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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Re. Visiting cat?

202 replies

EleanorAbernathy · 05/02/2019 00:35

A young cat started appearing in our garden during the summer, really friendly boy, loved a bit of fuss - we figured he was a neighbour's cat.

Recently he's started showing up again - he has got really fluffy - at both the front and back doors, meowing pitifully like he's never been fed in his life. I am well aware he may be playing us here! Grin

We've let him in a couple of times and he's guzzled away on our cats' food, again like he's never been fed in his life.

We really don't want to steal somebody's cat - but we are feeling really sorry for him! I work shifts and have got home at 4am in the last couple of weeks when it's been freezing outside and he's been out there meowing to come in.

He's not microchipped - I've got a scanner.

Last night I popped a collar on him with a message and my phone number - then he turned up again in the afternoon, collar had gone but nobody has called.

If he belongs to anyone I suspect our next door neighbours - not sure if anyone remembers but I posted a thread about their old cat that got stuck in our roof after being run over - they didn't even have a vet for her! They had another cat too that moved in with the lady over the road.

AIBU to keep letting him in for cuddles? Should we keep sticking collars on him with our details in case he somehow wiggled out of the last one?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
Mmmhmmm · 05/02/2019 12:27

Looks like a cat has found his second home. I was most put out as a child when I discovered our cat had a home away from home. Grin

LaLoba · 05/02/2019 12:33

As others have said, you’re stealing someone’s pet. You have no idea if he chooses to be out (catflap), you’re just jumping to conclusions because you want him to be a stray. And if you can keep your cats in, you can keep him out.
If you pulled this with one of my cats you’d end up starting a new thread about your angry neighbour who bangs on your door everytime her cat doesn’t come home.
That cat doesn’t look anything like a stray. Nothing cute about this thread.

mimibunz · 05/02/2019 13:22

My NDN ginger Tom has been trying to move in for the better part of a year. He’s enormous from making the rounds to various houses in the neighbourhood. I don’t let him in but then he gets proper outraged and claws at the door. Cheeky bugger.

callieisdoingit · 05/02/2019 13:27

My ndn has two ginger tomboys and they also get fed at a house down the street even though they have constant food and a cat flap. Cats are just greedy lol.

Tinty · 05/02/2019 13:28

We don't entice this one in - he lies in wait and makes a run for it if we open the door to go in or out, with a triumphant little squeak if he makes it inside before we catch him!

That's because he wants to come in where it is warm and eat your food, shag your girls and snuggle with your DH when he fancies it. He probably just can't be bothered to walk back up the road in the night. Especially if he sees you coming home from work just at the time he fancies turning in.

MrsRussell · 05/02/2019 13:39

We moved house about half a mile two years ago and my elderly tabby cat decided her patch was back at the other place. As far as we knew she was just missing... missing... missing,.... right until she came trotting out of their cat flap saying hello. We took her back. She returned to the old house.
OH and DS oaid several visits to the house to say "can you not keep feeding our cat". Totally blanked by the owner, who said "oh she lets herself in" - what really? and opens your fridge as well, does she?
Elderly cat with kidney issues, and they had the brass neck to ask us if she'd been wormed and flea'ed. WELL NO SHE FUCKING HASN'T BECAUSE WHEN SHE WAS DUE FOR HER MEDS YOU WERE SHUTTING HER IN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE.

They have now moved out (no forwarding address) and taken the cat with them.
I loved my Babygirl very much. I have photos of her cuddling me with her paws round my neck and every time I see them it makes me cry. She was the Senior Furry member of the Household and they took her away without even asking us.

grincheux · 05/02/2019 13:41

I had a very similar ginger boy trying it on here a few weeks ago! I posted a photo to Facebook and his owner got in touch within a few hours to apologise - he was very much a six dinner sid 😊

zod1ac19 · 05/02/2019 14:03

I know from my own experience with cats that if you got cat food in your house you're going to get random cats coming round.

Microchip cat flap solves that issue.

ReaganSomerset · 05/02/2019 14:05

@MrsRussell

That's awful. I'm sorry for your loss. I know how it feels though, we had a lovely tabby tom, friendly as anything, in the days before microchips. Wouldn't wear a collar. Evil cat lady with 8 other cats got her hands on him, took him to the vet to be checked over. He tested positive for FIV so she had him PTS. Then came round to tell us what she'd done. Angry

MrsRussell · 05/02/2019 14:09

Thank you @ReaganSomerset. She was a funny loving little old lady my Tribble and if she had made the choice to live there and it had been planned I'd have been fine with that, but I thought just to take her was not on. Well, maybe not fine, pissed off, but .... it would have been Tribble's choice, you know?

ReaganSomerset · 05/02/2019 14:15

Yeah, I get what you mean. Flowers

pigsDOfly · 05/02/2019 14:21

zod1ac19 I've mentioned the microchip cat flap to my DD and she's considering that, although they're not absolutely foolproof against a very determined moggy.

I think the sizing is different from her old cat flap so is going to prove quite expensive all round to replace her existing one.

Didn't have them when I had my cats though.

theworldistoosmall · 05/02/2019 14:34

Mine are all black. They both act like I starve them, they smell something they like, they will be upstairs and will come flying down screaming what sounds like mine.

When we lived on the ground floor always had cats sneaking in and out in the summer. Even when we didn't have any. The only way we could have stopped them would have been to never open windows/doors. In the colder months, they would sit outside the window wanting us to let them in, or try and get in when we went out/came in. Didn't mean they had adopted us. Just cf'ers of the cat world. One would always lay in one of the kids toy shopping trolley and the kids would wheel him around lol. One would make us jump more than once as she would sleep on a shelf snuggled amongst all the teddies.

FineWordsForAPorcupine · 05/02/2019 14:57

We had a problem with a cat coming in the house through the cat flap - we'd find it sleeping on the bed, eating our cats food, etc. My own cat found it very distressing, but there was nothing we could do - he'd just decided we were his new home!

Oh no, hang on. That's not what happened. After the second time, I chased it out of the house, making loud noises. The third time, I was prepared and squirted it with a water pistol. The cat did not come back.

So if a cat has "decided" it simply must come into your house, you do actually get a say in the matter, even if it does have a very sweet face and seem quite persistent.

Triskaidekaphilia · 05/02/2019 15:17

Trisk we're not far from Nottingham ( a few miles to the north ) maybe it IS him! If it is, he says you never feed him or cuddle him. Grin

Tbf to him, his fat brother does try to steal all the food! But seeing as between me and DH he gets about 3-4 hours of cuddles every evening the rest is blatant lies! Grin He goes out at night when the heating turns off, but I doubt he's travelling miles as he's always asleep on the end of our bed by the early morning!

Beaverhausen · 05/02/2019 15:22

What i did with a visitor was made a paper collar and just put it around his neck not too tight. If he has owners they will contact you, if not you have a gorgeous young man now :).

Might be an idea to contact Cats Protection and see if they can help with neutering most CP branches do have offers on where they pay for neuter and microchipping and you only need to pay £10.

Oh gosh I am a sucker for a ginger and he is long haired what a gorgeous boy. :)

ReaganSomerset · 05/02/2019 15:51

@Beaverhausen and if the collar comes off before he gets home?

AryaStarkWolf · 05/02/2019 15:53

He doesn't look stray at all

gamerchick · 05/02/2019 16:01

Some cats have dietary issues, others cannot wear collars because they get them caught and strangle themselves - please don't assume you have the right to feed someone else's pet and put a collar on it angry

Good grief, they're paper collars. Tough enough to not fall off but easily ripped to remove.

We've all worn one on our wrists at some point when at a fair or other group activity to show you've paid.

pumpastrotter · 05/02/2019 16:04

@Beaverhausen honestly I wouldn't contact someone first instance if they had put a collar around my cat even with details, would just throw it away and think they were presumptuous CFs.

Someone did this with one of our childhood cats - we'd had her since a kitten, must've been 6/7yrs by then and some arse up the road kept taking OUR collars off and replacing them with their own with an address/name barrel attached. She went missing for a few weeks and turned out the CFs had took to shutting her inside because guess what - she kept coming home. My dad had to go and get her eventually but it didn't dissuade them, she'd still come back occasionally with their naff collars and naff name tag.

pumpastrotter · 05/02/2019 16:06

*Good grief, they're paper collars. Tough enough to not fall off but easily ripped to remove.

We've all worn one on our wrists at some point when at a fair or other group activity to show you've paid.*

Have you ever tried to get one of those types of wristbands off?! A cat could VERY easily strangle themselves with one!!

secondarymincepie · 05/02/2019 16:06

What i did with a visitor was made a paper collar and just put it around his neck not too tight. If he has owners they will contact you, if not you have a gorgeous young man now.
The cat has owners! just looking at the photos the OP has posted you can tell it's not some poor neglected feral. If it's owners don't contact her it's probably because the collar came off, as collars often do. I don't get this need for people to track down the origins of every cat who crosses their path, they roam, they beg, that's just what they do. People can't just claim 'gorgeous young men'.

adaline · 05/02/2019 16:15

We've all worn one on our wrists at some point when at a fair or other group activity to show you've paid.

Yep, and they're bloody hard to get off without scissors. They could easily strangle a cat if it got caught on a fence post or a tree branch. Lots of vets don't recommend using collars these days because they're a strangulation risk.

And paper or not, it's still not your right to put a collar on someone else's pet!

adaline · 05/02/2019 16:17

What i did with a visitor was made a paper collar and just put it around his neck not too tight. If he has owners they will contact you, if not you have a gorgeous young man now smile.

Or maybe the collar rips off and the owners have no idea. Or maybe they don't think they need to contact some random stranger because it's THEIR CAT. That they feed, house and pay for!

Might be an idea to contact Cats Protection and see if they can help with neutering most CP branches do have offers on where they pay for neuter and microchipping and you only need to pay £10.

What the hell? Seriously? You have no right to go around chipping and neutering OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS. If you want a cat, go to a shelter and adopt one, then you can make it wear whatever collar you want, feed it whatever you want and pay for it yourself!

Why do people seem to think it's okay to steal other people's pets?

AryaStarkWolf · 05/02/2019 16:20

What the hell? Seriously? You have no right to go around chipping and neutering OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS. If you want a cat, go to a shelter and adopt one, then you can make it wear whatever collar you want, feed it whatever you want and pay for it yourself!

Why do people seem to think it's okay to steal other people's pets?

I know right? It's really clear aswell from the 2nd picture especially that the cat is well fed and well looked after.