Our wonderful neighbor at the end of the street thinks she is doing stray cats a favor by feeding them.  Everyone in the neighborhood has asked her to stop but she wont.  Every spring there is a new litter of kittens and once they have grown up a bit they find there is not enough food at the shared kitty bowl and one eventually finds its way into our garage.  I found one last year and it was one mean cat.  The kind that tries to tear your eyes out just cause you looked at it.  If I didn’t know that it was a stray cat I would have guessed that Chuck Norrris owned and trained the cat.  So after trying to catch the thing for an hour in a messy garage I gave up and called animal control.  He even had a hard time catching it.  I was ready to just get a taser because the stupid thing was tearing up my garage.  We finally managed to catch it and he took it away.

Now comes the sequel.  Its spring and time for a fresh new litter thanks to our wonderful neighbor.  A week ago I notice that the garage was starting to smell like cat.  At about midnight that night I had finished working and was getting more wood pellets out of the garage for the stove before going to bed.  Then I saw this white cat trying to claw its way out under the garage door.  It freaked out when it saw me.  I spent the next hour trying to catch the stupid thing.  I didn’t want it in there peeing on things but I didn’t want to let it go just to have it come back.  After trying an hour I couldn’t catch it so I left the garage open a bit hoping it would leave and I believed it did.  The cat smell started to go away and I thought after all the poking and prodding I did to it trying to catch it, it would never want to come back.  I was wrong.

This Saturday I went out to get ready for my STP training ride and thought to myself the garage stinks again.  It smelled like cat.  I had hoped that maybe if it was in there it will leave while the garage was open as I got ready to ride.  It wasn’t so.  I went out there this evening to put something away and out of the corner of my eye i saw it dashing behind some boxes.  And guess what, it peed on one of the chairs in there.  I spent the last hour again trying to catch it when it lodged itself behind our utility sink.  I am fairly sure it is stuck in there.  I am not about to stick my hand and arm in there to catch some infection when it bites or claws me.  I tried to take a picture of it but the only opening was behind the washer and I only got a few shots before the battery died.  Hopefully animal control can come out first thing in the morning and pull that stupid cat out.  The sad thing is when I was trying to catch it I noticed all the windows had what looked like muddy smudges of cat prints on them.  I also notice them all over stuff in the garage.  We have red paint out there and I thought how in the world did it get into that, but at closer inspection it was blood.  No one has been in there since yesterday morning and the cat has scraped and clawed at everything during that time till now trying to get out and has bloody paws from it.  I don’t know if I should feel bad for it or get mad as all my stuff is stained.  I think I will ask my neighbor to come clean it up.  Maybe then it will make her think a little more before feeding the stray cats.  Then I am going to ask her if she wants that pee covered chair. 

On another note I found out on King Counties Website what you can legally do to an animal that trespasses on your property.  Well you can’t use lethal force.  Only non lethal methods can be used.  So like what am I supposed to do?  Tell the cat to go away nicely and hope it does not come back.  I can’t kill it and I am guessing that probably means the taser too.  Not that I want to kill it but this is King County and you knew there would be a law about it.  They also mentioned that a bb gun does not count as non lethal force.  Use a bb gun to try and scare it off and go to jail.  I can shoot my sister with it but not the cat.  You know what they did mention you could use.  A paint ball gun.  So next year when the next cat comes into my garage, instead of trying to catch it for an hour I am just going to have target practice.  Maybe that one will get the clue not to come back.  Okay I am a little bitter right now.  I do feel bad for the cats.  They shouldn’t have to fend for themselves like this.  They should be in a cat lovers lap purring away.  Not in my garage peeing on things trying to find food.