Neighbour trying to steal my cat

[Inthebathagain]

I'm so cross.

Long story short, my cat keeps going into a neighbours house. She keeps letting him in her front door...no cat flap. She's feeding him. She's keeping him overnight. She even had the gall to put a collar on him in the early days.

I've spoken to her about this twice, last time 10 minutes ago as I again followed the £120 GPS signal I bought for him after he went missing for 5 days. Response was she "can do what the bloody hell she likes". Then kept telling me to bugger off.

I took him to the vet yesterday, who said he was overweight. I asked her again to stop feeding him because of it, and her response was that he wasn't overweight. Clearly the woman is a trained vet as well 🤦 He eats nothing at my house at all, and has significantly gained weight in the last 12 months since we moved here.

He's very much an outdoor cat, so I don't want to have to go to the last resort of making him an indoor cat. But I'm stuck for what else I can do. Any tips welcome.

You’re going to have to either cat proof your garden so he can’t wander, keep him indoors, or let her be responsible for the cat including vet bills, which may make her back off when she realises she has to pay vet bills for a cat she doesn’t own.

I wonder if a solicitor would write a letter for you? Just an idea. She sounds horrible.

I agree, get a solicitor to write a strongly worded letter for you

Amazon and Ebay do cat collars DO NOT FEED, say vet gave you it as he has allergies. Also say cat needs regular vet appointments so you need him to be around so you can get him there, detrimental to his health otherwise, and also emphasis he has a flea, tick and worm problem that vets are also treating. Hopefully that will put her off letting him in. Try and let him out when she's at work etc. Buy him nice treats, catnip, toys, etc. Good luck.

Put leaflets through her door of rescue cats needing a new home, my neighbour eventually got a cat of her own, problem solved.

Thanks for the advice, but:

First time I found him in hers (I could see him through the porch door) she had a huge go at me, telling me he was full of fleas and that he didn't get them from her house. So fleas didn't stop her when he did have an actual flea problem.

She knows better than the vet, so will ignore the collar.

She's elderly, so doesn't work.

Catnip and toys are in abundance here and the teens love engaging him with them.

Liking the ideas of the rescue cats and the solicitors letter. I could add into the solicitor letter all the associated charges like monthly health plan cost, insurance, tracker etc and bill her for them if she continues to take responsibility for him.