Will vinegar deter cats from peeing? Read on to find out.
As a cat lover, you want to keep your pets out of, or from certain places. This can prove difficult especially when you aren’t watching.
However, there are other ways to keep cats away from certain areas without causing them harm. The use of vinegar has widely been touted as a cat repellent.
Areas You May Want to Keep Cats Out of
If you own cats, it’s a simple indicator that you love having them around. However, certain areas will be normally out of bounds to them. These off-limit areas vary with individuals.
For some, certain furniture may be off-limit to cats while the same doesn’t matter to other people.
If you have a garden, you may be interested in keeping your cats out of such areas. This is where you use your preferred repellent to achieve a deterrent.
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The Outdoors
Apart from pets, feral cats exist and roam around homes. These become a problem for homeowners as they could easily spread diseases when they come in contact with pets.
You’ll need to prevent this from happening by using an appropriate repellent
About Vinegar
Vinegar is one of the readily available items found in most homes.
It’s used for cooking as well as for several other purposes. This acidic liquid is brought about by fermentation of ethanol and serves as an antimicrobial agent. Its primary component is acetic acid.
It has a distinctive sour flavor and a long shelf life.
Will Vinegar Repel Cats?
Vinegar is an effective cat repellent. With this product, you’re able to restrict your cats from certain areas of your home. You won’t have to apply vinegar forever in a bid to control your cats.
With time, these pets come to associate certain areas with the unpleasant scent of vinegar. This automatically causes them to keep off.
Cats are known to have an excellent sense of smell. This is used against them to keep certain areas cat-free. Different approaches can be used for deterring indoor and outdoor cats.
For indoor cats, a milder approach is used because these are pets you love to have around.
Repelling Indoor Cats with Vinegar
Cats are cute pets to have around. These lazy creatures can ruin your furniture by constant scratching or have their loose hairs scattered over couch fabrics and so on.
Whatever deterrence you seek to establish, vinegar will perfectly serve such needs.
White vinegar will be a perfect fit for your cat repellent needs. All you have to do is spray onto target surfaces. The vinegar concentration matters. You may want to lower the concentration for indoor application.
Before spraying your vinegar cat repellent, you’ll need to test it to confirm its safety. Safety in this sense simply refers to the prevention of stains or discoloration of sprayed items.
A patch test involves spraying onto a small patch of the targeted surface to see if it discolors or bleaches it.
If it does stain or discolor the small patch, then you’ll need to seek vinegar alternatives. Going ahead to spray will result in a bigger stain or discoloration. This may end up creating a bigger problem than what it’s meant to solve.
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How to Make Vinegar Repellent for Indoor Use
To make an appropriate indoor cat repellent, you’ll need white vinegar, water, dish soap, and a spray bottle. Equal parts of water and vinegar are poured into the bottle. Now, you’ll need to swirl the bottle to achieve a homogeneous mixture.
Having done that, add a squirt of dish soap to the contents in the spray bottle. Screw or close the spray bottle and shake the contents to mix properly. There you go! Your vinegar repellent is ready for application. Spray onto target surfaces you want to keep cats away from.
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Areas to Apply Vinegar Cat Deterrents On
Having tested and found the surface to be suitable for vinegar application, you can apply it to different types of surfaces. These include fabric, walls, furniture, and floors, etc.
Common areas in homes will include carpets, windowsills, curtains, and more. You get to choose where to apply this cat repellent.
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How Frequent Should Vinegar be Applied?
The frequency of vinegar application matters.
After some time, its strength wanes. Cats will likely return to such areas if they’ve not associated such location with unpleasant vinegar sent. Weekly application (once each week) of vinegar cat repellents will suffice.
Deterring Outdoor Cats with Vinegar
Like certain indoor areas, outdoor restricted areas are those you want to keep cats out of.
With stray cats in your neighborhood, you’ll need to act fast to safeguard your garden. In outdoor spaces, you won’t need to use a mild vinegar solution.
All you have to do is get some old rags and immerse in vinegar. Place these on stakes around your garden plants. When these stray cats come around, they are deterred from hanging around your garden by the strong vinegar scent hanging in the air.
Such scent remains even after the rags or cloth dries. However, you’ll need to re-soak these rags in vinegar once every 7 to 10 days for maximum effect. Your garden area isn’t the only target for stray cats.
Therefore, you’ll also need to spray along paths most frequented by cats and also at the base of trees.
Plants you want to save from stray cats should also be sprayed with vinegar. This includes your home’s perimeter and fence.
For How Long Should I Spray Vinegar
Remember, the reason for using vinegar as a cat deterrent is to help mark an area as being off-limits. With continuous application, cats get to understand the message and keep their distance.
So, for how long do you need to keep spraying vinegar to pass this message across?
You won’t have to do this for too long. Plus, the application frequency is significantly spread apart. In other words, it isn’t a daily exercise. You may have to spray for 4 weeks before stopping.
By this time, cats would have associated such areas with vinegar scent and will stay away.
We’ve seen that vinegar does repel cats. All you need to do is mark the areas you wish to deter cats from by spraying this product.