For as long as I can remember (at least 2-3 years or so), my family and I have taken care of a group of stray cats (there's probably upwards of 8-10 of them) that hung out on our block. We've never taken them in as pets (we have a dog who would never allow that), but we have fed them, gave them fresh water daily, built them cat houses, and even took them in our garage during Sandy. For the most part, they just hang out on our property and stay out of everyone's way.

Recently, 2 of my neighbors (1 next door, the other 2 doors down) complained to the town about the cats. Animal Control has since ordered us to stop feeding the cats. While we had to take in their food/water dishes, we still sneak food out to them on the far side of the house from my neighbor. We also moved their cat house to the far side of the back fence (nobody lives behind us). The next door neighbor is by no means a friend of ours, but I wouldn't call him an enemy either. My parents and him have bickered over property stuff before but never anything too abnormal or serious. He definitely comes off as a pretty miserable guy though, living with his wife, 2 kids, and dog.

The complaint to AC suspiciously coincided with the death of 1 of the cats. We don't know how it happened, although my neighbor told my dad that it "must've been hit by a car." The cat was found in the middle of his lawn, far away from the street. It also didn't appear to have been hit by a car, although I'm admittedly not an expert on that and I guess it could've just been injured internally. We were suspicious, but decided to let it go and take his word at face value.

A second cat died on his lawn yesterday. It was found right beyond the "line" where our lawn borders his, not far from where the 1st cat was found. He didn't use the car excuse this time, instead just pleading ignorance. My parents want to let it go, but I'm not so forgiving. I don't wanna potentially wait for another cat to mysteriously die on his lawn...or worse my dog....or even his dog (who he carefully walks on a leash around the neighborhood everyday but not on his own front lawn).

What's my play here? I obviously have no proof, but I feel I can't just sit back and do nothing. The options I've thought of are:

1) The passive approach: I wait it out/keep recon on his lawn situation. Basically I monitor when he upkeeps it or maybe even if he's willing to walk his own dog on it.

2) Is there maybe some way to get some kind of lab test done on his lawn for any kind of abnormal poisonous substance?

3) I try bluffing him into stopping whatever he's doing. I tell him something in passing like "we recently started using this new pesticide for our lawn that we're afraid of for our dog, so we're having an autopsy done on the cat to see if that was what killed it." Maybe not necessarily that, but something where I can try to put the fear of God into him yet not let him know I'm onto him.

I'm open to advice, opinions, and criticisms (it's certainly possible I'm just being a conspiracy theorist and am thinking totally irrationally). Thank you for reading.

I'd stop feeding the stray cats. If your neighbors have called AC they will do so again and from what I see of them on some TV shows dedicated to what they do they have real power to cause you very serious problems. Try to look at it from your neighbor's perspective: You are causing an annoyance. Stop it, imo.

I know your intentions are good but imo you're being a bad neighbor encouraging a band of stray cats to hang around and breed in the area.

I used to work at a place where the women would feed the stray cats that hung around the business. It got to the point where there were dozens of stray cats inbreeding, some of the resulting kittens were tragically physically ******ed, I'm guessing from the inbreeding. One time a cat got into building somehow and had kittens inside one of the walls. We had to bust through the wall to get them out.

Oh yeah and the place smelled super nasty in the hot summer, like we were located next to a baked cat poop pie factory.

You may be subjecting your neighbors to similar issues.

As far as finding the dead cat in the neighbor's yard goes, it very well could have been hit by an automobile and crawled into his yard and died. The same thing happened to me, only it was a kitten. The lil guy wasn't dead yet but was severely injured an probably ended up being put down. It was very sad and made me super-pissed at the lack of responsibility of the owner of the cat, if there was an owner.

This is probably what triggered the complaints to Animal Control, he blames your lack of responsible pet care for the death of this cat.

Like I said before, I understand your intentions are good and I respect your empathy for the strays. But, I think you're way off-base blaming the neighbor for this situation, which is essentially only your family's fault for encouraging the stray band of cats to hang around and breed in the area.

Good luck resolving the situation.

You don't really have much to go on besides some neighbors (understandably) complaining and a couple of stray cats showing up dead. It would be pretty screwed up for a neighbor to just arbitrarily start killing cats to solve the problem, but outdoor cats die lots of ways.

What I'd do is just stop feeding hordes of random cats like you've been. Having stray cats around the neighborhood tends to be an annoyance s mentioned. For example, when they go into heat and meow outside someone's window all night long for a week straight.

Strays need to be collected by AC as soon as possible.

Like everyone else said, stop being a bad neighbour and feeding the damn strays.

Ah, so you're that neighbor. There's like 5-6 stray cats running around my block and you can often hear they crying/hissing and fighting around 2-3 in the morning. Oh, and the cute paw prints they leave on my car, the fleas, hair on patio furniture, **** all over the place <3

I would place a camera pointing to his lawn though, he's probably poisoning the cats if there's no signs of injuries.

actually you have a fourth option: move out of your parents house and stop annoying people.

I will keep the proportion of people telling you to stop feeding the stray cats in this thread at 100%.

You shouldn't feed wild animals because they'll learn that people mean food and when someone doesn't have food they turn violent.

When OP was on word 306 of 594 he probably thought this was going to go much differently.

Also, stop feeding stray cats.

My definition of miserable appears to be much different than yours...

1. stop feeding the cats

2. apologize to your neighbor

3. did you really think this thread would go differently?

what kind of a man feeds cats?

a man with cats?

video surveillance. then charges of animal cruelty w/ proof. **** that guy if he's doing that.

touche

start feeding pigeons

1. Cats can be hit by a car and show very little external evidence.

2. Outdoor cats die for a variety of reasons - disease, parasites, injuries, contact with toxic substances. Two dying in a short period of time might be noteworthy but isn't that extraordinary in a feral/stray cat band.

3. Stop feeding the strays you nitwit. You're causing problems for all your neighbors.

I love my cat, but, yeah, you're a terrible neighbour. The only question is whether history holds true and you start arguing with everyone here because you didn't get the answers you wanted to hear.

Pretty surprising animal control didn't come around to collect all the strays and send them to a shelter. Are you way out in the boonies? If this is an urban or suburban environment your family is ridiculous.

1. Thread title says neighbor is killing your cats. They're not your cats.

2. Non-hunting killing of animals and other animal cruelty is repugnant and generally illegal. If he's really killing stray cats, and you can prove it, call the police.

lol stray cats
nobody wants you feeding stray wild animals in their neighborhood
the cats are probably just dying because they are filthy wild creatures. If you really cared about them you'd take them to the vet and treat them properly.

I don't deny that still feeding the cats is wrong. I'm just empathetic towards animals. That said, the cats don't hiss/make any noise whatsoever so they really aren't causing any kind of nuisance in that regard. They mostly just hang out quietly in our backyard. Fwiw the other next door neighbor we have has said they don't mind the cats, so long as they don't do any of the obvious things mentioned itt.

I still don't think it was hit by a car. For that to be true it would've had to been hit, then climbed up on the curb, and walked another 25 feet before dying. How often do you see roadkill even make it back onto the curb? I usually see them dead trying to get back onto the curb. Not to mention it would've had to have conveniently climbed right into that area where the 2 lawns intersect. Then the 2nd cat would've have to done the exact same thing (they died within 10 feet of the same spot).

I will continue to watch his lawn habits, and I guess just hope it stops on its own. If another dies in that area though, I might go ahead and look into that lab test. Criticize me all you want but animal cruelty is an imprisonable offense.

Yes, we did inquire to this a few years ago. I forget what the exact reason was (it might've just been "lol stray cats" but I really don't remember), but they declined to pick them up.

I assume you've never seen Sleepwalkers. If you have, you would not be doing what you're doing.

this thread is an atrocity

You people are just cruel for hating on OP, who is clearly either developmentally disabled or a head-injured amnesiac. Three years is as far back as his memory goes and you're attacking him!

Remember that even the developmentally disabled can eventually learn a skill, as evidenced by the fact that even feral cats, through lots of patience and repetition no doubt, have trained OP to bring them food. And water, too! So cut OP some slack.