Elderly neighbour feeding our cat

Yup. They are not like dogs. No loyalty whatsoever. That is the beauty of the cat. Complete indifference.😅

If your dh threatened one of my elderly family members, you would not only have the police on your doorstep but also a non harassment injunction.
If you don't want your cats to wander, keep them on your own property

Feeding a cat is not theft

In that case, the owner should take better care of their property and make sure it cannot go on to someone else's property

@Llhaaf "Surely a Maine Coon is an expensive indoor cat? Why on earth are you letting it out?"

Because cats are not property.

Cats are either

A. Free souls, able to go where and do what they please

Or

B. Owned animals that need to be under control like a dog is.

I'm all for B. But then they need to be under control at all times, including owners picking up their shit and stopping them from hunting, both which are illegal if you have a dog.

You can't have it both ways

You can get collars that say things like, diabetic cat please don’t feed. Might help.
@Llhaaf the cat would then be scanned and returned to the person who owns it. You’re obviously not an animal lover if you think it is good idea for a cat to be caged and driven about for absolutely no reason. What would you do if a mouse found its way in?

She might say yes and keep the cat.

Or she might say no and keep the cat.

If the op wants to reclaim her animal, she’s going to have to have an indoor pet.

Additionally you are quite lucky they returned the cat to you. If I came home and kept finding the same cat, I’d pop it into a box and deliver it to the nearest animal sanctuary as an abandoned pet with video evidence of it trying to stay in my home.

I’d be tempted to ask her to settle your next vet’s bill.

If you let them.

I for many years kept pedigree breeds, mainly Siamese and British Shorthairs. I never let them outside, other than into a cat proofed garden, which they could not escape and therefore my choice of pet never impacted on or annoyed anyone else. Very simple to achieve.

I had a cat who decided they really liked our neighbours house. Cat would get in whenever she left a door or window open and just hang out like he owned the place, even sleeping on her bed. Like yours, it was a very confident pedigree breed.

Neighbour hated cats and would knock on my door to complain about the cat and insist that I stopped it from coming to her house.

Cats don't give a flying fuck and will do whatever they want and go wherever they like.

We have been "chosen" as owners of the cat next door. He sits on our doorstep ready to greet us first thing in the morning loudly purring He has made a little nest in a patch of long grass under our window and waits for us to appear. We don't feed him or encourage him in any way (other than a tickle under the chin) but he is always outside our house.

Surely a Maine Coon is an expensive indoor cat? Why on earth are you letting it out? I agree with others, you should keep it in or build a catio. I’m surprised it hasn’t been stolen.

One of my neighbours has a Bengal she lets out. Every time it doesn’t come home she’s on the Facebook page begging us all to go out looking for it. I’m sorry, no. Keep the damn thing in if you don’t want to lose it. Perhaps then I will also get a few days where I’m not picking cat shit out of my flower beds.

Well unless you keep him in there’s not much you can do, he is choosing her house over yours so presumably he is happier there. You absolutely cannot expect her to keep her doors
closed and it sounds like the both enjoy the visits equally. You could perhaps ask her not to feed him, say he’s had to go onto a special diet or something. But if she is lonely with lots of time to spare he may still choose to be with her, I would take that over a noisy house with kids. The point that he was happy in your old house is irrelevant, he’s found something he likes more so will always choose if he can

I'm hearing that in the voice of Papa Lazarou, from the league of gentlemen.

Cats are dickheads. He prefers it doing hers.

Upping your snack game might help but ultimately there's not a lot you can do except play the pick me game.

He'll need to become a house cat or you will lose him forever. Elderly old lady will be treating him like a King and it won't be long before you never see him again.

No point going down the legal route as no solicitor would risk the likes of shitty papers like Daily Mail picking up the story and doing their sad old lady story.

This happened to my DH long before I met him, crazy cat lady old spinster had kidnapped loads of cats in the neighbourhood. She died, SSPCA came and took all the cats away. By the time DH found out his cat was gone never to be seen again.

I had a neighbour like this and what used to really piss me off is my cat has allergies. Everytime she fed him I had to go back to the vet to get medication. I ended up keeping him inside as I couldn't afford the multiple trips to the vet.
Tell her the cat has an allergy to see if that stops her (it probably won't), or cat proof your garden. You can get rollers at the top of your fence that stop cats climbing out. Or get a catio. She's entitled to keep her door open so the cat might still go in even if she doesn't feed him.

Tell her he’s on special food prescribed by the vet and she mustn’t feed him because it would make him ill and your kids are really upset about how poorly he’s been.

She’s a weirdo to have got a litter tray. Cats generally prefer to go to the loo outside so she must be shutting him into her house to need a litter tray. She’s really mean to be nicking your kids’ pet 😔

Your cat is unsettled after the move and has found a friend. Shes perfectly entitled to keep her door open. will definitely be giving it food
Most cats have several owners realistically. At least you know ow its safe and being loved

You cam try keeping it indoors for a few weeks but cats are laws unto themselves

As I am reading this I am watching mine dive under a neighbour's gate and as their back door is open she is probably now in there for her second breakfast.

I warned them when they moved in that she isn't a starving stray kitten. They did ask if it was OK to give her treats. She visits several other neighbours.

OP

There isn't much you can do. The only thing I can think of is to invent a medical condition that means your cat can only have special food from the vet.

And ask her to pay your vet's bills.

You said
"She must be"
It's unreasonable for you to do our say anything with our proof x

I can't believe someone is suggesting you send the boys around to threat her into silence as well!

Stealing a dog isn't the same. You have the physically steal a dog. A free roaming cat will just chose where to go. Even trying to discourage them doesn't always work

And suddenly forcing an outdoor cat to stay indoors is cruel. The cat will hate it and be grumpy and possibly even hurt your children if it feels too cooped up

She’s clearly trying to steal your cat - and I bloody hate people who do this! There’s a huge difference between having a neighbour’s cat get in through an open window briefly and enticing a neighbour’s cat in, like this woman is doing. Why TF has she got a litter tray? Why TF is she actively calling your cat into her house?

I think you’re being too soft about it. I’d get a solicitor’s letter, like a friend had to do once when similar happened to her, stating the cat is yours and she has been seen actively enticing it in, providing it with a litter tray, etc, and any further such actions will be treated as attempted theft and you’ll be taking action against her for that and for the distress caused to your family.

She’s being sly and disingenuous. Of course she can keep her door and windows open (although I find it very hard to believe she’s doing that in this weather) but if your cat mistakenly enters her house, she should do what any normal person does and shoo it out. We once had a cat that visited every day, basically to eat our cats’ food. We could have just shaken more food out, but we didn’t. We shooed it out firmly, telling it that this wasn’t its house. It took quite a few goes, but eventually it got the message.