A bunch of feral cats has created fights and desperation in Greenfields street Mekong Way.
The neighbours have been fighting against their furry intruders for over five years, trying to get rid of the pests, which has taken the toll on family pets.
Mekong Way resident Julie Evas moved into the neighbourhood one and a half years ago with her two little sons hoping to get some quiet and respite.
However, she woke up after her first night in the property to find fourteen feral cats chilling by the swimming pool and a couple of them lifeless floating in the water.
“Because the place hadn’t been lived in for about six months, they were living on the hedge obviously,” Ms Evas said.
Ms Evas was given a cage by the Mandurah rangers and trapped fourteen different cats, until she was told the pound was full and they couldn’t take cats any longer.
She then started to advertise the cats she caught on Gumtree for people to adopt for free, but the hassle of having to arrange the adoptions while working full-time and taking care of two young boys alone was too much.
Ever since, Ms Evas lost a beloved family pet rabbit and had to give away her chickens before they were killed by the cats.
She also got in a fight with her neighbour next door because of the cats, and she is forced to set up a trap on a regular basis to keep the pests at bay.
Since January 2014, the neighbours have arranged organised trapping, single trapping in their backyards, and have hired a professional contractor but after a few days of catching they are told the pound is full and they can’t continue the hunt.
“Nearly everybody around the neighbourhood who’s over the cats have gotten themselves a Pit Bull, but we constantly hear barking dogs all the time,” she said.
“These cats are feral, they’ve got no owners, they roam around in our neighbourhood and they are breeding every eight weeks.
“I just want these cats gone.
“This is just ridiculous, this is just too much b******t for me to handle, I’m too stressed out.”
Debbie Tippett has been fighting to free the neighbourhood from feral cats since the Cat Act came in in 2011, which required identification, registration and sterilisation of domestic cats.
She gets woken up at midnight on a daily basis by cat fights in her front lawn and her pet cat lost a leg after it got attacked by some of the feral ones living in the area.
“Since the day the Cat Act came in, I went down to the rangers and I said ‘ok, now the Cat Act it’s here, now come and do something about the ferals in our street’ [they said] ‘oh no, you can rent a trap’,” she said.
“You can’t keep going around in circles.
“If I can see nine in one hit, that’s telling me that it’s getting way out of control again, the system doesn’t work so let’s change the system.”
Ms Evas and Ms Tippett are now considering writing to local state politicians to bring their fight one step further before they are forced to take justice by their own means.
“It’s just upsetting that there’s nothing that can be done,” Ms Evas said.
“I don’t want to be inhumane to the cats, that’s why I’m trying all I can.
“But at the end of the day it seems to be we’re better off getting an air gun or something that’s inhumane and getting rid of these cats ourselves.”
Mandurah’s pound currently has available space for 16 animals at the time.
Cats which appear to be domestic are required to remain at the pound for seven working days before they can be disposed.
Feral cats only have to be kept for three days.
The City of Mandurah was asked for comment.