The questionable art of nekoyoke

Nekoyoke (猫よけ) literally means "scare cat" where neko (猫 or ねこ) means "cat" and I suppose yoke (よけ) means "to scare" (at least in this context). You may wonder why anyone would want to scare cats as they are not only adorable, but they are also majestic and wonderful creatures.

Exhibit A: Look at that belly!

However, in Japan (or at least around Tokyo), there are a lot of stray cats and people consider this a problem. Well, I consider it a problem in the sense where all cats deserve loving homes, but there are other issues with stray cats in principle. As a result, people put up various nekoyoke to keep them away from their homes and gardens.

One of the most common kind of nekoyoke is the PET bottle filled with water. These can be found in many places, but they are often found near the entry way to homes and apartment buildings or mixed in with plants in a garden or just around. This kind of nekoyoke is probably popular primarily because it's cheap and easy to make.

The idea behind this one is that cats do not like the reflection of the water in the bottle so they should stay away from the bottles (and your house).

As anyone who has ever had a feline companion knows, cats are not especially daunted by reflections. They will definitely walk right up to a nice, peaceful glass of water and stick their faces right in it if they feel so inclined. So it isn't too surprising that these don't work at all.

Instead, they're really just some garbage that people keep around their homes for no real reason (almost like rocks that repel tigers, but less effective).

A less obvious cat-repellent.

Another form of nekoyoke is a sort of spiked plastic mesh. This is one that you can buy in stores. I've seen it at daiso where it's marketed as どんとキゃット　(dontokyatto or "don't cat"), but some of my neighbours use it in the garden as well.

The idea here is that cats don't like sitting or walking on spiked things, so they will avoid the area where this stuff is placed. It's sort of similar to the stuff people use to keep birds from roosting in various places and it's also something that seems like it should work...

...unless you've lived with a cat enough to know that they really like sitting or laying down on unusual surfaces. So these don't work either. At least this isn't as ugly as the PET bottles (except when people do this with it).