I am in the process of buying a house. When we initially viewed the property there was a long haired cat on the garden wall who's fur was all matted with faeces. The vendor had a couple of healthy cats and dogs wandering around the house so I asked how many she had and mentioned the one outside that was in a bit of a state. She said it wasn't hers, but it belonged to the neighbour who died, and she has been feeding it ever since. I did think it odd as a pet owner she hadn't taken it to a rescue if she wasn't able to keep it healthy, and that had been my plan once we move in.
We actually have a cat who was abandoned by the people who previously lived in our current house, I never wanted a cat but it basically refused to leave so eventually we gave up trying to stop her come in the house and started to feed her and now she is our family cat. Last summer our next door neighbour got a kitten who seems to think our garden is an extension of his, and our cat has been very distressed with his presence and they have huge fights whenever they come across each other (daily). Our cat went through a phase of losing a lot of fur and losing weight and it has caused her a lot of stress. We try to keep her in as much as possible but probably due to her period of being a feral cat and her need to escape our boisterous young children she isn't happy to be an indoor cat and does need to be outside a lot to be happy.
This morning I read another Mumsnet post that mentioned the Cats Protection trap and release policy of stray cats. I had no idea such a thing existed, and now realise this is probably the issue our vendors have had with this cat, and that this cat will likely be a problem for ours. Do all cat rescues have this policy? Does anyone have any ideas what we can do about it?