Cat Wars

Beloved companion...

They are like my children.

The word I always use is love, you know they just love you.

..garden tormentor...

Fresh vomit doesn't smell very nice.

There it is!

..petting and purring...

It's definitely a maternal thing.

..prowling and fouling...

..nuzzling and cuddling...

..leaping and killing...

Cats are a major problem.

..Britain's 10 million cats divide the nation.

It becomes a war. It's who can win.

If they start trying to shoot them or kill 'em,

then I'll report them to the RSPCA.

Meet the cat feeders...

They're looking at my kitchen... I'm sorry I'll have to feed them.

..and the cat feuders...

I think they're a danger to life.

I'm a cat lover and I don't care.

Oh, dear.

One in five of us own a cat.

There are those for whom one can never be enough.

Silvana - one husband, two children 50 cats.

My husband just says I'm a runaway train. I'm out of control.

This is Kitten and this is Bruno.

We've got blind Little Boy here.

Oh!

The sweetness, the softness, the purring.

The unconditional love they can give you.

I think that is really what attracted me.

They are not aggressive, they're not frightening, they're just

wonderful companions. They're just always there for you.

You can almost read their minds.

When they're depressed, you feel their depression,

when they're happy, you feel their happiness.

It's a feeling that they give you when you are holding them close and feeding them,

it's definitely a maternal thing.

They just love you - unconditionally.

A passion for felis silvestris catus can get you a bit of a reputation.

What's this? I think people at work call me the mad cat woman.

I think cats get a bad name because people are ignorant.

You're not lonely when you've got a cat.

I have no children, they are like my children.

They've got their stroller which they go out in

during the nice weather.

And this is where I get the strange looks.

For some, cats are a love and a livelihood.

The cat has increased massively in popularity.

In the Western world, it is now said that they are numerically

the most popular companion animals.

One of the things when we share our lives with other species,

particularly with the cat, is that we have to have mutual respect.

And cats do roam, they do hunt, they have predatory behaviour,

they mark their territory.

Those behaviours are normal, they are natural behaviours

and that is part of being a cat.

One thing people rarely have

is an ambivalent attitude towards a cat.

They either love them or they hate them.

It's a bit like Marmite.

You don't have to look so very far

to find the other side of the Marmite equation.

This is an idyll under siege

and this is a gardener driven to distraction.

Joe's garden is his pride and joy.

But he's not the only one drawn to its pleasures.

Well, we have at least four cats - four regular cats -

that plague me.

There is a ginger one. There is a black one. There is a strange

object with long woolly hair -

difficult to describe the colour.

We see the wretched things every day.

None of them like me.

When they see me, they run for their lives.

They come in to do their business and prey on the birdlife of course.

Quite apart from that, of course, they catch small mammals as well.

Mice and voles in particular.

They just enjoy killing things.

A constant concern when the grandchildren come

and want to play in the garden lest they pick up toxoplasmosis

from them, because they defecate all over the place.

Is it fair to say you're not a cat's biggest fan?

That's an understatement of the year.

I'll show you where the cats do their business.

I'm too afraid to go in there and look.

For some reason this is a favourite place.

Disgusting!

Now, if I had been unfortunate enough to not see that and stood on it

and went inside the house...

The result would have been disgusting.

Cats are perverse, they're a law unto themselves!

I honestly hate the wretched things.

Joe's not alone in his detestation.

But help is on its way.

Stand by for developments.

It's not only the gardeners. It's also the twitchers.

David and Glenna have made their garden into a birdwatcher's paradise.

Lots of chaffinches, lots of goldfinches,

lots of greenfinches, not so many siskins this year, only a few.

They are like greenfinches but a bit smaller.

A good variety of garden birds that visit us,

which we feed and enjoy watching,

and also the cats enjoy watching them.

There are at least ten regular visitors to the garden -

each one with a hungry glint in its green eyes.

You often find a pile of feathers,

an odd bird leg up the garden or something that they've finished off.

Or open the door and find two birds' feet on the doorstep.

The rest of the bird has been eaten.

Every day they will catch one. 10 years - 3,600 birds.

Must be. Getting on that way.

They've done what they can to ward off the predators.

They wander round and one particular one underneath

the main bird feeder which

we've got about six feet off the ground so the cats can't get it.

But you underestimate the domestic cat at your peril.

Set up 24 hour cameras in the garden

and you start to realise its abilities as a predator.

The feeder is six times the cat's length above ground.

It's an astonishing leap from a standing start -

equivalent to you or I jumping 30-odd feet in the air.

And it's a brutal end for the bird caught in the hunter's jaws.

Somebody said there are about 11 million cats in Britain,

I don't know if that's true. It is not a natural situation to

have 11 million animals running around killing things.

If you want an idea of the scale of the carnage,

call in at any wildlife sanctuary.

Cats kill around 55 million birds in Britain every year.

Most of the animals that come into us at this time of the year -

it's basically down to cats.

This little chap here he had no feathers on him at all.

Over here more ducklings -

the mother has been killed by cats.

Probably about 80-85 percent of our admissions are down to

cat attacks.

It's not only birds...

We're talking hundreds of baby birds, rabbits, hedgehogs,

even fox cubs.

You name it, anything wildlife-wise we tend to get in

because it's been attacked by cats.

A week's victims from the freezer.

We have kept some examples of what has happened,

and bear in mind it's down to cat predation.

This little squirrel here - she was pulled out of the nest.

Baby rabbits.

Another squirrel.

Little mouse.

This is the slow worm that the RSPCA brought in to us.

Another little collared dove - you can see the wounds.

More collared doves, a little robin, baby pigeon

and an adult pigeon here.

This is just in the last week or so.

I think a lot of owners don't want to know.

It's the sort of attitude where "that's what he does",

but there are things that you can do to change that.

We owe it to future generations that we protect these species.

I'd like cat owners to take more responsibility for the actions

of their cats - so keep your cats in at night.

At the moment cats are a major problem.

You need to remember that every cat is going to be an individual

and many cats are very proficient hunters.

One common negative interpretation of natural cat behaviour

is that they are in some way malicious in the way

they kill or even that they will tease and taunt another species.

What is important to remember is that hunger

and hunting are separately controlled within the brain.

So you don't have to be hungry.

That means that you may start to hunt because you can't help

yourself, because you are triggered to do that.

And then you get part way through the process but you're not

actually hungry and not really interested in the prey.

They are hunters - that is part of their natural behaviour.

They are very well-designed predatory machines.

Nestling in the West Midlands, there's a little oasis

of immaculately maintained tranquillity.

Welcome to Beacon Heights - and to its preserving guardians -

The Committee.

It's a private estate and you've got to be 55 or over to live here,

semi-retired and you've got to look after your garden.

If you look around at the gardens,

you can see how proud everyone is of their little homes.

They keep their homes beautifully decorated

and the gardens immaculate, it's the way they look after them.

But the manicured order of Beacon Heights is under threat

from a very particular - and smelly - form of anarchy.

Oh, there's all sorts of things you find in your garden.

The stuff that cats pass is just disgusting.

It don't just smell - it makes you feel like throwing up.

The Committee's daily patrols have become a dismal

inspection of the invaders' foul deposits.

The cats come along here.

One or two pigeons haven't been quick enough and they catch

and kill them and that's why they're always through here.

It's a little bit of a rat run for them.

Cat run. Rat run. One of the two.

That looks pleasant stuff compared to some of the stuff

we have to get up.

And I mean some of the... It's awful.

-Some more here.

-Some vomit there.

There's a pack of them - well in excess of 20.

A pack of feral cats are breeding on Beacon Heights.

Their numbers are growing.

They eat all kinds of rubbish and they're in poor health

so they tend to vomit everywhere.

I'm sick of clearing it up and when they're sick,

eat grass and they're sick, that's even worse.

These are a damn nuisance, and you can imagine in another,

you know, couple of years' time, you're going to have an army of cats.

I think somebody should do something about it.

I can whiff it. I can whiff it, but...

This is where you get the problems,

wondering what you're going to come up against underneath all this soil.

All the... All the nice things the cats leave us.

Hence very thick gloves.

It's like being a commando in training, you have to go through a system,

and get dressed properly before you come out and do a bit of gardening.

CAT MEOWS

They're just gaining on us. And we don't want to go round killing them.

We all like animals.

But there comes a line where something's got to stop.

The Committee has decided enough is enough.

They're canvassing opinion for resolute action against their oppressors.

Not every cat is a bird slaughterer or a vomiting, feral lout.

This is the home of Buster.

Oh, oh, oh! OK, OK. It's all right.

See? It's an example, actually, of whenever anybody's in the house

that he's not familiar with, he is so jumpy. He's so nervous.

And he's just not happy any more. So, as you can see, he's just...

He doesn't want to... What's that?

He's very suspicious of every situation.

I mean, without consciously hurting me, he's actually scratched me

when I've tried to pick him up just because he's clambering to get away.

Buster's terrified in his own home.

In the past, he's had trouble with the neighbour's cat.

Buster lives here. And next door lives Ollie.

He's a rather different sort of cat.

-I think Ollie does go into some houses.

-Do you?

-I'm not being weird, but he smells a bit funny at the end of the day.

-THEY LAUGH

Ollie's owners say he may be a bit of a wanderer, but he's a gentleman.

In six and a half years, I've never seen him be aggressive.

The lady at the cat rescue told me

that he was brought in because he was fighting with the other cats

in the house, and that he'd been attacking the children in the house.

But the lady at the cat rescue said she didn't believe that was true

because he had a lovely nature, and I could see that straightaway.

Buster's not so sure.

Cats fight, and they are territorial, but certainly Buster, I think,

disproportionately comes home with scratches all over his nose,

and you think, OK... And he's got chunks of fur removed,

and it makes for a very unhappy cat, at the end of the day.

That's actually quite brave. SHE LAUGHS

That's quite unusual.

But again, I notice as soon as he goes out,

he's got to just check, is everything safe out here?

He's been ambushed a few times when he's gone out of the cat flap,

and instantly come back in again.

It became quite apparent fairly quickly that their cat was starting to use our cat flap.

I don't believe that they've got one of their own.

So, as a deterrent, really, we decided

we'd get an electronic cat flap and that would kind of solve the problem.

Buster's owners have installed a new whizz-bang cat flap to keep other cats out.

It only opens when it senses Buster's microchip.

In theory, any other cat in the neighbourhood that tries to get in,

they'll just hit a brick wall. That's the theory, anyway.

But Annie has a lurking suspicion that strangers are still

sneaking through the cat flap.

There are noises in the dark of the night.

We've been asleep, you know, two, three o'clock in the morning.

Our cat has been on the bottom of the bed, curled up quite happy,

and then I can hear the pitter-patter of feet.

First of all, I will hear some of the cat food in the kitchen being

eaten, and then I hear perhaps a floorboard creak.

I know it's not an intruder, but I know it's probably the cat.

Ollie's owners say he's an innocent man.

There's no way he'd eat another cat's food because...

When we first got him, we didn't realise that he had one or two medical issues.

Cat meat made him sick, quite violently sick,

so he's been put on a prescription diet.

I think people would notice if he was eating normal cat food.

Maybe it's our own frustration,

but it's almost as if he is poking his tongue out to us, really.

From a distance, he'll look at us and know that we can't get anywhere near him,

and if we could, what could we do?

Today, Annie's particularly anxious.

The family are going away on holiday, and poor, nervous Buster will be home alone.

It's always in the back of my mind about how we manage to look after Buster.

We've got my daughter coming to feed him twice a day

and just keeping a good old check on the house.

I'll probably ring home a couple of times,

And my first words will be, "How's the cat? Where's the cat?"

There's not an awful lot I can do about that, really.

So it upsets me, if I'm honest.

The house should be secure.

Buster should be safe in his own home with no other cat able to get in.

While Annie's away, cameras will record what's really causing

things to go bump in the night.

For some people, cat wars are great news,

offering a lucrative opportunity to sell all sorts of gadgetry.

Cats bring huge amount of love to families, children, elderly,

people on their own, lonely people.

and then you've got another extreme that people absolutely detest them.

-There are owls, there are prongs, there are ultrasonic scarers.

-HIGH PITCHED WHINE

Then there are more do-it-yourself approaches.

We even had one customer phone up,

he's read up that cats urinate around to mark their territory.

As this battle that's gone on, he actually goes around his garden urinating.

It's to show the cat who's the boss here. He doesn't use his toilet indoors.

I guess that saves on having to flush the toilet.

But he's outside urinating everywhere.

So, you know, I would not really want to go for a barbecue round there.

Dave's a cat lover and has a cat of his own called Pie.

Our products that we sell don't really hurt the cats,

they just stop the cats coming near to someone's house,

so the cats will then just move somewhere else.

Put that into the ground, pointing towards the area you want to protect.

HIGH PITCHED WHINE That's now audible to humans. That's about 15 kilohertz.

WHINE STOPS I'll release it. It's still working,

but it's taken the sound emitted up to over 20 kilohertz

so it's now ultrasonic - humans can't hear it, but cats can,

and it just irritates the cat and it will move to another area.

Next, one of Pie's least favourite devices.

Instead of emitting a burst of ultrasound,

it actually emits a burst of water.

Again, it is triggered by the PIR sensor, works 24 hours a day.

As it gets nearer and nearer it will then trigger it,

and it sends the burst of water into the zone that's protected.

DEVICE RATTLES

Latest innovation? Well, it's going to work for cats and also birds.

But we call it Boo Man.

It's an inflatable scarecrow.

Here we can see the Boo Man is now sleeping.

I'm going to pretend I'm the cat and I'm going to walk past the sensor,

and hopefully it will pick up my movement and trigger the Boo Man.

It's like the ultimate deterrent.

So we sent Dave the cat gadget man to Somerset to meet cat-pestered Joe.

-Hello there, is that Joe?

-This is Joe, yes.

-Pleased to me you. I'm David.

Would you say it's more in there where the soft sandy soil is,

or actually on the lawn area, or both the same?

-Well, it's more readily observable around here.

-OK.

Another regular place, which they haven't used recently,

is that area of grass, the other side of the drive.

On the lawn there, OK.

Look, there's a cat. Look at that! It's as if they know I'm here.

If I was by myself, they would flee

because they know I was going to chase them.

They recognise you now, do they?

Dave is about to transform the garden into an impregnable fortress using every trick in his boot.

You could use both of them pointing in this direction here.

So, I'm just going to switch that on.

Those batteries will last a couple of months.

Right, we're ready, Joe. You can switch it on.

Like a cat, Joe. Stealth.

Oh, yes!

-Did it get you?

-It got me!

-JOE CHUCKLES

OK, I think that is set perfectly.

-Read that, it tells you about cats.

-I'll do that.

And there's some nice stuff in there about how to learn to love them.

-Oh!

-HE CHUCKLES

Hopefully, you know, we've made a step in the right direction with Joe.

He's got a couple of toys he can play with and he can have a bit of fun.

I don't think the cats will be too bothered, they'll just move elsewhere.

The problems are too deep rooted. You can't solve that problem.

There's nothing I could do. I would love to.

If he was willing, I would buy him a cat as companionship in later life.

You never know. But I suspect not.

Well, I'm quite impressed at the moment.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Are you happier now, Joe?

Yes, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Time will tell.

The Beacon Heights committee have made their enquiries

and made some unwelcome discoveries.

Hidden among their ranks is a fifth column of cat sympathisers.

Some even offer comfort, succour and food to the enemy.

Right, I hope there's a cat here.

It is treason from a cat food box.

-Hello, there.

-If you've come about the cats...

-Yeah.

That's what we've come about.

Yeah, well, I'm a cat lover and I don't care how many there are.

I love cats and that's it. And I won't be cruel to them.

-Got it, lovely.

-SHE LAUGHS

The lady's rather passionate about it, isn't she? About the cats.

She loves them. Yeah.

We haven't got no mice. And I don't want mice. I'd rather have a cat!

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, dear.

It's their choice. It's our choice.

They know we like cats, they know we feed them.

I just have a bowl outside.

No, I'll feed them as long as they are here.

I don't care what the others do.

They don't like them. We can't make them like them.

The Committee are all right.

They've got their views and everybody's entitled to their views.

It's like, I think most of the committee are of the same

opinion as far as the cat thing goes, but, you know, you can't just

agree with them for the sake of agreeing with them, like, you know?

We've got no problem with the cats,

they seem to have a problem with the cats.

Because they go in their garden!

And they don't come in mine.

I think it's because I feed them!

It's all a bit discombobulating for the Committee.

If you love animals, you're going to feed them.

I'm not going to say I blame anybody for feeding them.

It's very kind of them, it's simply not helping the situation.

Faced with the Committee's stern disapproval,

some residents have resorted to secret feeding at the crack of dawn.

If people complain about them, you can't do much about it!

There's four now that comes outside the door.

You've got to be a cat person to like them.

I mean, a lot of people have had dogs all their lives

so they don't like cats.

I mean, I always liked cats

but I've never heard many people round here say they like cats,

-have you?

-No, I haven't. I haven't.

-You mustn't feed them but...

-You can't help it. Well, I can't anyhow.

Yeah, but you're not the one that goes out

and puts the dish at half past six.

No, you're the one that gets up on the morning early and goes out.

There are at least one and a half million feral cats in Britain,

and in Beacon Heights

they have found some willing, if secretive, collaborators.

About last year we did put a letter round asking every resident

to let us know if they objected to having those wild cats removed

and we said to let us know as soon as possible.

If we don't hear anything, we will take action on your behalf,

and we had no replies but it seems

that perhaps one or two should have done!

Beacon Heights is divided between the feeders and furious.

The Committee is calling a meeting to straighten things out once

and for all. Fur may fly.

Southampton. Dead of night. Buster's first night on his own.

Just past midnight, a face appears at the micro-chipped cat flap.

Yes, it's Ollie.

It should keep him out

but he's cunningly worked out a way round the one-way flap.

He eases his claws round the side and instead of trying to push

through it, he pulls it towards himself.

You have to hand it to him, it's resourceful.

Using the same trick, he's then back at 1am.

In fact, in the first 24 hours the family are away,

Ollie comes in ten times.

It's as if he knows they're on holiday.

While Buster is hardly seen.

At Beacon Heights, it's the day of the straightener. 11 residents,

small caravan, big differences.

ALL EXCHANGE GREETINGS

MAN: Meow!

LAUGHTER

Well, we've got a cross section of people here that have got

varying views on the cats.

It is a problem. It's a day to day problem.

I tried to cut my grass the other day and I had to spend

half an hour before I started just cleaning the mess off the lawns.

-I think you're exaggerating there a little bit.

-He ain't.

Well, you know, how many cats have you got?

I went to feed the kittens the other night. I've got two kittens, right?

What you feeding them for if you don't...?

No, hang on. The reason I fed the two kittens

because I don't want 'em to snuff it, right?

So I am adding a little bit to the problem

but I don't want to see them perish. Right?

Now, what's happening now, because I'm feeding them,

the word's getting' round.

There's five there the other night.

-Well, we feed them regularly.

-I do.

-Well, my wife feeds them.

-You all know, I feed the cats.

See, you feed them, we have all the crap.

-There's four that regularly come.

-We don't have a problem.

We don't have any more than four.

-I see about a dozen.

-Well, I'm just saying.

-I'm only telling you what I see.

-We don't.

I don't know what you see. I'm telling you what I see.

-Look, I believe you, you believe me.

-Yeah, OK, fair enough.

But there must be about a dozen.

We don't get no stink, we get no sick on the lawn.

-Are you sure it's not the hedgehogs or the foxes?

-ALL: No.

No? All right. OK.

Anybody that likes cats, I suggest

take them into your property and keep them as a domestic cat.

-They won't come! I've tried.

-They won't.

They're feral cats.

I've never had a problem like this before.

Now, but you say you feed them

but they empty their stomachs in somebody else's garden.

They're just an absolutely pain in the arse, they are.

My garden, now I dug it yesterday, I guarantee today and tomorrow,

it'll be dug up, the plants will be dug up,

there'll be sick and mess everywhere.

I'll put something to you all now

and see if I can get a sort of a general consensus of opinion.

Right, the Cats Protection League have said to us

that they'll trap all the cats, they'll take them away.

They will neuter them all free of charge but, of course,

then the cats will have to be brought back.

That's just not a good deal, is it?

I mean, it's nice that they're going to neuter them

but we've still got the muck machine.

Don't you think the first stage forward is what John suggested,

to get the cats neutered? That's the first step on the ladder, isn't it?

Look, there's thousands of feral cats all over the place.

Well, the only way you're going to get rid of them quick

is destroy them, all right?

Tell me another answer.

I don't remember saying that.

No, but you want to get rid of them quick.

You've just said, if we take them away and get them neutered,

which I think everybody's in agreement with, right?

But the muck machine.

Yeah, but at the moment, we've got them reproducing and the muck.

-And the muck machine.

-So let's get rid of the reproduction while we're

waiting for a resolution to the muck and the spew and everything.

-At least to start.

-Get rid of one problem at a time.

Yeah, that's right. At least it's a start.

OK, folks, thanks very much. Thanks for coming round.

Thank you, chairman. Thank you.

ALL SAY GOODBYE

I'll see you, Graham.

Yeah, lovely seeing you.

It's a compromise, but a sensible one.

Feral cats breed rapidly,

so neutering will stabilise their numbers.

The next step at Beacon Heights is to call in the trappers.

Feral cats are actually an increasing problem in Britain.

Certainly because of the natural breeding behaviour of cats,

it means that when you do get colonies of unneutered individuals,

you can have a rapid rise in population.

The health issues of a feral colony are very serious

for the individuals.

If there are undiagnosed gastro intestinal diseases,

you may have levels of faecal deposits

which are diarrhoeic in nature.

That may be unpleasant for the people that find them.

You may also get vomiting problems coming from cats who are unhealthy.

After a week of cat surveillance,

it's clear that Ollie is using his impressive dexterity to make

the neighbour's house his own four or five times a day.

He's adopting an increasingly brazen swagger,

confident he is the master in this house as well as his own.

He's eating Buster's food with lip-smacking relish.

Buster is a rarely sighted visitor.

When he does show up,

Ollie isn't far behind.

Buster is quickly chased out by the invader...

an exile from his own land.

Unfortunately, invasion of other people's properties is not uncommon,

so we do see quite large numbers of problems related to this.

Try to get away from this idea that there is any kind of spite

or the one that is doing the invasion is a nasty cat

and the one that is at home is the nice one.

It is not as simple as being one cat terrorising the other cat.

The cat that is invading is looking out for itself and deciding

there is something beneficial about being in this other property.

That's not to say it's not a serious issue for the resident cat

who may be quite scared by what's going on.

Two weeks later,

the trappers from Cat Protection roll onto Beacon Heights.

Every year, they neuter 170,000 cats,

but the deal is they have to be returned

to their home area and the locals have to look after them better.

-Do you feed them on here?

-Yeah, we feed them on here.

-Oh, that is brilliant.

-I have just had one here for 20 minutes.

Well, there is just the feeling of anticipation that something

might be happening, which is a step in the right direction as well.

If some like them and some don't, we stay in the middle of the road.

Full stop.

The hungry cats of Beacon Heights are easy meat for the trappers.

Shame! What a bloody shame.

I said that's a shame. I've got nobody to feed now, have I? HE LAUGHS

He's got three already. And counting!

So here we go, McKenzie!

We are in business!

We are looking on the good side now.

Let's get this job done and we can all have some peaceful gardening.

Yeah, there's one there now. There is one at the side of the bins.

-Come on, mate.

-Everyone seems to be quite happy with what's happening.

As long as they are not abused.

Cos, I mean, they didn't ask to be here, like, you know.

They're only cats.

Perhaps we should all cancel our holidays

and stay at home for a week while they are away.

The cats will be back in a week's time, fresh from neutering.

At Joe's house in Somerset, the deterrent devices stand sentinel

over a garden unsullied by the attentions

of the neighbourhood cats.

Joe's mood is improving.

Well, everything's relative.

Over the last two weeks, I haven't observed a single one crossing

the patio, or even prowling about on the drive making mischief.

It was a daily occurrence but now we hardly see them at all.

It's great that I no longer have to go round with a spade

to remove the evidence they have left of their presence.

I think it has made a difference. May it long continue.

So long as they keep away, I'll be very happy.

If they keep out of your garden,

do you think you could learn to love them?

No, I could never love a cat.

Buster's owners are back after what turned out to be a tricky

fortnight for him.

Annie has certainly noticed a difference.

The first thing I noticed, I was particularly struck

when I picked him up how light he was and just seemed really very anxious.

Particularly so, more so than any other holiday we have been on.

And where is Buster now?

Well, the last two days he's actually not been around.

I'm a bit worried because I think he can't afford to lose too much weight.

One day perhaps he just won't come back.

Annie's still completely unaware of the frequency

and audacity of Ollie's visits.

So we showed the CCTV material to both households.

The awful truth is about to be revealed.

SHE GASPS

That's...the neighbours' cat!

Is that him?

-Yeah, that's Ollie!

-SHE LAUGHS

That shouldn't be possible.

He shouldn't be able to go through there.

Remarkable.

-Oh, look what he's doing!

-Oh, OK.

-How is he doing that?

-He pulled it towards him.

Oh, right.

Straight into the kitchen, straight to the food bowl!

There we are.

That's exactly why he's doing it.

He's licking his lips.

Oh! Cheeky monkey.

Licking his chops - "Thank you very much!"

-This weekend he's been ill.

-A couple of times.

Because he can't eat any more cat food.

Now, this is Buster, because the cat flap has come in the correct way.

He looks so frightened. He's got a look of terror all over his face.

Imagine how horrible it feels if you're a human

and you've got an intruder in the house.

It must feel the same for a cat, actually.

Poor little pussycat! Look at him. He looks really frightened.

-Why is Buster so nervous?

-Because he knows Ollie has been in there.

He can probably smell him and he's probably seen him.

Oh, no!

God.

Buster has just come in and now the neighbours' cat is following him.

Lifting up the cat flap.

And I'm wondering now whether this is one of the episodes

when we've heard cat fights.

Oh, dear.

Oh, don't.

He's terrorised.

Oh, here we go.

They are both now in that room.

I think that was Ollie. Oh, no, it was Buster.

That's Ollie at the back. Yeah, Buster was first.

-He was chasing him out.

-Of his own house.

Cos the second cat was all black on the back.

-So we are sorry about that one!

-Yeah!

Ollie, bang to rights.

But little consolation to an owner worried sick about her

frightened and now missing cat.

It actually quite upsets me. He's being pushed out of his own home.

Buster is never going to be a lion.

But I just want him to feel safe in his own home, that's all.

It's not a lot to ask for, is it?

The way I am feeling at the moment,

I'm thinking I would rather close the cat flap altogether,

board the damn thing up and just let Buster in and out the front door.

We've got nice neighbours, we have no

issue with them, and I wonder if I said something specifically to them,

they might say, reasonably, "What can we do to resolve the problem?"

And I would hate to have conflict with them, we don't currently.

I'm not sure they fully understand the behaviour that is going on.

And I suspect that they would probably be a bit upset

about that too, I imagine.

We didn't know he was able to be a cat burglar. We thought that

once they got this new cat flap that it couldn't be our cat

because the cat flap would deal with it. We don't know what cats think

but I assume that if he can't get in for a few weeks, months, blocked off

or whatever, maybe he will give up on it

but that might be the way forward.

At that very moment, as if by magic, the refugee returns.

-Guess who's in the front garden?

-Is he?

Oh, come on, then! Where have you been?

Hey! Come on then.

It's all right. Come on.

Have them all. Have the whole packet.

I just want to take him in and put him in a bedroom at the moment

because he's so upset.

Come, come, it's all right, it's all right.

It's all right, it's all right.

Oh, dear, he must be starving.

He's absolutely terrified. Absolutely terrified.

What I'll do now is just try and keep him shut in.

See where we go from there, really.

Oh, that really does upset me, I have to say.

The cat flap is now boarded up

and Buster is steadily regaining his weight and peace of mind.

At Beacon Heights, it's the day the cats come back.

Some have been looking forward to this more than others.

Oh, we've all had a holiday. It's been absolutely brilliant.

We have been working in our gardens, nothing on our fingers,

it's wonderful.

But now they have to be educated and that starts when they run away.

But we'll be all right.

It's heartbreaking to see them in a cage.

We're just waiting for them to be released now.

It will be nice seeing them back, keeping the mice down.

Ready, go!

Go on, sweeties!

Back in trap four!

LAUGHTER

I think people will be more on side now.

It depends if they start making a mess or something.

I must say, we haven't had any mess off them so that's why

we haven't bothered with them so much being here.

As part of the deal, the residents - cat lovers

and haters - will be responsible

for the welfare of the returned cats.

This should cut down on mess by keeping their stomachs

in better order.

It could be a bitter pill for some.

-For you.

-I hope it tastes nice, we'll give some to the cats!

Because they are part of the park now.

They become a part of your life and some of you will accept them

as your children.

-Not everybody.

-We won't! HE LAUGHS

We can't get rid of them.

We'll kind of tolerate them and now they are cleaned up a bit,

they'll behave a bit better now they've been doctored, so...

So let's hope it works.

So often the key to contentment, compromise takes many forms.

But few would expect to find it in a slop of lamb chunks in jelly.

Oh, here we go.

I've noticed that every time you feed them

they don't make a mess in anybody's garden who is feeding them.

So maybe there's a lesson to be learned for us older people.