Plastic Water Bottles vs. Cats

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ve probably noticed all the water-filled plastic bottles that can be found in residential areas. A lot of people seem to believe that the bottles frighten away cats.

The “Mezamashi TV” morning show recently put this superstition to test by surrounding a bowl of food with water bottles and seeing how cats would react:

Surprise, surprise! The plastic water bottles did nothing. The cats just went right through and ate the food. Even when backed up with the reflective power of mirrors and CD’s, the cats are only distracted from the food for a split second.

An expert consulted confirms what most of us already know: there is no evidence backing up the belief that plastic water bottles will keep cats away.

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10 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 5, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Categories: Animal Videos Tags:

randomcommenter

I remember watching on TV a few years ago an explanation of where the habit came from, and why. According to the show, the idea was imported from Hawaii, where people would put bottles in their yard. The idea was that it was very, very bright and sunny, and the bottles would cause the bright sunlight to be reflected around, shining in the cats’ eyes and annoying them. The whole idea requires very bright sunshine to have any effect whatsoever…and the show pointed out that while the bottles worked at first, the cats soon got used to them (I guess they figured out where the light was reflected, and just avoided looking that way), so it was only effective initially.

Plus, they were deterrents against cat poop, I believe. In other words, they were keeping cats away from somewhere they had a marginal, at best, desire to go. That’s a far cry from keeping them away from food (garbage bags, etc.), where cats have a pretty strong desire to go.
- Dev
  
  I heard of this, but it was actually to prevent dogs from pooping in the yard.
  - Liam
    
    Likewise, here in Australia it’s used as a way to stop dogs taking a crap in the front lawn. Not that it works at all, but some people still do it.
Jaxx

It actually originated in New Zealand on a TV show called “Dig This”. At the end of the show the host, a guy called Eion Scarrow, would answer viewer questions, and one year here gave this tip on how to stop cats and dogs urinating in your garden, the theory being that animals will not urinate or defecate near fresh water. In fact, Scarrow was a cat lover and was sick of being asked this question – his theory being, it’s a garden, learn to live with nature – and he made up the PET bottle theory as a joke, in fact possibly an April Fool joke if I recall correctly. Within a few months New Zealand gardens were littered with bottles and Scarrow said it was the one of his greatest regrets! After a few years word got around (this was pre-internet days folks) and you rarely see them these days. I’ve seen the same thing happen in other countries – it starts out as a fad and slowly people realise it is guff and they fade away . . . in Tokyo it seems to be taking longer to fade than elsewhere . . .
- randomcommenter
  
  Thanks. Reading around the net, it appears that may in fact be the origin. Definitely predates the Hawaiian bottle origin story.
- Ido
  
  Interesting, I guess the notions might’ve migrated to Japan since both countries aren’t super far away. Plus Japanese seems to love adapting a few odd tradition/ideas from other countries, so it’s not surprising that this would be common folktales for them.
  
  About his waterside theory, I have a little story of my own. I’ve had a cat for a day and it went to do it’s nature call next to a little river, not to mention that I was nervous about this, but it went and came back by itself, so yeah my is that it’s busted once more.
flowby

It works with one of my near neighbours.

She has lined up 2L pet bottles full of water along the whole length of her block wall , preventing cats from walking along the top.

Kind of Obstacle Preventative approach.

And an elderly friend of mines “neighbour from hell” called the police and fire-brigade to my friends house to force her to remove her pet bottles on the fence as they were a fire hazard. She had seen a tv program where the sun light magnifying qualities of water in bottles was shown to be enough to start a smoulder.

So in their infinite wisdom the police told her to remove the bottles, you know – just in case. So she did. That I truly believe to be an “only in japan” story.
Jaxx

flowby,
There was at least one case of a house fire, in Takamatsu, Kagawa, that was traced to sunlight being magnified through a PET bottle lying on its side setting fire to dried grass. It was about ten years ago, or maybe more, and featured on TV, and I recall a Japan Times article noting that there had been other cases since that didn’t seem to garner so much coverage.
- Rob A
  
  At least it wasn’t on a building-sized scale:
  http://freakyphenomena.com/news/las-vegas-hotels-accidental-death-ray
- flowby
  
  Thanks Jaxx –
  
  Yeh I fuzzily recall something about that a long time back.
  
  In my homecountry Australia numerous fires have been attributed to discarded bottles(plastic & glass), shiny metal, broken glass etc – probably all have been in tinder dry grass on very hot days.
  
  The case I mentioned was quite laughable. A suburban asphalt street, every house with high(ish) block fences and nary a blade of fire fodder.
  
  Although I guess there may have been a chance for one of the complaining lady’s innumerable cats to have instantly combusted while dozing on the street.

Plastic Water Bottles vs. Cats

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