Neighbors cats and ill health

Question
I live in a catty neighborhood.  The person who lived in this house before me left out food for all cats.  I only feed my two outdoor and well petted cats at 9am and 5 pm.  The neighbor cats hang around too much and one of them now has runny squinted eyes. I have noticed one of mine with a minor eye discharge that goes away. How can I keep the neighbor cats away?

Answer
Hi Ann.  The only way to keep your cats healthy and separated from your neighbors' is to keep your cats inside.  Anything you could do to hope to keep your neighbors' cats away is pretty ineffective, and if it does work, it is also going to repel your own kitties.  I highly advocate converting outdoor cats to indoor ones.  I've done it close to a billion times (a slight exaggeration).  It's remarkably rewarding once you get past the withdrawal phase.  Beyond that, just be sure they are up-to-date on all vaccinations including rabies, distemper, calici virus, rhinotracheitis, feline leukemia and feline AIDS.  You may also want to keep them up on chlamydia vaccines, a bacterial cause of serious eye infections which can be contagious to humans, and possibly bordetella.  Additionally, they should wear flea protection at all times and be dewormed every few months.