Question:

If all else fails – just use the clock radio (IIRC, most hotels have them) and set it to a non-existent radio station.  The static noise from that is equal to the ‘white noise’ that most of the sound soothers replicate. Unless you want the other sounds – traffic, surf, crickets, rainshower…. the list goes on! Ah yes, the soothing sounds of traffic to put you right to sleep

Actually, it can!  Two places I’ve lived were very close to busy freeways, and the noise served to block out all but the noisiest of neighbors, and was steady enough to be soothing.  (Although there WAS the morning I awakened early to "trample, trample, MOO-O-O-O, trample, trample, MOO-O-O-O", which was anything BUT "soothing" – the highway patrol had pulled over a cattle truck, more or less in a direct line with my bedroom window!)

Response:

Lots of posts telling this person how to be more comfortable with sound machines or even sprinklers which would just send the cats to the neighbours but those cats as howling for a reason.  If its indeed howling and not meowing at the door to come in then I garentee you pretty soon your problem will get bigger and their will be feral kittens to contend with.

But the OP doesn’t know for sure that they ARE "feral" – at least I believe he said not (I can’t find the original post).  If they belong to someone, then incipient kittens would be the owner’s problem, wouldn’t they?  Even people irresponsible enough not to have non-pedegree cats altered usually make some provision for the resulting kittens.  (That may simply be handing them over to animal control, which is regrettable, but they won’t become a neighborhood problem.)   – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –  These cats can’t be ferals and belong to someone at the same time.  Do you see them during the day have you tried to approach them at all?  It sounds to me like you either have two males fighting for teritory or you have a female in season and a male chasing after her.  Its a noisy process, but traping and getting those cats neutered would stop the noise, if you did that however you’d have to feed them as long as they remained.  Otherwise take them to the shelter its better then watching their kittens die, or having them suffer from diseases and die slowly. My 2 kids are driving me nuts when 2 strays come to my downstairs patio and start howling at 2 am. My kids only go outside supervised and both Bonnie and Squeak are "fixed" so I’m pretty sure it’s not that the strays are wanting….well you know.  Anyway, Squeak, being the brut he is,could probably kick their butts outta here, but I’m not stupid enough to take that chance.  This is an area under new development, so it could be the ferals belong to someone, but why the hell would they let them out all night? There’s coyoties, fox, and other preditors around.  I don’t want to trap and take them to the shelter, but I need to sleep at night. BTW, the shelter, only one within 50 miles has a 72 hour policy.  Why the hell are they picking my patio?? And what can I do?

Response:

Then isn’t that the owner’s prerogative?  There are any number of us who believe that cats do best, health-wise, when allowed to be "indoor/outdoor", and to come and go at will (and there have been scientific studies that appear to prove it).  Unless you KNOW the cats are ferals, you have NO legal right to trap and dispose of them!

Leaving the indoor/outdoor issue alone, how does someone ever know for sure if the cat is a stray?  They don’t wear signs, you have to judge by behaviour and by asking around.  Talk to people ask them about the cats how long they’ve been seeing them ask them if they know who they might belong to.  Knock on doors if need be throughout the area first see if someone is feeding them.  Quite often people do know where they came from I hear all the time they belonged to this person but they moved away and left the cats behind.  You have to check into the situation I’m sure you aren’t the only person who has seen or heard them. Also shelters do this all the time and they do keep lists of missing cats and attempt to find their owner even if only by checking their lost records.  Contact someone local for advice as well.

Response:

But the OP doesn’t know for sure that they ARE "feral" – at least I believe he said not (I can’t find the original post).  If they belong to someone, then incipient kittens would be the owner’s problem, wouldn’t they?  Even people irresponsible enough not to have non-pedegree cats altered usually make some provision for the resulting kittens.  (That may simply be handing them over to animal control, which is regrettable, but they won’t become a neighborhood problem.)  

Unfortunately that’s only true if they choose to take responsibility for the kittens.  Most people do some people don’t and there’s not much you can do about it when they don’t.  I’ve seen people wash their hands of their pets I spayed and eventually rescued two females that had been breeding for two years with not a single surviving kitten between them.   I knew who the owners were they still lived there where they threw the cats out from, they had been reported and nothing was ever done.

Response:

Mine has both a ‘continuous on’ and a ’sleep timer’ that slowly lowers the volume until it shuts off in about an hour, — The ONE and ONLY lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy former-blonde in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)