to not actually know what te neighbour wants me to do about the cat??

[Confusedmartie999]

Long story short we moved in a few months ago.
We have a cat aged 3 who we rescued, he always has been a little ferrel and not the type of cat to come home every night etc.
we also have an elderly cat who lives indoors and very rarely ventures out.
We've never been allowed a cat flap before ( renting ) so if he wasn't home by the time we went to sleep he stayed out.
At this house we have one so it's left open all the time, on a latch so if he comes in he can't get back out at night.
Within a few weeks the neighbour knocked and complained the cat was going in their house at night, to sleep, eat and was upsetting their cats.
I apologised, bought them chocolates and have made every effort to ensure by evening he is locked in evening though he spends hours crying at the back door or by the cat flap, so loud it wakes the children from time to time to avoid any conflict with the neighbour.
I did explain in the day I would be letting him out so there isn't much I can do about him coming in during the day and they said it was the night time that was the problem.
No issues since as far as I knew but this morning I bumped into the neighbours outside and the man ( he was the one who initially knocked ) said it's getting ridiculous, that one night last week he found him alseep on his sofa ( this night we had tried and failed to get him to come home, we had tried until 1am with all sorts of treats etc but he just wouldn't come back ) and then went on to say that he also ate cooked sausages that were left on the side in the daytime yesterday.
I did ask why he doesn't lock his cat flap at night since he made it clear his cats don't go out at night but he replied that they aren't going back to litter trays and I should think of a suitable solution.
I said I'm not sure what else I can physically do and he replied that in all the years he has lived here he has never had this and he shouldn't have to fork out for an electronic cat flap to suit us and that our cat shouldn't be living in a cul de sac but on a farm.
I have a 5 year old son who loves the cat otherwise I would consider re homing but I don't know what to do :(

But how many houses might OP's cat visit? Once one neighbour gets a new cat flap others might want one. Where does it end? Cats can roam for miles.

Does the cat like your ds? I wonder if he finds the environment more conducive next door and is trying to adopt a new slave. One of our cats adores the dc and tries to follow them to school. The other one likes peace and quiet and will scarper as soon as one of their friends comes round. He probably would try to find new slaves but the neighbours all have younger dc than us.

If you wanted to p**s him off but still be seen to be doing something then you could get him a litter tray and tell him that you consider the matter closed. At least with a litter tray I know where the majority of the poo goes.

My cat does this. Add to the mix the fact he's got a thyroid complaint which gives him an excessive appetite but he's skin bones and this means many of our neighbours believed he was a stray and would encourage it (less now since we got him a collar saying 'thyroid complaint, do not feed.'

It's one of those things. Asking an owner to stop it is like asking a parent of a newborn baby to stop the baby crying at all. You can't.

Can you contain your cat in the garden ?

My sister's cats were relentless bird murderers and a elderly neighbours caught them on camera with bloody fangs. Some twitcher council guy paid her a visit and they effectively were given a feline asbo.

Now she has a ugly wire aviary
cat come conservatory at the side of the house .
She knows of another cat lady person whose neighbour was paronoid about toxoplasmosis from cat crap and cat was also given council notice and had to be contained.
A electronic cat flap would be cheaper .

I'm not containing a cat in the garden, it's a rented house so i can't be doing all sorts of amendments to someone else's fence, especially when after his attitude I don't want to stay any longer than we legally have to.
He has waited both times for me to be alone when he has had a go at me about this, watched me trying to entertain 2 young children ( I was in a dressing gown the first time he knocked on a Sunday morning ) and still proceeded to have a go, so for that reason I won't be offering anything as he has been rude and actually a bit of a bully.
I would rather put my money towards moving costs to be honest.
The cat loves the children, and vice versa, he isn't scared of noise and runs home to greet us when he hears the car pull up but within half hour he's back roaming around the cul de sac, he just doesn't like being inside much.

Not read the whole thread but it's your neighbour who's being unreasonable. Other cats coming in is a risk you take as a cat owner with a cat flap.
We had another cat coming in and upsetting ours so we changed our cat flap to a microchip one. I wouldn't have dreamed of tracking down the interlopers owner and asking them to pay for it!

I think it's difficult with cats.

A friend of mine had to have her cat re-homed because it starting being an ASBO cat - ie sneaking into other people's homes through open windows, not catflaps - and crapping, eating stuff and being generally destructive.

She was mortified - and she didn't really feel it was an option for her to say that's what cats do, keep your windows shut

It's not that I had already decided, more so than I'm shocked than rather just put a litter tray down for his supposed indoor cats he would expect me to pay for a new cat flap or get rid of the cat.
I find that really odd.

Did he actually say he wants you to get rid of the cat?

Our neighbours cat gets in through our window, they are cats you cant really control them. We find it funny!

In as many words yes

I think you are right to avoid him. As you say, he is a bully.

Viviennemary "Well it's your cat that is in the wrong"

I'm having a slow day and this woke me up as I cannot stop laughing.

all jokes aside, OP, he's lucky he hasn't had a fox come in yet. He should sort out his own electronic cat flap.

So his cats are allowed to roam all night outside, but he doesnt want your cat to roam?

personally i think its cruel to keep cats in over night as they are nocturnal. If you have cats/dont want other cats in your house, you have to sort your house out so they cant come in. We live in a road with lots of cats, and we were having a problem, but we kept the inner door shut (with cats on the outside) and now they dont come in (i dont know if the owners moved or the original cat died/left) but i wouldnt dream of seriously complaining to a neighbour (might mention it in passing)

Tell him his cats go in your house too, and if he pays for an electronic cat flap for you, you will pay for one for him.

Job done.

Dd has spent a lot on an cat flap that reads their cats microchip, solely because of a neighbours bully cat coming in.
I thought that was standard. The owner of the other cat isn't going to pay on their say so!
Ridiculous to try to charge the neighbours.

sprackenzy good solution!

It's your neighbour's responsibility to protect his property. If he doesn't want other people's cats coming in then he needs a microchip cat flap, preferably programable, and to close all his windows & doors.

It is not your concern or responsibility.

Just to add, we were in a similar situation where neighbouring cats were entering our house by our old cat~flap and wolfing PestoCat's dinners.

It was so simple to solve by installing a SureFlap

I certainly feel bullied by him but avoiding him isn't such an option living right next door is it??
I agree, if I was having such problem I would just install the cat flap, I certainly wouldn't be making a big old fuss about it.

So if the OP buys the electronic cat flap for grumpy neighbour, and her cat enters someone else's unsecured cat flap, does OP buy an electronic cat flap for that neighbour too? How many cat flaps will she end up buying?!?

OP YANBU it's a cat. You've done your best. Your neighbour is being unreasonable.

When I had a bullying next-door neighbour, I ended up not talking to him.

One time when he was having a go at me, I said 'I am not going to talk to you, Joe, if you swear at me.' He replied by saying 'I'm not fucking swearing.' I turned around, walked into my house and shut the door. After that I never spoke to him at all. If I saw him I just didn't say anything. TBH I did end up moving eventually, as there was no real resolution to the situation.

If he tries to have a go at you again, just shut down the conversation and walk away.

He wants you to get rid of your cat. You want him to keep his cat flat closed at night and get a litter tray. Neither of you is going to do what the other wants, so there is nothing to discuss.

It just makes living here feel so bloody awkward now.
Honestly had he said it nicely and not been so rude about it I probably would have bought the bloody cat flap for him but they've been so nasty about it now along with their relatives who live across the road who completely ignore me and my son who waves at theirs ( similar age ) I just think it would be better to move away from nasty people.

we were your neighbours.

Local cat kept coming in, peed and sprayed all over, final straw was when I woke up and it was asleep in my bedroom.

I knew whose cat it was, but I considered it to be my problem.

Came home form one holiday to find loads and loads of cat hair in the hall where there had obviously been a huge fight. Half the hair was black, the other half long haired cream. Our cat is neither black nor cream.

We fitted a flap controlled by the cats micro chip. (total cost including chip £75)

Over night success everyone happy.

But as I said I considered it to be my house, my problem.