to think neighbour over reacted? Child and cat related!

[Confusedmartie999]

In brief we moved in here 6 months ago.
I have a son of 4 and a cat.
Next door have 2 housecats and grown up children who don't live there anymore.
So, our cat was a rescue cat, is very boisterous and fearless, often not coming home for a few days here an there etc.
we had a cat flap fitted for him however after a few weeks of living here strays were coming through our cat flap so we started locking the flap when we went to bed if the cat wasn't in.
He never cried at the door or anything so thought nothing of it until he neighbour knocked, very angry saying the cat had been sleeping in their living room and upsetting their cats etc so we apologised, unlocked our cat flap day and night and thought no more of it.
This evening my son is playing in the garden pretending to " mop " when he comes in saying he's been told off by the neighbour.
He wasn't making much sense so knocked at the neighbours and he said he had told him off as he was hitting the cat ( ours ) with the mop :(
I obviously said oh god thanks, I had no idea I just went to the loo and he replied " well it's no wonder the cat wants to come in our house all the time if he's being beaten over the head by your son "
Then he closed the door ;(
Now it feels very strained with the new neighbours, I'm annoyed as the cat is certainly not scared of our son or anything for that matter, he is walking around the house as I type and this only happened an hour ago! and my son is very sorry and just said he wanted him to get down so he didn't go in next doors house and the man would get angry with mummy again.
Am I right to be upset by this?

Your neighbour sounds a bit grumpy to put it mildly

He didn't have to have your cat staying over at his - he could have called in to you in a friendly way if he was concerned about your cat being out all night

Also - 4 year olds are only learning and sometimes get up to mischief - like hitting a cat. He could have corrected your son in a friendly way - and totally no need to be so short with you about it.

Thankyou.
I just really don't like the idea of living next door to people for a really long time who have a bad opinion of me or my little boy :-(

But sometimes in life people just don't want to be anything other than miserable gits.

You've tried to make amends. If he's not interested it's a reflection of him and not you or your boy!

Thankyou, I just hate to think that he thinks we are neglectful of either the cat or our little boy
In reality he probably thinks we aren't great cat owners for locking the flap at night and our sons a little shit

fackinell

Another 70s kid here. I was slapped by neighbours/teachers and parents friends.

No idea today

. Op tell your ds not to hit cats and keep a low profile.

Hope the neighbours post.

Yeah and I think he was probably wondering why we were knocking at his door after telling our son off so that probably didn't help, but I couldn't make sense of our son and to me it looks like parents don't give a shit if they didn't find out what had happened etc

Think the quick release collars are very safe. Mine are forever going in the undergrowth so they've lost a few between them so they definitely release when needed!
Think it must have looked like to him that the cat was being shut out at night when it wanted to be in, and then being hit by a mop.
Some cats are ok at night outside, or are thought to be ok.
We have a friendly neighbourhood cat that sleeps in our house regularly because it doesn't seem to have anywhere to sleep at night.

You either need to:

cat proof the garden so your cat cannot get out of your garden (possibly most humane option)

take cat out on lead and harness (yes it can be done, should not be embarrassing and means you know exactly what the cat gets up to)

or resign him to being an indoor cat.

Letting your cat pester and become a nuisance to other people is NOT an option.

corgiogy

Do you know many cats?

Would love up see a cat proof garden.

He isn't a problem now that we leave the cat flap open all night. He hasn't been in their house since we addressed that so that issue is over.

Off topic, does anyone know of a quick release collar which is thin enough to thread a magnet onto for a magnetic cat flap? The ones I can find all have bulky fastenings which won't fit through the loops of the magnet.

Anyway OP, I think if I witnessed a) a cat who kept invading the neighbour's house rather than stay at home and then b) that cat being hit by their owner's child then I would think (and possibly even say, depending on my mood) "no wonder that cat doesn't want to stay at home" and I think I'd be in the majority. It's unfortunately inevitable that your neighbour would think that, even if it's based on an entirely unrepresentative event.

Rita IIRC most collars have a little metal loop incorporated into them for threading magnets/ name tags. DCat's collars always do and we just buy them from wherever.

Rita, I do understand that however he was well aware that it was us locking the cat flap at night that was causing him to go into his house as when he knocked he said can you stop locking your cat flap when you're not in or asleep cos he's coming in our house. So he bloody well knew the cat wasn't staying out in fear and that's what's annoyed me with his last comment regardless of the mop incident it was just a low blow.

Trying to imagine a cat proofed garden...

I'm thinking some kind of zoo enclosure...

www.protectapuss.co.uk/

Just one company that offers that service.

Obviously it is cheaper to do it yourself if you can.