How to Keep Cats Away With Coffee

How to Keep Cats Away With Coffee
Written By
Michelle Renee
Michelle Renee
Published: May 7, 2010
Updated: Nov 20, 2021
2 minute read

Things You Will Need

  • Used coffee grounds
  • Orange peels
  • Cheese grater
  • Small knife
  • Top soil

There are several safe and nontoxic ways to rid your backyard of troublesome cats who eliminate waste or destroy plants on your property. Using coffee to get rid of cats in your garden is a safe and effective way to accomplish this task and economically fertilize your garden at the same time.

    Save used coffee grounds.
  1. Save your old coffee grounds. Cats are known to dislike the pungent scent of coffee. If you are a regular coffee drinker, store your daily coffee grounds or collect them from a neighbor or from work and dry them out. Accumulate enough used coffee grounds to cover the areas you want protected.

  2. Citrus rinds are effective in repelling outdoor cats.
  3. Save old orange or citrus peels. Felines are also known to be repelled by citrus. Save discarded orange, lemon or lime rinds from a few of these citrus fruits. Store them in a Ziploc bag or sealed container to retain moisture and fragrance until you are ready to make your outdoor cat repellent.

  4. Grating the rinds creates the right consistency.
  5. Chop or grate the orange and citrus peels. You could either use a small paring knife or a standard cheese grater. Reduce the rinds to tiny pieces, being sure not to leave any large portions. Dice or grate the citrus peels until they are the consistency of a moist gravel.

  6. Make a compost with top soil, coffee and citrus peels.
  7. Mix the dried coffee grounds and orange peels with top soil. A bag of soil purchased at a gardening center may have additional fertilizers but taking natural soil from your garden is effective as well. Mix all three elements together evenly until well blended and the appearance looks uniform.

  8. Coffee and citrus peel composts make excellent garden fertilizer.
  9. Spread the mixture evenly around plants and cat-troubled areas, particularly where your plants are damaged or cats have regularly relieved themselves or that serve as a general point of entrance.

Photo Credits

die katze an der belargonie image by Falkenauge from Fotolia.com

die katze an der belargonie image by Falkenauge from Fotolia.com

ground coffee image by sumos from Fotolia.com

Orange Peel image by styf from Fotolia.com

sepia grater texture image by Andrejs Pidjass from Fotolia.com

preparing soil for garden image by Cherry-Merry from Fotolia.com

Digging in the garden image by dquinnan from Fotolia.com

Michelle Renee

Michelle Renee is a professional trainer and quality assurance consultant in the career, education and customer service industries, with two decades of experience in food/beverage and event coordinating management. Renee has been published…

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