To suspect my neighbour killed my cat

[Mani2024]

Three years ago we moved to our new house. Day one we met one of our neighbours and he asks whether we have a cat because he hates them. We didn’t at that point but we had planned to get one as we and our children really wanted one. neighbour begged us not too even though there are many many cat in the area. We reluctantly agreed to keep the peace but after a terrible year with lots of heartache we decided it was non of his business and got two kittens.

When he found out we had cats he made a passive aggressive comment to my six year old child about how one of the cats in particular had been in his garden and on his bird table. Some months later I heard our cats squealing. I thought they found themselves in a fight with another cat so called out to stop it but turned out to be my neighbour doing something to them to get them out of his garden. He said they were stalking his bird house.

We tried to settle things down with him, said feel free to spray them with water if they come over, we would look into a fence with a slope and if they ever mess in his garden (which they doubt they had as they still used litter trays) he could put over the fence with a spade. That conversation went well but he did say he’d killed a cat previously because it had chased a bird and that the killing had been unintentional.

fast forward some weeks and one of our kittens was found at the end of the road dead in the road with a sever head injury. This is the cat that both neighbours had said was the main culprit of jumping on their bird tables. Initially I was extremely upset and couldn’t think clearly but after a week or so I remembered that morning I had heard a cat scream that was worse than you would usually hear and had looked out my window to see what was going on. My husband saw my neighbour around that time walking up the road away from where she was later found and when asked what he was up to today said he was going for a long walk. I saw the neighbour in his garden briefly a week later, when our eyes met he went straight back into his house which is unusual as he usually chats to me. Generally he has been quite friendly apart from the issue with the cats.

i have spoken to my husband and a few friends about this and generally the consensus is that I’m overthinking and that this theory is just generally wild. Im
absolutely convinced he killed her and placed her at the end of the road to make it look like she got run over. Then again, I’m so desperately upset by it all that I’m not sure if the grief is clouding my judgement

Seriously? I did not describe the injury in enough detail to make it graphic.

However, I will apologise if you were offended that I confirmed the manner of death. It was not intended to be shocking and therefore, I can confirm that I felt no enjoyment whatsoever.

I was simply illustrating that animals need to be kept safely within the confines of their home, or they are at risk of injury or worse.

Well it sounds as though he very well might have done this.

Just ask the people with the ring door bells. Tell them you think someone killed your cat - don’t say it was the neighbour at this stage. Just say completely inconsistent with road accident. Most people would look and give you the footage. I would - and I am not a cat fan.

Being honest, I don’t like cats in built up areas because of the impact on neighbours. I’ve picked up heaps and heaps of cat poo over the years from my front and back garden. I actually paved over my front because I just didn’t want flower beds full of cat poo stinking, particularly when it rained. My kids were very small at the time and I had to train them never to go in our own front garden as it seemed to be the neighbourhood cat toilet. However, I do love animals, would never ever hurt one. So if he has done this, he is really pretty crazy and dangerous - I’m saying that as someone who has suffered with cat behaviour and had to shell out £££ because of it. I would never consider hurting a cat. It’s pure evil to hurt a cat.

On the other hand, let’s say you find film of him killing the cat. What then? Police? How will that go? He may still live next door but will then have a criminal record and a mega grudge. If he’ll kill a cat, what else will he do when he’s even angrier?

in the short term, take steps to protect your other cat. In the long term, I might consider moving away from this man. He was already showing signs of being very unreasonable when he asked you not to get a cat.

Shirty response to a perfectly reasonable question given that the term “environmental damage” is very broad.

The RSPB themselves state that there is no good evidence that cats are harming bird populations and that cats usually take out the weak and sickly (as usually happens in nature…do you think the natural world doesn’t consist of animals constantly fighting and taking each other out and eating each other, nature is a harsh world, it’s not all happy families!).

The harm to boys populations his coming from changes to farming practices and land use:

“While these numbers are extremely concerning, we do at least know what is causing them. The destruction of habitats, be it hedgerows surrounding fields or flower rich meadows, the increase in the use of harmful pesticides and shift in agricultural practices that has resulted in a lower diversity of plants being grown, have all played a role.”

Very worrying, but if you are directing your ire at your neighbours‘ cats, you are looking in the wrong direction.

Links that should have been in post above:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/may/britain-has-lost-73-million-birds-over-the-last-50-years.html#:~:text=Recent%20data%20released%20by%20the,years%20between%202015%20and%202020.

https://community.rspb.org.uk/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/13609/6371.6012.1205.6332.Cats-and-garden-birds.pdf

I am so sorry this has happened OP. If you can get some evidence together I would report to the police. As it says in the RSPB leaflet I’ve linked to above it’s an offence to harm a cat.

So sorry about your cat OP. So sorry too that your post has attracted so many of the anti-cat nutters of the ‘I wouldn’t go as far as killing a cat but…’ type.

This is horrific and anyone who could do that is a genuine danger to society, I would absolutely get the footage from your neighbours to see if he was around that area at the time and report to the police if so. He's already admitted to doing it before, what a vile man.

If I saw evidence of anyone hurting one of my cats I'd be imprisoned for what I'd do and I wouldn't regret it.

Gather what evidence you can and get a ring style camera for your home. I would be contacting the police if there is any indication at that he is responsible.

There’s a link between animal abuse and abuse of humans.

https://www.aftermathmag.org/PDFs/Animalcrueltypetabuseviolence2018.pdf

Don't be daft. If you open a thread about a pet dying, it's fairly obvious you are not going to get a feelgood bedtime story.

@AbraAbraCadabra "do you think the natural world doesn’t consist of animals constantly fighting and taking each other out and eating each other, nature is a harsh world, it’s not all happy families!"
That's probably a really good reason to not let your cat outside, it's a harsh world after all

Anyone who can kill an animal so easily… 😔

You need to ask now I think the ring doorbell footage goes back three weeks or so.i really hope he did not kill your cat anyone that could do something like this is truly evil. We found a piece of wood in our garden with lots of little nails in had to be thrown in and could have hurt our dogs. We had a newish next door neighbour that would not respond when we said hello already being in our house 14 years it was meant to harm the dogs.

I am so sorry, he sounds utterly vile!!!

There's a big thread atm about how people who have indoor cats are cruel, but this is why I personally have made that decision.

I'm not saying this to be harsh, I just have heard about this happening far too often.

Sadly so many people dont view cats as being on the same level value wise as dogs and will just kill them without a second thought because they are annoyed by them.

It does sound to me like he saw an opportunity and took it.

Cats are the most precious little souls and i am sending my condolences to your household.

I highly, highly recommend ProtectaPet so they can go in the garden but not beyond. It may be a solution for your other cat or any future ones to keep them safe.

x.com/whatsn2day/status/1825153945448439901?s=46&t=f2GOArvW17hmPQIXKVc_Ag

He did tell you he'd killed a previous cat. That's a bit of a hint he was giving you.

Yeah he did it, 100%. What a psychopathic bastard. I'm so sorry about your cat We used to have a cat that came walks with us and our dogs and a guy who ran a pheasant shoot in this area of the wood saw him and threatened to shoot him if he saw him again. This was in front of me-I was about 11 at the time. I do understand now that he was worried about our cat killing his birds (before him and his prick mates got to) but I so nearly kicked him.

There is a good chance that he did it. But you should consider how to direct your energies right now. Even if you get more proof will it be enough to go to the police?

I would take some steps to safeguard your other cat.

I have two cats and I don’t think it’s fair to let them loose to enter other people’s property and to kill wildlife. Cats kill for sport not food so they are very destructive. Mine live very happy lives inside.

I’ve had neighbours who let their pets roam or bark and it makes me dislike the neighbours not the animals! Our old neighbour had a lovely cat that they kept outside and he was constantly trying to come inside our house which of course would not have ended well with the resident cats! Poor thing was desperate to be in with us and it wasn’t his fault his owners were neglectful. I used to go outside and sit in the sun with him and stroke him.

Whereas having children causes no environmental damage at all.

It's not psychotic. It's nothing to do with psychosis.

He probably did. Nothing you can do about it though. I am so sorry. I have a cat and would be devastated.
The couple of people saying to get a camera and aim it at his garden are wrong. You can’t survey people like that.
I would just do what I could to protect your other cat and be very wary of this neighbour in future.

No such thing as cat proofing a garden FFS,🎈 it's a cat it'll get out!

I don't know why pp are getting so defensive.

I don't own a cat so don't want to see them when I go into my garden, or to find dead birds when I actively encourage birds by feeding them, or to find dead frogs by my pond, or to scoop cat poo out of my flower beds on a regular basis.

I realise wild animals also poo and kill things but I've never found evidence of that in my garden.

Surely even cat lovers can see that none of that is very nice or very fair really? And some people do have actual fears and phobias too, except - unlike with dogs - you can't even feel safe in your own home.

I know this is what cats do, that they have to be allowed to roam (apparently), and that cat owners aren't going to suddenly stop buying them, but it is so rare for a cat owner to be sympathetic instead of defensive on threads.

Op, if you did have a conversation where you agreed he could spray them with water and throw the poo back into your garden, then you are more considerate than most and of course, no matter what, there is no excuse for killing an animal.

No you haven’t because those animals were not your pets, they were wild animals…ffs don’t compare this to your loss of a mouse or sparrow.

I had a neighbour like this who hated cats and complained our cats were digging his garden etc. He wrote some nasty letters and told other neighbours that he was going to put down rat poison to kill them. Initially I was polite like you OP and wrote nice letters back saying that he could deter them by water and we would contribute to making his fence cat-proofed etc.
Just like your neighbour this didn’t make any difference, he continued with the threats so I wrote a last letter where I said I had called the police about the situation to get their advice (I hadn’t). That was the last we ever heard about it, he was sheepish and avoided us and our cats survived. He was just a nasty bully who backed down when he was going to be exposed.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had killed your cat, either go to the RSPCA or the police - or tell him you are going to - as otherwise I think you will continue to have problems.
I am very sorry for the loss of your cat.