Sellers leaving behind their cat….

[CooCooCachoo]

The sellers of the house we are imminently about to complete on (in France) informed us on a visit just before completion that the house comes with a resident ‘stray’. A cat they have been feeding, vaccinating, has been castrated and is quite obviously at home in their garden (apparently doesn’t go inside) for at least 10 years. They also told us that he is definitely around 12 years old. Except, he doesn’t act like a stray and was obviously quite perplexed when the owner kept shooing it out of the front door! Really can’t believe they would just leave the poor thing behind although I don’t think they have a lot of choice as divorcing and one moving into a flat, the other is simply not interested in taking the cat. They’re dumping their cat on us aren’t they? The outside space is relatively small (town garden) although house relatively large. My cats are definitely outdoor cats though and are already going to be mightily peeved at mandatory lockdown when we move. Interested in any input on how to socialise our existing two (female) cats with this one.

😲😢 what is wrong with people??

Poor lad. That’s heartbreaking. I help with the trapping of stray cats in our village in France. There is such a short window to spay ( January / February) in order to be sure there are not kittens hidden away somewhere waiting for their mum to come back. And not many vets willing to do the operations and wait to be reimbursed. Loads of little associations which are overwhelmed.
Depressing but not surprising to hear how heartless people are.

It works that way where I come from....

Must be a french thing. We moved to a house in France and they left the cat. First clue was a tin of food on the draining board. They told the neighbours we had agreed to it. As our daughter was allergic to cats we would never have agreed to it. They didn't leave any loo roll holders, light fittings, curtains rails or light bulbs, just a flipping cat.

This happened to us! My DH demanded I rehome as he couldn't abide cats, I couldn't bear to do it. She eventually moved into the house, having been confined to an outbuilding her whole life and had him wrapped around her paw. We all cried for weeks when she died and her paw print is framed and up on a wall. The same outbuilding has now been taken over by a feral and her three kittens and he goes up every evening to feed them and get his kitten cuddles! They don't seem to very keen to come into the house, though, and only let us touch them as we have handled them since birth.

But it's a stray - it's not their responsibility to rehome it.

It’s clearly NOT a stray!

Not even a France thing, I live in England and our neighbor had a colony of feral/rural/strays in his garden.

He even built a 'set' (underground earth bunker) for them to live in when the weather was cold and would put cat biscuits out for them, they where use to humans being around as it was an area with lots of houses so weren't scared of people (although weren't cuddly either, would usually stay just out of reach) but they where still wild (all cats are classed as semi-wild though).

Lots of people accidentally adopted rural cats, they just come round and you get attached but they aren't technically yours. Its like having a bird feeder and bird bath in your garden, birds are still wild.

Look at Jackson Galaxy on YouTube - he has some brilliant videos about cat behaviour and I've found them very useful.

Get a different house. It's not OK for them to leave their cat there. It's going to be hard to enough for your cats to move without a new cat to destabilise your group. It's really hard to get a truly content multicat household. If you've achieved that don't rock the boat. And don't reward these twats by buying their house.

If you have young, noisy children, you might find that the cat willingly moves himself back outside again when he realises his peaceful life is changing!

Poor cat though.

Congratulations to you on your new cat! 😉

Sounds like our rental - they really strip it!

For those who suggested we don’t go through with the purchase, that’s not a possibility. We signed the compromis which obligates us to proceed save for a couple of conditions we added like completion of sale of the house in UK. Unfortunately we didn’t include an express requirement that the house be cat free 🤨 and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t trigger the vacant possession/free of possessions clause as they say it’s a stray.

Thanks to those French residents above who have experience of managing these issues in country. I’ve requested the details of the vet so we can check treatment provided and vaccinations, they told us he is registered under the name ‘va pas là’ - as in, don’t go there! There is a small outhouse that we can make comfy while we provide any additional treatment if any needed before he’s allowed in the house - certainly worming/fleas and mites.

All responses were very much appreciated

I agree with scent swapping/domain swapping. We’ve just had to do it with a rescue kitten and our not very nice 5 year old cat, it’s taken a month, but we had them in seperate areas (upstairs/downstairs) then swapped them, and did slow introductions.

It’s very sweet of you to take this cat on, it makes me tear up thinking of poor cats being abandoned 💔

They are abandoning and clearly don't care.

Not sounding like a man who can’t abide cats is he?

Can they prove it's not a stray?

Spray the cats area with feliway spray your hands with catnip and smooth a cat down repeat on each cat at 12 it hasn’t many years left do it would be kinder to tolerate it short term

I fell in love with a house when looking to buy…. I really wanted this house but the owners had been feeding stray cats for 20+ years! I viewed it twice and the garden was absolutely full of them!

I didn’t buy it for that reason!

I pass that house some days and there is always cats outside….2 years later

Much easier to introduce females to males than another female - that's in your favour.
Scent swap, over time let them see each other but not meet, feed together in view. Over time they'll get used to each other. A bit of hissing/spitting and glaring is not unusual.
Cut it short if they're getting antsy.
Poor old soul. Hope it isn't long before they're rubbing along ok.

I agree, we will make it work.

Hmm, it might be a stray. My parents moved to France and moved into a farmhouse with a stray cat. The previous owners would feed it, but it never came in the house and lived in the outbuildings. Eventually she didn’t come back, it was assumed she must have passed away somewhere.