**WARNING**

...RANT AHEAD! No knitting content...

First and foremost most everyone who reads knows I'm an animal lover, I donate to the ASPCA and every Christmas I donate dog & cat food to our community animal shelter, so don't jump me for my next comments.

I have a neighbor who's creating a MAJOR problem in my neighborhood...now it's escalating out of control. She's been feeding a family of feral cats (5 of them to be exact) since the summer. I, in fact, tried to catch one of the kittens so I could domesticate it to no avail...that little sucker was fast! She told me a couple months ago that there are now a family of skunks & raccoons eating at the cat food she puts out...one raccoon was seen in the middle of the day and we all know that's not a good sign, several rabid animals were found in the city during the summer.
Where do these cats use the litter box? In my flowerbeds and backyard where Rudy finds the "yummy" snacks and of course does what a dog does...eats them! My concern here is the fact they have not been vaccinated nor wormed -- will Rudy get worms from this activity?
Everything around our house smells like cat spray, it's worst on wet days like today.
I'm missing 4 fish from my ornamental pond...no floating carcasses were found so I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion as we have.
I recently discovered they are getting up inside our canoe (which is place upside down 3 feet off the ground) and tearing up the webbing on the seats and knee pads inside, I've scared them out of it more than once.
Now, for the past couple mornings during the predawn hours when Rudy's outside doing business I hear that familiar "yeowing" of a female cat looking for love! So...she's accomplished getting them healthy enough to breed but still possibly carry disease! Luckily Ace is an indoor cat. But I have other neighbors with outdoor cats who I hope they have them vaccinated for feline leukemia, distemper and other dangerous diseases these ferals may be carrying...simply because she thinks she's doing the right thing.
Oh, I've talked to her about this problem only to hit a brick wall in getting any action done. I've spoken with our local animal control who, I have to say we have a fantastic caring group of individuals who want the best for citizens and pets. The law here states that if you feed a feral cat YOU become custodian and responsible for them and their damages, but that would require civil suit on our part which I'm not prepared to do at this time. However, if you are feeding more than 3 cats you are breaking the law...she's feeding 5 cats, now possible more if this female gets pregnant. Animal control also told us that we can legally trap these cats and they will see to it they are fixed, domesticated and adopted out. What if they're too smart to catch? If they continue to breed she becomes the next "cat hoarder" in our town...there was one discovered a few years back that was really, really bad. Animal control found 52 cats in one house, both dead and alive...the floors were so urine soaked that eventually the house was torn down and HazMat had to be called in to treat the land the house sat on. I was going to talk with her again to try to reason with her only to find out that she isn't the only neighbor putting out food for the cats, which creates another issue.
We've fenced off my flowerbeds, I've put out mothballs (in vented cans so Rudy doesn't eat them), sprayed ammonia on other areas to hopefully deter them from the yard. Hubby's even had to put chicken wire up to keep them from under his workshop. What more can I do? How can I keep peace in the neighborhood and keep my stuff from damage? Does anyone else know a deterrent I can try?

Sorry to go on with this but I need to get this out! Any other suggestions as to what I can do??

Thanks...