would me even more annoying to get him to do it than to just do it myself. He noted that he was allergic to cats, that he really had to let them out sometimes especially since it was so hot inside (being a south-west-ish facing unit with no AC, like mine), and he really had to have the window open sometimes. I pointed out that being in the same situation I also would like to have my window open without the stench of cat poo permeating my home.
Eventually he mentioned that he was essentially a cat-sitter for his girlfriend's mother, who was "off in Paris or something", and that they would "be gone in two weeks". "I've almost taken them to the vet a couple of times. I can barely stand them."
Taking him at his word, I will simply attempt to deal with Poocat as best I can for the next couple of weeks in the hope that I will soon be rid of this plague of poo. I had originally considered a defense as elaborate as buying actual bricks or tiles with which to cover the gravel area of my patio, but given the pending departure of Poocat, a more transient solution seemed appropriate, and the Mixed Containers Poocat Barrier was born.
By this point you might be wondering about the liquid dribbled from the end of the Poocat Barrier onto the patio tile, and no, it is not cat pee. It is, in fact...
Undiluted Lemon Scented Multi-Purpose Mr Clean, which seems to be reasonably effective at masking and removing the potent stench of urine soaked gravel baked under the mid afternoon sun.
One of my earlier attempts in cat-pee-smell-suppression involved a bottle of Nature's Miracle Stain & Odor Remover, purchased at a nearby pet supply store. It really didn't work that great, but I also tried it on a hotter day when the smell of cat pee was particularly noticeable. I used up the entire bottle, and in my opinion, the impact was negligible.
The Poocat Barrier is composed of Mixed Containers filled with water for weight. This is all I happened to have sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to take to the recycling, so it's just another reason you should procrastinate as long as possible on this sort of thing, one day those empty pasta sauce jars and cranberry juice bottles will come in handy, and you don't want to be the sucker who takes care of his recycling regularly.
Why construct such a formidable structure you might ask? It is my hope that it will be enough of a deterrent to protect me from the worst of the Poocat advances for approximately the next two weeks. I didn't know for sure which of my two neighbors, whom I share the patio with, was the owner of Poocat, but today I found out.
I suspected it was my nearest neighbor, and so today I knocked on his door. He initially apologized for being too loud (he had music playing) but I told him that was not my concern as relative to previous tenants he was as silent as a crypt (that's another story, and another blog, perhaps Noisy And/Or Smelly People That Live Beside Me). He confirmed that he was in fact the keeper of two cats, and that he had already been fined as the Resident Manager knew about them, owing to the fact that some 9 or 10 months ago the bylaws of the building were amended such that no new casts or dogs were allowed in the building (existing pets were allowed to stay).
I posed my situation to him, that being my apartment smelling like cat urine and feces, as Poocat used the gravel immediately outside my patio door as a litter box. My neighbor apologized, and offered to clean up any Poocat deposits, which I declined as it would me even more annoying to get him to do it than to just do it myself. He noted that he was allergic to cats, that he really had to let them out sometimes especially since it was so hot inside (being a south-west-ish facing unit with no AC, like mine), and he really had to have the window open sometimes. I pointed out that being in the same situation I also would like to have my window open without the stench of cat poo permeating my home.
Eventually he mentioned that he was essentially a cat-sitter for his girlfriend's mother, who was "off in Paris or something", and that they would "be gone in two weeks". "I've almost taken them to the vet a couple of times. I can barely stand them."
Taking him at his word, I will simply attempt to deal with Poocat as best I can for the next couple of weeks in the hope that I will soon be rid of this plague of poo. I had originally considered a defense as elaborate as buying actual bricks or tiles with which to cover the gravel area of my patio, but given the pending departure of Poocat, a more transient solution seemed appropriate, and the Mixed Containers Poocat Barrier was born.
By this point you might be wondering about the liquid dribbled from the end of the Poocat Barrier onto the patio tile, and no, it is not cat pee. It is, in fact...
One of my earlier attempts in cat-pee-smell-suppression involved a bottle of Nature's Miracle Stain & Odor Remover, purchased at a nearby pet supply store. It really didn't work that great, but I also tried it on a hotter day when the smell of cat pee was particularly noticeable. I used up the entire bottle, and in my opinion, the impact was negligible.
At the same time I had tried another defensive approach, Outdoor Granular REPELLENT. FOR DOGS & CATS. Purchased at the same pet supply store. It didn't appear to work at all, although Poocat did appear somewhat curious about the Granules while attempting to appear nonchalant in the face of Sunflower On A Stick.
So now it remains to be seen if a combination of Poocat Barrier and Mr Clean will be sufficiently effective to keep the next couple of weeks Lemony Scented and not-smelling-strongly-of-cat-pee.
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