Neighbour stealing my cat and I think I need a tracker

[Theobaldsmum]

I live in a quiet suburban street in North London where all the houses have big gardens and my cats have always roamed freely with no collars. I am worried about the risk to my cats with a collar, but now it seems I need one or some sort of tracker as my cat is often gone for long periods of time and a few nights he has been gone all night. He is housewarm when he comes back in the morning which means he must be in someone’s house😡I am so annoyed I now have to put a collar on him and also potentially spend money on a tracker. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you handle it? I mean neighbours keeping your cat all night. I don’t know who they are by the way or I would have knocked.

I hope it works out, OP. You may have to post on your local SM group if you have one, or go knocking on doors, to explain that people must not feed him or let him stay overnight.
We had a visiting cat that worked out that I work at home and so am here all day, and that the house is quiet. I think its owners went out to work and put it out for the day. It would turn up in the mornings like clockwork and stare in the back windows until I let it in and then choose a chair/bed/sofa and snooze all day. I'd have a little chat and stroke with it when I went to make a cup of tea etc. At about 4pm it'd turn up at my office door looking politely enquiring and I'd let it out and it would trot off home.
I would never have dreamed of feeding it or trying to keep it in. The arrangement as it was suited us both and (I hope and trust) didn't impact on the owners.

If cats are free to roam they are free to stay out overnight. You can't have it both ways

You can’t stop other people feeding them though - it might be shitty behaviour but it’s not illegal.

Also, it may not even be cat food he’s eating, one of mine will bring home all sorts - the latest being some mushy peas, a half eaten pie, bird food from next doors garden and a spicy spare rib 🤣

We’ve also had other cats come into our home and sleep for a few hours at a time - they certainly
weren’t being fed or encouraged by us.

If you allow your cat to roam you have to accept that you can’t control where they go, what they do or what other people do to them.

So many strange replies, I can only assume most of these are not from cat owners or people who keeps their cats as inside pets. My cat is free to roam, but I keep him in overnight. He has his routine and always comes back for his dinner and after dinner he is inside overnight. Obviously if he decided he would like to stay outside overnight, not much I could do, but that’s different from people keeping him inside overnight. Don’t you see that?

Well, not really. We feed out cat around 5-6pm and he gets locked in for the night then (we lock the cat flap) so he can’t go wandering around at night and I think that helps him to know where his home is. He’s allowed out after breakfast at 7am until then. Most cat rescues now recommend cats are kept in overnight for their own safety (harder to see at night, cars etc) and so it’s not so easy for them to hunt birds etc.

You don’t know he’s being kept inside overnight though - it could be that he’s choosing to go in and out through someone’s cat flap and just coming home for breakfast.

I think you’ve had some pretty odd replies too!

But you can’t make them come home at that time. We do similar with our cats in that we keep them in after dinner but if they’re not home then there’s not much that can be done about it.

Yep, I agree with you and we have three cats who go out to roam.

Ideally they’d be in overnight but we can’t force it and the two oldest do sometimes stay out. The only way to stop it would be to cat-proof but our garden is an awkward shape and they get so much joy from being out that I’ve just learned to accept the risks.

You can’t have it both ways. Yes cats can roam, but if that also means they roam away to new homes, then owners just have to accept the consequences of choosing that type of pet
This!
See also cat owners saying that they can’t control where the cats go, hence no need to pickup their poo even in neighbours gardens.

Then keep him inside.

I would love not to have cat crap all over my garden.

My neighbour would love it if random cats didn't come into her house, bullying her cat and eating her cats food.

But 'cats must be allowed to roam'.

If you let your cat out to roam, and expect your neighbours to put up with any inconvenience, don't complain if you cat exercises their right to roam overnight/permanently.

He would have come home if he wasn’t kept inside somewhere else though which is my point. I just think people can get their own cats.

Or maybe he isn't being 'kept in', he is choosing to.let himself in and stay overnight. Because cats have the 'right to roam'.

If he is being kept in somewhere against his will I suspect he wouldn't keep returning there...

I see the strange replies keep coming!
I didn’t start a thread asking what I could do to stop my cat from being out overnight. I am talking about other people keeping him in overnight, he is not outside. If you read the thread I have already said this is a cat who is quite shy, never goes into next doors houses even when they leave doors and windows open. He also has a litter tray and does his business inside so is not crappy in other peoples garden. I thought I put this in the litter tray and not in AIBU so not sure why all the weird replies. This isn’t about roaming, it’s about other people keeping my cat inside their houses even!

It is just as likely - more likely? - your cat is choosing to stay somewhere else than people have managed to continually lure a 'quite shy' cat into their house and shut them in overnight.

You don’t know that. I’ve called my cat in before only to have my neighbour message to say he’s on her sofa and not budging, even though her door is wide open.

Cats will go wherever they choose.

When we were researching trackers for our dog (he used to go walkabout when we first got him, he is a rescue. Bloody builders let him out twice despite strict instructions about closing the gates and dozy DH did as well - thankfully he doesn’t roam anymore.) we looked at air tags and apparently they aren’t that accurate.
We have had a Tractive tracker for two years and whilst I have on occasion felt like a nut job scrambling down bankings or trotting up hills waving dog chews and/or a tennis ball calling for him. I have always found him and he has come back safely when it was an issue.

We had a neighbour’s cat sleep in our shed, which he got in and out through a very small hole. We didn’t know whose cat he was and he didn’t have a collar. I asked all neighbours who were in, they didn’t know who he belonged to. After a few weeks he came round with a collar and phone number on, It turned out cat belonged to a neighbour who worked all day, 2 screaming DC, they felt cat was better off being out of house all day and knew he was with us, but didn’t bother crossing the road to come and see us. I was quite angry and my 2 teenagers were getting fond of him. Anyway we shared him, I fed him mostly as owner never seemed to have cat food in, he was quite old and this carried on for a few years and when his eye sight was going, we would carry him at night back to his owners for the night, only to wake up every morning to him sleeping in shed. If he’d have had a collar and phone number on from the start, we could have tried stopping him coming over, so I’m glad you are getting him a collar with your details on, as I’m sure your neighbours probably think your cat is a stray cat.

I meant to add, mine will happily ignore the wide open doors next to us and wander a few houses down instead - even though they gave a dog and small children and next door don’t.

I am not saying he is a hostage. I am saying it’s very unlikely he is in someone’s house several nights and they don’t know about it. Unlikely, not impossible, which is why I have bought a tracker.
So if you keep a cat inside all night, then you need to know you are very likely to upset the owners who don’t know where their cat who usually come home like clockwork the same time every evening is!

Ha Ha definitely no one would think he is a stray. He is quite fat 😂

Erm cats go where they want it quite often isn't down to anybody feeding or letting them in at all.They go in windows, lovely warm greenhouses, cat flaps, cosy garden sheds etc etc. In our last house we had no idea that the neighbours cat was coming in our bathroom window and staying the night with our cats while we worked night shifts until we took holidays and as soon as we spotted the cheeky money we shit the window enough so he couldn't get in, but until then goodness knows how many nights he came in so I would have been devastated of being accused of taking someone's cat even tho had no clue it was popping in for the night while we were working

I haven't seen any strange replies OP. More so comments from people who know what cats are like.

Over the years we have had several 'not my cats' spend time with us or even move in despite trying very hard to prevent this.

Cats are very particular and will spend time where they're comfortable. They'll also keep their options open.

It could be your household is too busy or noisy or they don't like where their bed, food, water, litter tray etc is, and they've happened to find somewhere preferable.

We're child free, work FT and are out a lot. We also use the vacuum, washing machine and cleaning products a lot less than the average Mumsnetter and will leave cardboard boxes out for them rather than putting them in the recycling straight away.

So from a cats point of view, our house is far more attractive to them.

They may not be keeping him in - he could be letting himself in through a cat flap or an open window, or even sleeping in someone’s greenhouse or garden office.

We've had multiple cats over the years who have let themselves in to our house with absolutely no encouragement from us. We’ve never fed them or locked them inside but I’m also not about to lock my own cats in/out of their home.

If I’m out or upstairs or busy, I can’t control whether other cats choose to wander in and make themselves comfortable or not. I won’t feed them or bring them inside but equally I can’t kick them out if I don’t know they’re there, or if the door is open and they choose to keep coming back.