Cat carer ordered to remove enclosure from city-owned garden despite neighbours’ support

A volunteer who fosters rescue cats has been ordered to remove a fenced enclosure she created for them in the garden of her municipally owned apartment in the Polish city of Szczecin, despite the support of her neighbours.

Beata Mycka created the space to allow her six cats to profit from the garden without the risk of them escaping or soiling neighbours’ gardens. But the manager of the building notes that the gardens are in fact communal areas that do not belong to the apartments directly.

Although Mycka’s neighbours and a local animal welfare foundation have supported her, the manager has told her she must dismantle the structure by the end of June or face eviction.

“I give up, I am helpless, I will comply with the order,” Mycka told Gazeta Wyborcza daily. “I feel sorry for my cats, they will lose their sanctuary, they won’t be able to go outside anymore. Without protection, I won’t let them out, because they’re animals that have been through a lot.”

Grażyna Szotkowska, president of Szczecin Social Housing Association that manages the building, told Gazeta Wyborcza that the estate’s bylaws do not allow for construction by tenants in the gardens.  But Mycka notes that her neighbours have put up sheds and fences without any problems.

“We will introduce order in the gardens in small steps, but decisively,” said Szotkowska. “If we agreed to the enclosure for cats, we would then also have to allow for unsightly fences or wooden bike sheds.”

The association says that cats are still allowed in the garden, but Mycka said does not want to let them out unsupervised.

“Pipi, the ginger cat, is always the most anxious to go outside. She meows at the door every morning,” said Mycka. “I will put a net in the windows and they will watch the world from the windowsill. Sad.”

Mycka’s decision not to let the cats roam freely is consistent with advice given by experts who say that domestic cats, which were recently classified as an invasive species by the country’s leading academic body, pose a danger to wildlife, especially birds.

Main image credit: Cezary Aszkielowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.