I currently have my cat shut in the garage and am feeling awful about it :-(

[AstridPeth]

Bit of a long story but here goes. We are a cat loving family. 2 of our cats were siblings (brother and sister). Unfortunately our very lovely girl cat went missing in August and was later found out to have been hit by a car, we were all gutted . Boy cat had taken up vigil in the kitchen at the time of his sister's disappearance. Sitting by the Aga starring out of the cat flap. He started going out for longer and longer periods and when he had been gone a few days we went looking for him and found out the factory down the road from us had an engineer's block around the back and they had befriended him. They were not there the first time we went but there were cat bowls left out. We picked up our cat and bought him home.
Unfortunately he escaped a few days later. So we trapsed up there again and bought him home again. This time shutting him in the dining room (our plan was to keep him in for a few weeks until he remembered where he lived). Unfortunately our lovely cat figured out how to open the serving hatch and by morning he was gone again.
We have other cats so needed to keep the cat flap open.
Again when we went up to the factory the engineers were not there. So we left a note about how sad our children were at the loss of our other cat and how they really wanted our cat back home. We thanked them for feeding him but asked them out of respect not to feed him anymore. We even left them some money for their trouble. In the hope that if they stopped feeding him he would come home to us.
I left it a few days but our cat still didn't come home. Dd2 and her friend went up there and this time the engineers were in. They gave dd2 the money back. The girls bought out cat home but he escaped for a 3rd time.

By this time I had resolved myself to the fact that i had pretty much lost our lovely cat to the engineers. Someone had lovingly built him a wooden cat shelter and placed a cat flap into their office so he could go in and out.
I am very aware that cats don't have owners they have servants, and whilst i Iove my cats entirely and miss him sadly he has not been happy here since the loss of his sister :-(
Well dd1 has been very upset and angry over the situation and resolved to get him back again. She went up there today with my sister and brought him back again. The only room i haven't tried to keep him in is the garage. He has escaped from everywhere else.
I feel incredibly mean shutting him in when he doesn't want to be here and have tried explaining to dd1 that he is sad here without his sister. But she thinks i don't care about him, which is just not true.
I don't know what to do really.
We have to let him out at some point and I think he will go straight back up to the engineers and whilst they continue to feed him he won't come home.
I could mention it to the reception at the factory and ask them to tell their engineers to stop feeding our cat but I want to do what is right and fair for the cat.
After his sister went his fur was getting patchy and he wasn't looking great. I am guessing stress. But he looks so well now.

I really don't know what to do for the best :-(

Would be interested to know how this pans out.

If the engineers have gone to the effort of feeding and making a flap for your cat (against your express wishes) they are going to have to take legal responsibility for him which will include vaccinations. worming, vets bills in case of illness, emergency, and feeding him during holiday periods.

You need a name to write on the chip form.

In the immediate future - how big is the factory? Is it open between now and Monday? It might be best to keep him in until then. After that I'd go and speak to the engineers and 'formally' hand over the cat to them - it's where he's happiest.

Sorry I think it's awful that the engineers keep feeding him when you have asked not to. Also the fact that two children went to get their cat back and that hasn't made them stop either.
My husband is an engineer and if two girls came looking for their cat that he had been feeding he wouldn't continue to encourage the cat to stay with him.
I would be so angry!
Yes the cat is unhappy where he is but that doesn't mean that grown men should be taking a child's cat away.
Are there engineers there over the weekend? Or overnight? What's he going to do when it's too cold or wet to go out? What if the engineer that takes care of him loses his job or new management come in and say they don't want an animal on the premises?
There are too many things that could go wrong with this arrangement.
If he is really unhappy at your home then it's maybe better to rehome him altogether than leave him with the engineers.

When I was a child we had kittens, one of which was run over. They were a sister and brother, too. The brother mourned for a few days and then went to live with a woman around the corner. We tried to get him to come home but he hated being here, he couldn't settle without his sister. Eventually, we took his things and said a proper goodbye, and he went to live with her. I was devastated and for a while, referred to her as the woman who stole our cat. I suspect now that he'd have left anyway, he didn't want to be with us without his sister. Weirdly enough, his other siblings were still with us, but it didn't matter.

Two years later, he came back. He was much bigger and it took a few weeks before he was as cuddly as he'd been before, but we were amazed to see him. He split time between us then, and we agreed that wherever he settled for the evening would feed him.

Your cat might come back, or he might not. He might settle at the factory or he might decide to move further a field. You can't keep him. He's not happy and he doesn't want to stay. Let him find a new adventure. It's a sad part of cat ownership, but it's not one that you can circumvent. I hope your daughters come round to the idea quickly - the eldest should understand, at least, that he doesn't want to be where he lived with his sister without her, and that keeping him somewhere that he doesn't want to be will be upsetting him as much as it would if she was being held somewhere she didn't want to be.

I am sorry. It's painful losing one cat, let alone losing two.

Have you actually spoken to the engineers?