How to Keep Cats Off Your Car

There is a lot to love about cats. As pets, they can make life around your house endlessly fun and interesting – but you don’t necessarily want them crawling all over your car. If you have been dealing with the problem of cats making your vehicle something of a home base, we’d like to offer some advice in this article to appropriately deal with the problem.

At American Carports, Inc., metal carports are our specialty. Through the use of our simple Build & Price tool, it’s possible to design something that lines up nicely with your needs, suits your budget, and keeps the neighborhood cats away.

Car Covers Offer Physical Protection

As a starting point, you might think about buying a car cover to protect your vehicle while it is parked. If you are having a problem with cats crawling on your car and marking it up with scratches, the cover will protect the vehicle’s finish and keep it free from damage. As an added bonus, using a car cover will offer protection from other forms of potential damage, such as UV rays from the sun on a hot summer day.

Of course, the notable downside to a car cover is the work you need to do to take it on and off each day. When you head out to your vehicle in the morning, you’ll have to take the cover off – and then you’ll need to put it back on when you return home. This task doesn’t take particularly long, but it might get frustrating doing it day after day. As a result, you might find that you stop bothering with it at all after a while, and then it won’t provide any protection at all.

Try Various Repellant Options

If you don’t want to use a car cover to create a physical barrier between the cat and your car, there are various other techniques that people use to keep cats (and other animals) away. These tend to deliver inconsistent results, so you might have to try a few before you land on something that works.

• One of the common options to keep various types of animals away from a vehicle is to use mothballs. The smell of mothballs is quite unpleasant, and the cats may simply decide to look for somewhere else to hang out rather than dealing with the smell. Of course, that smell isn’t going to be enjoyable for you, either, so if placing them around your vehicle leads to an unwanted odor inside, this technique might not be a win in the end.
• Cayenne pepper. Another option for something you might have around the house is cayenne pepper. If you know where the cats tend to hang out, lightly dust that area with cayenne in an effort to keep them away. It might even work to sprinkle the pepper around the perimeter of the car on the ground so you don’t have to put it directly on the vehicle.
• Buy commercial products. There are plenty of products on the market that are intended to help keep cats away from your vehicle, so you might choose to purchase one of these sprays to see how it works for you.

Address the Root of the Problem

Some of the repellant techniques might pay off for you, at least for a while, but they are a hassle and probably not a good long-term solution. Do you want to sprinkle pepper around your vehicle every night before bed? Probably not. At some point, the best thing you can do is address the problem and figure out where the cats are coming from and why they are hanging around your vehicle.

Who owns the cats? Can you ask that they be kept inside, or at least off of your property? Maybe even asking that the cat’s nails are cut shorter so no damage is done to your vehicle would be a possibility. While it might not always be possible, finding a way to address the issue of stray cats entirely would be the best outcome for all involved.

Keep the Cats Away with American Carports

While the methods we mentioned above all have the potential to be effective strategies for keeping cats away, there is nothing quite like parking your vehicle in a protected space. Building a metal garage with the help of American Carports, Inc. will put a physical barrier before your car and the neighborhood cats. We’d love to help you bring this project to life! Get started on your next project today with our simple Build & Price tool. If you have any questions along the way, our team is always here to help!