Cats

[perception]

I have a family of cats living under my house, and I cannot get rid of them. I come home and they tear off for my crawlspace as fast as they can. I can't seal it up now, as I am afraid of killing them down there and having to deal with the smell. They are feral, but I cant shoot them with a gun as that is illegal within city limits. So to get to the question, what would you recommend. I was thinking of getting a pellet gun, but I doubt that would be enough to actually kill them.

[Colonel Klink]

Had a similar problem with just one cat. Rented a cage/trap from the SPCA and set it out upside down with food in it. Cats are smart enough that the trap may not work when first put out. Hence having it upside down. After the food was gone three nights in a row I turned over the trap and set it with food inside. The next morning I had a very very pissed cat.

I took him to the animal shelter for them to dispose of. You may need to do this many many times so you might want to buy a trap. I think they aren't expensive. Do not attempt to make any of them a pet.

Good Luck!

[Raymond Losli]

AhhhhhHa Ha Ha ... you know Spring time is here & ya know what that Means.
They will be Dropping you a Litter or 2 under your House.
Meow, Meow, Meow. .................
.
.

[Twycross]

OTMH, you have several options.

Option #1. Smoke them out, then seal it off so they can't get back in.
Potential drawbacks: Smoke leaks into your house, and the cats just find a new place to hide.

Option #2. Get a serious pellet gun. As in .22 cal, 800+ fps. It should have plenty of power for a cat (I have no problem with one-shot stops on skunks with mine).
Potential drawbacks: Quality pellet guns can be expensive, and if the neighbors see you, you could get in trouble.

Option #3. Set traps. They are cheap, and effective, and you can either kill the cat with the trap, of hold it for relocation (or kill it when you get to it).
Potential drawbacks: You trap the neighbor's toddler (or your own).

Option #4. Buy a boa constrictor.
Potential drawbacks: You now have a new pet to take care of.

I am sure there are more ways to get rid of them. This is just OTMH.

[JohnKSa]

You CAN kill a cat with a pellet gun, but you'll have to be very good to drop them on the spot so they don't crawl back under the house. It's also much easier to wound a cat with a pellet gun than it is to kill one--having a cat turn up in the neighbors yard leaking with one of your pellets in it is not a good thing. In case anyone wonders, I'm NOT speaking from experience.

In your situation I'd probably use another approach even though I have several very nice airguns that would do the trick.

Trapping works and is much less likely to get you in trouble.

[almark]

I've always heard that cats like the taste of antifreeze... at least for a little bit. *cough* Supposedly it tastes sweet... at any rate it poisons them. Personally I'd go with the "havahart traps" (http://www.redhillgeneralstore.com/A33644.htm) as it would tend to get you in less trouble with the neighbors (don't wanna inadvertently kill one of their pets). You can get similar traps at any Tractor Supply Company, I believe, and another plus is that they're good forever, so if you get invaded later on by, say, skunks (they love living under houses, unfortunately ) you can catch them and dispatch them in a more discrete manner.

Edit: If you dont wanna shell out the $40 for a havahart, an afternoon with chicken wire, bar stock and an arc welder will yield a functional trap. You could also use chicken wire, iron pipe (1/4") and pipe joints, thereby negating the necessity for the welder. You can get the "leg trap" style traps cheaper than the havaharts, but I definitely wouldnt recommend them. You're more likely to catch yourself or a neighbor's pet than what you're going for, and the cat can always chew its leg off to escape. Seems a bit inhumane to me, too... just my $0.02 though.

[emt118]

a 22 short in a long gun works very well and not a sound it worked for me ...
had cats taking fish from my pond ....no longer a problem

[Art Eatman]

Try with mothballs. Get a box and throw about a fourth of them as far back in as you can. If the cats do a temporary move-out, close the holes.

The mothballs will evaporate and the camphor smell will go away...

, Art

[XavierBreath]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned getting a terrier type dog.

[perception]

Yeah, a dog is not really on option for me right now, but I really like the mothball idea, i think I will give that a try. The problem with the boa constrictor is that they dont eat often enough to do the job quickly, and I really dont want kittens.

[Twycross]

I'm not sure that mothballs would work. My dad tried to get rid of our skunks that way, and the next day we found the mothballs sitting outside the hole.

[Ledbetter]

Get some ammonia and mix it with water. Put it in a weed sprayer, fire extinguisher or other forceful spray device. The best thing is a pressurized fire extinguisher. Last resort is a hose-mounted car-washer.

Spray the hell out of them. They hate ammonia.

[Jseime]

paintball gun

[stephen426]

Air Guns really arent the way to go. My cousin tried to dispatch an opposum that got stuck in his garbage can. He shot it in the head many times and it didn't do a whole heck of a lot. I had to crack it over the head with a 2x4 to put it out of its misery.

Try the chemical approach, as mentioned, to stink them out if you don't want to spend much money or worry about having animal rights activists on your butt. Just make sure that they don't have even better places to hide. Stay away from smoke bombs as they may create a fire hazard. That would get the cats out in a hurry though.

[GON2FAR]

The hav-a-hart traps work. I was with Critter Control Inc. for a year, and in that time I must have trapped hundreds of feral cats. Use canned fish of some sort (we used mackrel) you will be successful. Otherwise, any of the other methods mentioned will work. I am not a fan of the pellet rifle idea. If you had God's own pellet rifle, and the cat was standing still for an indeterminate time frame, yes it would work. But since likely neither of those are the case, if you are going to kill them, use a gun up to the job. 22 cal rifle will work of course. I had excellent success with a bow as well.

[MeekAndMild]

Yes, getting the havahart is worth the extra five or ten bucks over el cheapo box traps. I recently got one to solve my possum problem and it is both sturdy and easy to use, but the clones I have used in the past all had difficulties with intermittant escapes and with jamming of the mechanism. Added bonus is the havahart only takes two hands to set but the off brands seem to need three.

Cat food works well with both cats and possums. The first critter I caught in my new trap was my elderly cat and the second was a possum. Cat was a little bit ticked off, but no worse for wear.

Shopping around is important. There is a price range of about $25 between sellers for a cat/possum sized trap.

[Steve499]

Cayenne pepper powder covering the ground just inside your crawl space.

[BillCA]

First of all, no air-guns or paintball guns. Not unless you *really* like stink.
If you puncture a cat's skin within 24 hours the skin will close up and the pellet wound will fester into an abcess. If it bursts (and it will) that cat will bring the stink of Hades wherever it goes, especially under your house.

Smoke bombs, noise makers and the like probably won't work either. Cats will often freeze in place when terrified and run only as a last resort. Smoke bombs pose a fire hazard as well as stinking up the house (like spraying ammonia under there would also).

Go to your local pet supply store or check Petco online for sprays designed to repel cats. You'll need several cans and some old blankets, towels or baby diapers. Spray cloth until soaked, then place half-way over one of your crawlspace screens that is upwind of the typical kitty location. Repeat on several screens so the smell wafts through the crawl space. This stuff doesn't smell wonderful to humans either, but you can leave the house for a day and air it out later.

Once cats have vacated, repair the screens with new ones (Lowe's, Home Depot both sell snap-in screens in several sizes, just add a little epoxy on the edges for a permanent fix). Just be sure to inspect under the house before sealing up the last opening, otherwise you'll have to deal with the consequences.

If cats continue to visit, do try to trap them so they can be humanely taken care of, one way or another. Lastly, if you're trying to run a cat out of your garage, tool shed, etc... use a can of compressed air, such as "Dust Off". The hissing sound it makes sounds like a combative cat and usually scares them off. The IsoButane propellant smells nasty to them too, giving further incentive to leave. Just be sure you're not blocking the exit!

[Bic]

how about a 110 or 220 conibear with a touch of tuna, when u hear the "THWACK", that is the sound of kittys demise....simple effectivetive and painless. unless u get hungry and reach for the tuna.

[stevelyn]

Tuna Surprise with D-Con being the surprise ingredient. Cats eat tuna surprise and go someplace else to die.

[Ledbetter]

Claymores.

[USP45usp]

The bad thing about poison is that they may just crawl back under the house to die because it's their new home.

The petco thing is a good idea with the cat repelet.

Also the traps.

An airgun will not kill a cat (unless it's a dang good shot), only .22 and above. The only bad thing about having ferels under your house is that they love to tear things up (like your HVAC ducts if under the house).

Wayne

[GON2FAR]

The conibear idea would be tons of fun. Ive used those on everthing from squirrels to raccons and beavers, very effective trap indeed. Although, if you don't know what you are doing, they can put a serious hurtn' on you real quick like.

[Alaskee]

Set an appropriately sized conibear trap over the entrance/egress hole. Set trap at dusk, remove dead cat at dawn. Repeat until all pest are removed then seal up the hole. Just bag up the dead cat and put it in the garbage.

[GLM]

If you know someone with a good dog that you could just borrow for a bit, that would be the best solution. Do you own a bow? I've seen more than one cat killed with an arrow, and they are almost always dropped on the spot.