Mythbusters - UK Edition

You may recall us telling you about our Grandcats from next door, Harrison and Ugly?  Well, they are very friendly but have taken up the bad habit of using our back garden as their British litter box.  When we were home for the holidays, we sought the advice of Jon’s wise older sister (actually we griped about the poo and she offered a solution unprovoked, but it sounds better to call her wise).  According to Karen, if you sprinkle cinnamon on the ground, the cats will stay away because they don’t like it; it is better than using red pepper flakes, because it doesn’t harm the cats.  Fantastic, we had our solution.

Today was the day to implement the Great Cinnamon Repellent Act of 2012.  To start with, Jon removed roughly 8 kilograms of poo from the flower beds (converted to pounds and ounces, 8 kg is equal to a shitload of poo).  Side note: when poo sits in the flower beds for 26 or more days, it tends to grow lengthy vertical moss hairs in the English environment.

With the flower beds completely poo free, the giant jar of cinnamon was rolled out.  Jon sprinkled it everywhere, in layers thick enough to see from space (or at least from our upstairs bedroom).  With the garden ticked and tied and protected from the evils of the Grandcats, we headed out for a day in London.  We had a great time.  Upon returning to the house, we went to check the garden to find out if the Cinnamon Theory was fact or fiction.  This is what we found:

While checking this and taking photographs, guess who showed up for a visit? Harrison!  And guess who proceeded to again poo in the flower bed on top of the cinnamon laden dirt right in front of us? Harrison.  We caught him spicy-pawed:

Thus the myth has been busted.  We will continue keeping a stock of plastic bags for poo removal,  we’ve filed a petition with the city to see if we can legally poison the cats with red pepper flakes, and Karen is full of Not-Nice Spice Advice.  In the meantime, there is one saving grace: when we walk out into the back garden, instead of being hit by poo smell, we find our noses telling us we need to eat Snickerdoodles and Cinammon Rolls.