I love _____, but ______ (continued)

[erika]

I love my future sister in-law. We have a lot in common and she's a very nice girl who is also a great cook. But this weekend at Easter dinner I found out that she puts cat traps (supplied by the county) in her back yard to catch both feral cats and "awful neighbors cats that shit in her yard".

When I asked if the cats were part of a trap-spay-release program and she said she didn't really know, or care, what happened to them she just didn't want them in her yard. I told her most of them probably get put down after a few days and she might be trapping people's pets but she just said "well I don't know what to do. they ruin my yard."

Tressa, I love you, but you'd better not even talk to me about this cat-trappin bit or I might lose it...

[noise.light]

I love my future sister in-law. We have a lot in common and she's a very nice girl who is also a great cook. But this weekend at Easter dinner I found out that she puts cat traps (supplied by the county) in her back yard to catch both feral cats and "awful neighbors cats that shit in her yard".

When I asked if the cats were part of a trap-spay-release program and she said she didn't really know, or care, what happened to them she just didn't want them in her yard. I told her most of them probably get put down after a few days and she might be trapping people's pets but she just said "well I don't know what to do. they ruin my yard."

Tressa, I love you, but you'd better not even talk to me about this cat-trappin bit or I might lose it...

Ack!  This is not good at all.  There has to be another solution.  I know that cats tend to hate aluminum foil.  I can't imagine suggesting that she surround her yard with foil but perhaps there is a fence opening that she might cover? 

It just occurred to me that last night's topic might be inspired by the LCD Soundsystem song "New York, I love you but you're bringing me down."

[masterofsparks]

Your future sister-in-law needs to get Sajak'd.

(not really, but that is uncool)

[Stan]

I love my future sister in-law. We have a lot in common and she's a very nice girl who is also a great cook. But this weekend at Easter dinner I found out that she puts cat traps (supplied by the county) in her back yard to catch both feral cats and "awful neighbors cats that shit in her yard".

When I asked if the cats were part of a trap-spay-release program and she said she didn't really know, or care, what happened to them she just didn't want them in her yard. I told her most of them probably get put down after a few days and she might be trapping people's pets but she just said "well I don't know what to do. they ruin my yard."

Tressa, I love you, but you'd better not even talk to me about this cat-trappin bit or I might lose it...

 Tressa? What kind of name is that? Her momma ain't named her no Tressa!


 Damn. It's already getting old.

[erika]

It's Theresa

I'm going to gently reeducate she and Greg's brother and find a better solution for them. I have a call into a no-kill shelter to see if they offer any options. In her defense, the area where she lives is overwraught with feral cats. She also grew up with no pets, apparently.

But if it were me I would probably just add to the problem and feed the little suckers.

[Julie]

There was a feral cat community next to my old old apartment building and it exploded from 2 or 3 cats to about 40 cats in less than a year. It was all because of this really crazy little guy named Dennis, who dumped 20 pound bags of generic cat food in the alley everyday. He also provided cans of moist food for the cats and bowls of water. I spent 3 days in the hospital because of a cat bite and then almost died when I got out of the hospital, so I am really terrified to walk by cats that are howling and fighting. These cats were always howling and fighting. Anyway, there is much more to this than psychological terror. The continuously increasing mountain of cat food was pretty disgusting, but that wasn't a big deal until the spring and things started to warm up. A lot of people asked this guy to stop feeding the cats. I even asked him to stop feeding the cats and he is probably the person most likely to murder a stranger in my neighborhood. I eventually called the health department, but they wouldn't do anything unless I gave them CatMan's real name. So I had to follow to the dry cleaners this psychotic guy (and he is psychotic in the clinical sense, not the "I hate that crazy freak" way) just to find out his name so that the mountain of rotten cat food would be cleaned up and he wouldn't be allowed to dump anymore of it in the alley. By the time it was cleaned up, the smell was so bad that it made me vomit. And all of that was in addition to the feral cat smell, which isn't at all pleasant. There are a lot of other reasons cats shouldn't even be allowed outside, but I don't really care about endangered bird species or other crap like that.
Anyway, maybe cut your sister-in-law some slack because cats can be pretty disgusting, even if you like them. Especially lots of cats together can be disgusting.

[Sarah]

A lot of any living things (and sometimes inanimate ones) together can be pretty disgusting in my opinion.  Even so, your future sister-in-law is doing wrong, and I hope you can retrain her.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

I love my future sister in-law. We have a lot in common and she's a very nice girl who is also a great cook. But this weekend at Easter dinner I found out that she puts cat traps (supplied by the county) in her back yard to catch both feral cats and "awful neighbors cats that shit in her yard".

When I asked if the cats were part of a trap-spay-release program and she said she didn't really know, or care, what happened to them she just didn't want them in her yard. I told her most of them probably get put down after a few days and she might be trapping people's pets but she just said "well I don't know what to do. they ruin my yard."

Tressa, I love you, but you'd better not even talk to me about this cat-trappin bit or I might lose it...

sick!  thats sick.  although, more or less, how i feel about my own sister-in-law: "well I don't know what to do. they ruin my yard life."

[ericluxury]

Honestly, I am pro-cat traps in your backyard if you live in a feral cat community. Cleaning poo and having rabies are both bummers and there are so many pet owners who are so careless with their pets. It would be sad if a loving (and responsible) pet owner had their cat killed or injured, but as someone horribly allergic to cats, if I lived there, I'd have to do the same thing in order to go in my backyard.

[erika]

My biggest issue with it was her lack of knowledge (or care) as to what happens to the kitties when she turns them back over to the county. Any responsible person would at least ask the question...

[Sarah]

Exactamundoly.  If she turned them over to a no-kill shelter once she trapped them and perhaps publicized what she's doing (and even kept some track of the cats she's carted off) so that neighbors missing pets would know to check with her, her actions would be tolerable. 

[pmart]

If she lives in the city limits, just remind her those cats are keeping her house rat free.

Though, I'm wagering a guess they probably live in the county, which makes her actions truly despicable. You know, since the county is where people go so they live safely with their pets...

If it was an actual feral cat community that had sprung up, I'd cut some slack, because Julie's right, they multiply and go insane and end up being way worse than vermin. But somehow I seriously doubt that's what is going on. Hell my father has gardens and ended up with opussom problems this year (this is in Howard County, for you Marylanders). Even he trapped them and let them go safely (i.e. -- without death) and i'm going to guess they weren't anyone's pet...

Maybe as a wedding gift, you should buy her a pet. Then one evening, go, trap it, and never give it back to her.

-p-

[pmart]

and yes... I spelled opossum wrong...

-p

[John Junk 2.0]

Feral cats are bad news.  They kind of took over my neighborhood when I was a kid.  There was a mentally ill lady catty-cornered (haw haw) across the street from us and she had no heat or water but 9,000 cats with a homebase in her house and spreading every day throughout the neighborhood.  it's no fun to be stomping on your floor because of the crazy-ass howls of crazy-ass cats setting up camp in your crawl space.  It's no fun finding a mouse whose belly is exploding with maggots that some crazy-ass eye-disease-having cat left there. 

Still, I don't know, the cat-lady's neighbor ended up trapping her cats and I think doing nasty things to them.  Her neighbor's were real assholes.  This whole cat thing created a neighborhood turf war because my dad was a lawyer at the time and actually represented the cat lady for free when my other neighbor's were trying to get her evicted.  I have a place in my heart for the cat lady because she helped me out when yet another neighbor's dog bit me in the face.  She was like the scary lady with a heart of gold.  Oh cat lady, you were my neighborhood's Boo Radley.  And my dad was the enemy-making, noble-hearted Gregory Peck.  Eventually the nasty neighbors won out, and cat lady lives in a home now or something (possibly better off for all that) but in an act of weirdo poetic injustice, the cat-trapping neighbors decided to BUY cat lady's property, have her crazy cat lady house demolished (health dept. probably demanded it) and then had their own new house built where the cat lady's house stood.  So they actually moved into a new house NEXT DOOR to where they lived before, on the SITE of the cat lady's catquarters.

My moral quandary was this:  I was against trapping the cats and kicking the cat lady out of her house, yet I was being driven crazy by the cats and they really were unhealthy and bad news, forever leaving various rodent and bird carcasses all over our lawn and screaming/fucking/giving birth in our crawl space and the neighborhood was much more pleasant when they were gone, aside from the glacial tension between us and our neighbors.

Still, after all that,
I love you crazy cat lady, but I hate your crazy cats.


Also, that guy was totally on point about the new Malkmus album.

[Rainer]

My father disappointed me vis-a-vis that fox I posted video of in PETS PETS PETS.  Not sure if it was the same one, but the fox started digging (for chipmunks?) under the front stoop.  My dad poured ammonia in the hole (the fox wasn't there ... it was just a "starter hole") thinking that would turn him off to digging there, but he came right back the next day and resumed his digging.  Dad then declares he wants to put some mouse-traps in the hole.

RAINER "You mean those ones that snap?"
FATHER "Yes, they'll give him a bit of a shock."
RAINER "They'll hurt like hell.  And they won't come off his paws!"
FATHER [smiling] "You're right. They won't"
RAINER "Dad, that's nuts.  Please don't do that."
FATHER -----

Later, mother comes home with groceries.  I hear my Dad's voice from upstairs "blah blah fox blah blah mousetrap" followed by mother yelling at him "YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DO THAT! ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT IS SICK AND CRUEL."  Dad backed down.  Go Mom.