CATS ?!?!?!?!!
Dasss right! ! ! ! after about the 10th time you have to clean up your yard afta dem katz tore up yo garbage You start to feel that way. If you could off them without drawing any attention to yoself you might consider it a few times
The dogs are doing it and blaming it on the cats. At least that's what happens here. A pack of dogs chases a cat up onto the garbage can and in the process turn it over and disperse the garbage. The cat is left trying to hide or escape and is found at the scene. There are 4 or 5 stray cats around here, two are rather large, and I have yet to see one turning over a huge garbage can or shredding a garbage bag. They will investigate garbage bags just like anything else, but they work alone and make little holes, whereas dogs make large holes and work in groups to disperse and sample the garbage. But who am I to argue with what happens at your place? Maybe you got some very large and determined cats around there.
One thing I have considered for repelling pests is a pulse from an SSY-1 Nd:YAG laser, but I can't get it to deliver much energy as it is. The Q-switch has not been removed. SAM's Laser FAQ
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm is very interesting reading for a variety of laser types and topics.