Need help: think we're stealing the neighbours cat

dgerrard

Really don't know our next steps here.

Moved into our house over a year ago. We're in a row of 4 terraced.

Back in March started seeing a cat in our backyard. Our neighbors said she has been in the neighborhood for a year or so as a stray, and the neighbours + 1 had adopted her in the past couple months. Said she used to come in their house and eat food off their kitchen counters if they weren't careful, we all thought it was funny.

Over lockdown she started being in our back yard more and more. Then, a couple times when we left the sliding doors open because it was so hot, she came in the house and we'd shoo her out. This started happening more and more. Then once when it was raining she came and was pawing and meowing pathetically at the back door, so we let her in so she wouldn't get wet.  

Thought that was a one-time thing, but it turned into, every morning she would come around 8am and start meowing at the back door. My wife's always been a car lover (we'd planned on getting one over the summer, before the whole COVID mess) and she'd let her in. She started sleeping in ours all day. I really felt like the situation was out of hand now, so spoke to my wife about it. We didn't see eye to eye. In the end, she agreed we shouldn't let the cat in any more, but we both felt awful about it as she's a wonderful cat and has been a real ray of sunshine during this awful year.

A couple weeks later we saw her actual owners and mentioned about all this. We were delighted when they said "yeah, it's fine, sometimes she doesn't come home for days at a time, no worries if she's over at yours a lot". My wife was thrilled, I was too tired to push back, and she's been over at ours pretty regularly ever since.

Now with the weather getting cold: she comes to our back door without fail every day at 6am, and is in our house until about 10pm. When we want to go to bed, it's impossible to get her out, we're chasing her around for an hour a night, with her meowing sadly the whole time. We've texted a couple times with her owners, like if there's a storm or this past week on bonfire night, to let them know she's ok.

They think she's an independent outdoor cat who's roaming all day, but...she's an indoor cat, she's just indoors with us and not them.

Some important points:

We've never done anything extreme to coax her in. We've never fed her or bought cat toys or tests or anything like that. We've given her water on a couple of occasions when she looked like she needed it.

Her actual owners house seems very disruptive at the moment. They're doing a total refurb of the whole house, loud builders noises all day. Plus they have two little girls who we've seen trying to play with the cat, but they chase her around and seem to bother her more than entertain her. Whenever we hear them with her outside, we know that I'm a couple of minutes she'll be meowing at our back door.

So in conclusion: it feels like we've basically now stolen their cat. I can't decide what we should do. If it weren't for lockdown and distancing, I'd say, have them over for dinner, lay it all out to them, and offer them a generous amount to officially transfer ownership of the cat, or offer to buy them a new cat. It sounds conceited and we shouldn't presume to know what she thinks, but it just seems like she prefers it over here and is here 16 hours a day as it is.

It's not like buying a chair though, is it? They took her in so they must love her, she's their pet, it feels like "indecent proposal" to be asking them this. What if they not only say no, but say, how dare you have her in your house like that? And then we can't see her at all any more, which neither of us want either. Plus we'd have a hard time keeping her out, we've tried ignoring her at the back door but she's very persistent, plus we're a pair of softies.

Anyone else ever dealt with a situation like this? Any advice for us? Obviously we've thought about getting our own cat, but that would feel like we were "cheating on her". Gah, what a mess!

Mnoee

Has she been chipped/vaccinated/neutered? To me, the difference between them adopting the cat and just chucking out a bit of food for a stray is whether they've done those things. It might be a good indication of how much they actually care about her! 

Artytarty

You have really given this a lot of thought havent you?! 

It sounds like you really care about the cat and its current owners and are trying to do the right thing.
i have been through similar, a cat kept appearing in my yard about eighteen months ago, I didnt feed it, in fact i shooed him away because it was tressing my two cats one of which was elderly.
eventually through a local social media site i found the owner who was rather blase about th whole thing. He hadnt seen him for months and had given up on him. He lived about half a mile away across a very busy main road. We are close to some open fields where i think he had been hunting rodents for survival.
he took him home , and he reappeared two weeks later, his condition was poor so i did start to feed him  
Owner came again a couple of weeks kater because cat had gone wild and hard to cathc.
he came back.
contacted owner who said he wasngoing to get Him rehomed.
the shelters were full and no one  wanted him anyhow because of his aggressive nature.
i contacted the owner and he agreed that he would relinquish him to us.
we got him neutered, built him a shelter with heating and Moved  him inside when our old boy passed away last xmas. Hes still a very challenging cat,nasty to my other cat,but he will sit on my knee and look lovingly up into my eyes!

i think that as long as you are not keeping that cat hostage, he is free to return to his other house when he wants, then let him stay. Its clearly where he wants to be .
and yes, at this point I would provide food. Let the owners come and take  it up with you If they are bothered enough, they may not really care.
good luck,
id be interested to hear how it goes.

Artytarty

Btw, i too had sleepless nights about stealing someone's cat!
but i also had sleepless nights about him out in the cold and wet.

tacpot12

Mnoee said:

Has she been chipped/vaccinated/neutered? To me, the difference between them adopting the cat and just chucking out a bit of food for a stray is whether they've done those things. It might be a good indication of how much they actually care about her! 

I think the cat is choosing your home over theirs for good reasons, and nothing you can do, bar maltreating it, will make it prefer their home at the moment. However, I think it's too early to offer to adopt her. I think I would text the owners and say something like "She's round here so much, do you mind if we treat her to ensure she doesn't pickup any fleas?"

 This opens up the way to them confirming whether they have been treating her for fleas - she shouldn't have two treatments too close together so you need to know if, when and with what brand she was last treated. It would be best if they make the appointment at their vets, unless they say they don't have one. If they don't have a vet, I would tell the vet that the cat decided to move in with you six months ago, and you want to know if it is microchipped and neutered. If the cat is microchipped, you might ask them to confirm if the registered address is in your street or not. If they do have a vet, you can still take the cat to the vets with the owner's permission.

After six months, you might suggest that as she is round your so much, it will be more likely that you will spot any urgent health problems she has, so it might be "better for the cat" if you became her official owners so you could "arrange and pay for" any treatment she needs at the vets.

There shouldn't be any great rush to take over this cat; the pleasure of a cat (and I write this with one settled on my lap) is its physical presence, not its ownership.

I have been on the other end of this situation. Many years ago I needed to leave the area because of my job and couldn't take a cat where I was going; out of the blue, my neighbour suggested that my cat, who had been spending increasing amounts of time in her and other neighbours, went to live with her - I was over the moon as I knew that the cat would be well cared for.

Mojisola

dgerrard said:

Back in March started seeing a cat in our backyard. Our neighbors said she has been in the neighborhood for a year or so as a stray, and the neighbours + 1 had adopted her in the past couple months.

They think she's an independent outdoor cat who's roaming all day, but...she's an indoor cat, she's just indoors with us and not them.

Her actual owners house seems very disruptive at the moment. They're doing a total refurb of the whole house, loud builders noises all day. Plus they have two little girls who we've seen trying to play with the cat, but they chase her around and seem to bother her more than entertain her.

So in conclusion: it feels like we've basically now stolen their cat.

I think the cat is making a sensible decision about where she prefers to live.

As the cat was originally a stray, neither of you are actually the owner - has the neighbour had the cat chipped and registered at a vet?

Marmaduke123

It sounds as if the cat has made its choice, and I would try to formalise it. It's not as though the neighbours have had the cat from a kitten,  or for years, as they seem to have adopted her very recently.

Has she been checked for a chip? The original owners might want to know where she is. Have your neighbours insured her and registered her with a vet? That's  the real marker of committed ownership showing that someone is in it for the long term, not just enjoying having a "free" pet.

Artytarty

I agree, mine was neither chipped nor neutered and when he disappeared they didnt bother  looking for  him.

Pollycat

Cats are crafty creatures.

All mine have been outdoor cats and have had several 'homes' whilst we've been at work.

One was 'adopted' by an elderly couple up the road, as we left for work we'd see him sat on their garden wall waiting to be let in.

They had the best of both worlds - a cat for company without any of the expense. They did feed him treats after checking with us first.

He always turned up at his 'proper' home just after we came home.

When he died, we all cried.

Just after my last cat died, a little black cat started coming to my back door. She seemed well fed and cared for.

I let her in, she liked a bit of fuss and a sleep under a radiator when it was cold and wet. We always put her out after a while.

We guessed her owners were out at work, we were retired and home a lot.

Mojisola said:

I think the cat is making a sensible decision about where she prefers to live.

As the cat was originally a stray, neither of you are actually the owner - has the neighbour had the cat chipped and registered at a vet?

^^^^ good advice.

Mrs_Z

dgerrard said:

... and offer them a generous amount to officially transfer ownership of the cat, or offer to buy them a new cat. 

Just to say, whatever you do, please please do not offer to buy them a new cat!!!!  Their current cat clearly dislikes the noise and disruption caused by the refurb in the house, let alone the kids 'playing' with him/her.  Cats like their routine and peace and quiet, hence he/she much prefers it over at yours!
By all means keep the dialogue open with the owners, likelyhood is that that the cat is not a priority in their lives. Tacpot12's suggestion about checking on its flea treatment is a good one.
Years ago we had a cat coming to the office where I worked which was on a housing estate.  The cat would be threre first thing in the morning and when we closed for the day, we used to have to chuck the cat out.  My heart broke every Friday when the office was closed, having to chuck her out in winter, for the weekend, not knowing if she was let in or not by its owners.  The cat did have a home but the household had issues and there were young children in there who wanted to play with the cat and the cat clearly disliked this. This went on for a year or so.  Then one day, we heard that the family had split, and the cat's owner had been taken to hospital and it seemed to us that there was no provision made for the cat's care.  At that point I took decisive action and took the cat with me on Friday night, leaving a note to the owner to say so and to contact us in the office on the following Monday.  I prepared to be accused for stealing the cat on Monday morning, but there was no contact until mid-week and instead of accusing me of stealing the cat - they asked me if I wanted to keep it and seemed relieved when i said yes!
It was not what I'd planned, given that we already had 2 cats of our own but nevertheless I was over the moon.  So the cat ended up with me and happily shared our household for 18 years.
Hope it works out for you & the cat! 

Mojisola

Pollycat said:

One was 'adopted' by an elderly couple up the road, as we left for work we'd see him sat on their garden wall waiting to be let in.

They had the best of both worlds - a cat for company without any of the expense. They did feed him treats after checking with us first.

He always turned up at his 'proper' home just after we came home.

My parents were adopted by a neighbour's two cats like this. The cats arrived on the kitchen windowsill as soon as the owner had left for work and tapped to be let in and seemed to know when to head off home.  
The owner was happy for the cats to have a second home and everyone co-ordinated on food and treats so the cats stayed slim and healthy.