Local banshee cat is attacking my cats

[Butterthetoast]

In the past couple of months, a new cat has been 'on the scene' and it is a complete PITA. So many instances of aggression towards my two cats including jumping on them completely unprovoked (I can see this from my office on the first floor) as well as scratching my (very placid) cat deep in his ear so that it got infected. This resulted in an expensive vet's bill and we had two weeks of giving him ear drops twice a day, which neither us nor our cat enjoyed! It's getting so every other day I hear bloodcurdling howling coming from this cat as it attempts to intimidate and instigate a fight 🙄

I understand that owners can't be legally held responsible for their cat's behaviour and that cats will have territory disputes but it doesn't seem to be dying down. I've seen my cats with other cats many times and they are not aggressive, and there haven't been any major problems up until this point. I am worried that will become more skittish and agitated (one of mine is already quite a wary character).

Is there anything I can do here? Send a note through my neighbour's door perhaps, but saying what? Can I ask them to keep their banshee inside??

By chance is it a bengal? We had similar (although it also attacked a neighbour on one side, resulting in a very deep scratch down her leg (it entered all homes with cat flaps) and on the other side of us, the two labradors in their garden. We all thought it was a stray as it belonged to no-one nearby, but the RSPCA trapped it, found a chip and promptly delivered it back to its owners half of a mile away (across a busy dual carriageway, in the middle of a wood for goodness sake!) He continued to let it out, so we and our neighbours each built cat runs for our cats to keep them safe. Sadly its the only way with really aggressive cats, as owners cannot be compelled to stop them from roaming.

As the owner of a banshee cat, cats will cat.

If you get on well with the owner they might be prepared to do a sort of timeshare system where your cat goes out one time of day and theirs another.

It's also worth checking if cat is neutered as some people don't realise that boy cats benefit from neutering.

Make sure the banshee isn't hanging around yours for free cat food- mine is mainly in trouble at houses he can barge in a catflap for an all day buffet. I've pointed out he wouldn't go if he wasn't fed but the owners don't want to change their system, just to keep moaning at me.

However some cats and some owners are just arseholes. Personally I find it mortifying owning the neighbourhood thug but a lot of owners won't care.

Looks like a standard grade tabby to me and I know which neighbour it belongs to and I see it angrily glaring out of their window occasionally...

Can't believe that bengal came across a dual carriageway! Talk about Indiana Jones.... and just to be an absolute nuisance!

What's your cat run like? Are they expensive/difficult to build? Been considering one for a while but the ones I've seen are so pricey and don't look great.

Also thought about getting one of those cat secure fence systems but the one that doesn't look like a prison yard is about £3k! 😱

The run has changed and upgraded by my dad over the years, from wood frame panels filled with chicken wire to using those high event crash barriers (not sure of their real name! They were not attractive mind, and we relied on having a pretty big garden so it could be hidden behind some large bushes) and a little heated and insulated cat shed for winter. The neighbours, however, created an absolute masterpiece. Their catflap was in their side door (close to the border between our houses), so they created a wooden frame extending up from the fence for the full depth of their house, sealed in either end bar a small wire "tunnel" that went along their fence (hidden by plants in the flower beds) up to a big, ornate metal gazebo, in which they built a lovely play park with branches and platforms for their cats, and again the gazebo was netted. It looks far nicer than our efforts!

"cats will cat" indeed 😂

I've never met the owner (diagonally across from me, our gardens all back onto each other). I like the timeshare suggestion! Alas, I think this won't work with my adventurer cat who is out at all hours and very vocal about when his needs for adventure are not met!

Good point about the neutering.

It's not the food as all the trouble seems to happen a couple of gardens over - I think it must be a territory thing. That is bonkers about the owners complaining at you and then doing nothing! I get frustrated at our neighbour's several doors down who locks our cat in at theirs overnight because she is worried about the foxes at night... He regularly goes out at night when not in lockdown at theirs and has always been fine! I use a microchip cat flap to avoid these problems.

This is true. Seems like I can do apart from appealing to their better nature and creating some sort of cat-secure area in my own garden.

Crash barriers - incredible! Any way to contain those little houdinis! I wish I had a bigger garden so I could build some sort of caged delight for them. At the moment it would be quite a small, depressing catio and at that point, they might as well stay inside and I would be saved the eyesore. Bloody hell, your neighbours sound like they should've featured theirs on Grand Designs - those cats don't know how good they've got it!

Mine has been under house arrest as we got fed up of the trouble he was causing and he became very difficult to get in.

However he's not happy and I think we are on the verge of being fed up with his vocal whinging and about to let him out - just swapping one set of complaints for another really.

Never had a boy cat before and bloody hell he's hard work.

The only way you'll stop this is to put up a cat proof fence.
When I moved into my house another cat took a real disliking to my cat, I was going to mention it to the owners because it was always coming into our garden and attacking our cat.. I decided to say nothing when my cat ate there hamster!
Without the fencing they can't be controlled.