Almost 4 years ago, I posted an article, The Tiger Next Door. You see, I used to live in a corner unit terraced house with a huge compound in Taman Iramanis. I must say that it was quite a good neighbourhood and fairly centrally-located. I had quite an interesting experience with my neighbour in Iramanis, and at times, it was quite a challenge of patience and tolerance for the sake of living in harmony with strange people.
However, that house was never intended to be our permanent home. I had planned from the very beginning that I'd sooner or later move to another house when I could afford it. Initially, I thought I would be able to buy another house after five years staying in Iramanis. But it did not happen. I started looking for a house, I think, after 6 or 7 years, but I wasn't really seriously keen to move in a hurry.
Then one fine day my estate agent came to me with a listing. An old double storey semi-detached house in Taman Sinar Bukit. It immediately caught my attention. Taman Sinar Bukit is just about 3 minutes' drive from my father-in-law's house; and about 5 minutes' drive to the Likas Sports Complex. It's also about 20 minutes' drive to my office. The Likas jogging track, of course, has been my training ground. It was an opportunity not to be missed!
Well, to make the long story short, we soon closed the deal. But unfortunately we had to carry out quite major renovation to refurbish the house. It is after all a 30-year old house, you see. In the end, it was well over half a year by the time we moved in to Taman Sinar Bukit from the date we bought the house up to the completion of the renovation.
Mia is very happy with the extra space in the house; and JJ has her own room now—and it's a mighty huge room too! We have 4 bedrooms, living and dining area, kitchen and a tiny store room. We concreted the rear compound, and we also have a small outbuilding which is actually a self-contained unit which might come in useful someday if ever we are rich enough to hire a gardener or a driver!
There is hardly any reason not to like my "new" house, except for the frequent visits by my neighbour's cats. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before—I think I did—but I've never liked cats in my entire life! Apart from making a hell lot of annoying noises when they mate (why on earth can't they keep it down?), it is a fact that cats are extremely dirty animals. Dogs are much better, really! If you put a dog in a cage, and it is time for it to pooh, it will try very hard to hold. It will bark continuously to be released so that it can do its business outside. It will not dirty its own "house" until it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. But a cat will readily pooh in its cage.
I'm really sick to come home from work everyday, to find cats' pooh on my compound, and I don't have to tell you about the smell too! It's been going on for far too long now—in fact since the day I moved in—so today I finally decided that perhaps I'd just walk over to my neighbour's house to have a little chat with him about his pests.
I've never really noticed it, but I was very surprised to see the whole house crawling with cats! In his living room alone, there must have been at least 20 of those forsaken creatures. I kept it short—I merely introduced myself as his neighbour, pointing to my house, and then suggested that he should make a cat litter in his own compound so that his cats could go there to do their business, thus sparing my compound in the process. He said he would do it soon, but looking at his expression, I somehow don't have much faith that he would actually do it. But we will see what happens in a couple of days' time.
In the mean time, I will just have to endure a few more days until he can sort things out a little. I'm thinking of what other steps I could take to solve this problem, but I hope it won't get to that.
By the way, did I say that I've never liked cats in my entire life? Oh! I did, didn't I? OK, so long as that's clear enough for everyone to know...
5 comments:
It's time to get a dog or maybe dogs.
I used to have a dog named Boomer some years ago. I trained him myself since he was about 3 months old. However, he died of old age almost 2 years ago. I think he must have been about 12 years or so when he died.
Owning a dog is not a small responsibility. Apart from feeding, one has to spare the time to perhaps walk the dog, bathe it at least once a month. But if you get an naughty one like my Boomer when he was younger, you may also need to have a good supply of highblood pressure drugs ready. Boomer had the incurable disease of wanting to help me wash my tyres, and train his strong jaws and teeth on my water hose and slippers. It was a reflex thing for him, and I took a long time to train him to suppress that habit.
I don't know if I want to invest in another dog and repeat the same process all over again.
I had the same problem when I moved into my current home. The downstair neighbour cat was poohing big time on my doorstep. It got so bad I had to complain to the authorities but even then nothing helps.
In the end, I concocted a special spray of vinegar, onion, garlic and chilli powder and sprayed it around the front door and that seems to solve the problem.
Maybe you can try it and spray around the perimeter of your house. It's all natural so it won't harm children or other creatures
Ah!... OK, thanks Tekko, worth a try! I will get on to it soon!
Cats are horrible animals. Beside excreting the most pungent pooh among common pets, they have habits like sleeping on your mat and leaving furs behind. If you have outdoor furniture, they occupy it more than you and worse is when they decide to sleep on the engine hood of your brand new RM200,000 car. Everytime they wake up, they have this annoying habit of stretching their legs and extending their paw and scratching whatever the surface is. They will also sneak into your house at every opportunity and spill the bin while scavanging for food.
I hate cats and I will never keep any cats but the above are all experiences from my neighbour's legion of cats. Until I kept a dog in my compound to keep the population down. It worked. It was worth it although I have to pretend to be really sorry while returning a cat wriggling in pain and about to die to my neighbour's daughter. And because he kept expensive cats, he attracted a lot of catnappers and soon it was reduced to three cats now. I still have to endure the aroma of their poop once a while but less.
No cat neighbourhood
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