Posted on 11/25/2012 3:17:35 PM PST by Hot Tabasco
There is a house cat that is being allowed to roam free. What do I do?
Your cat isactually delighted to have the company.
He’s awake and bored usually while the People Humans are sleeping.
If you think your cat can lick the other one,let him out.
Borrow a cat trap(large havahart) from the animal control officer and bait the feral cat into it. Then take to animal control for disposal.
MOVE!
When a friend of mine was due to inherit a cat along with his new wife, I made him a Dr. Whacko Feline disposal Kit consisting of a claw hammer and a hazardous waste disposal bag. NOTE:It was a joke.
We had the same situation a few years ago at an apt bldg I lived in once. It started with one. Then apparently, the other tenants were feeding the cat, and overnight, the other cat brought 2 more of his buds to the building. They were like freeloading liberals. The manager had to call in animal control, and they were the laziest, inept people she dealt with.
NO!
Do not do that.
Am I out of line? I love cats but I firmly believe that they should not be allowed outdoors in urban neighborhoods. Right now I'm thinking that if I trap the cat tonight I'm better off driving it 10 miles away and letting it go and permanently putting an end to this problem. But my better side says to send the message.........
Any thoughts?
I trapped a feral cat once, and blasted it with the hose for a good ten minutes. Let it go and never saw it again.
Take your cat on and then the winner of that fight goes out and takes on the wandering cat. It’s called survival of the biggest with a broom. If your cat wins the first fight, at least you’ll feel more at ease cleaning the cat box.
Feed the car something that will give it gas and the runs and send it home.
Please don’t do anything bad to the cat. Is there anything you can put against the glass at night so your cat can’t SEE the other cat? It sounds like the only real issue is that the yowling wakes you up.
I just set the trap out a little while ago. FWIW, it's not a feral cat, when I went to the door wall with a flashlight and hit the window to try and scare it away, it just sat there looking at me......LOL! No, it was a healthy and nice looking cat that definitely belongs to someone.
Contact the management company or the HOA if you’re an owner.
If you love cats, why are you considering dropping one off ten miles from its home, where it will be confused and miserable, wondering where its people are, and will probably end up getting run over?
Taking out your irritation on the animal makes no sense. Put up a notice, ask around, find out who the cat belongs to....then read the owners the riot act.
I did that with a neighbor kid. The judge said I was an overage juvenile delinquent. I toilet papered her car after my 30 days was up.
Take the cat to a shelter, period. Trust me, idiot owners will just keep letting the cat out. Too lazy to feed it or clean up its mess.
Borrow a cat trap from animal control, catch the cat, and turn it in.
That is exactly what I would do, and sort of what I did do once. We used to have a black cat come visiting our yard. I would pet her a little and she’d leave again. Then one day she got annoyed and NAILED me with her teeth. It got infected & I went to the doc, who threatened me with rabies shots if I didn’t find the cat and keep her in quarantine. Luckily she showed up again, and I had to keep little Jezebel in our spare bathroom for eight more days! At the end I put a collar on her (she didn’t have one to start) with a sternly worded note and let her go. She never came back again!
I have done that in the past and it is very effective.......I just might try it again......
Please don’t dump the cat. Take it to the shelter. It won’t cost you anything if it is a feral cat.
So actually trapping neutering and releasing is the program. Go to your aspca and ask for help with trapping, likely they will neuter for free, then release. They should have an rfid reader, so if the cat has a home and isn’t snipped, oops.
Feral cats can be recovered, if found as kittens and your wiling to spend the time. Otherwise they’ll be happier out. Worst case wooden box with tuna rubbed on the door. Heavy door with a counter balance that cuts away once its been opened and the cats well inside.
for gods sake, leave the cat alone. Call the owners and ask then to pick up their cat when it is bothering you. Stop making a drama out of this. Cats have been in urban locations far longer than you have and have fared just fine. Great rat deterents.
I wouldn't do anything bad to it, I'm just trying to figure out a way to keep it from coming around........
Yikes, why not just call obama to solve all your problems?
I'm already getting 31 mpg in the city............LOL!
Oh... put a sprinkler in the backyard and turn it on at night! Can you do that?
Finally, a sensible, responsible post.
There's only 72 units in my detached condo sub and we're surrounded by houses and other condos so putting out notices isn't sound advice........
Cage it and take it to the humane societ
My first thought is that the visiting cat will not go home until it gets that note off. cats are irritated by alien things on them and will be quite adept at removing it.
Trap it and take it to the SPCA and if it has a license they will contact the owner and if not the owner will have to try to locate it or it could be spayed or neutered and adopted out.
I have a female house cat and as I live in the country there are ferals coming around. I do feed them once a day and let them fend for themselves and keep down pests the rest of the time. My cat loves to throw herself at the french doors and carry on and sits and waits for them to show up so she can do that. Mostly they ignore her. There are seldom more than two cats around.
Thanks for reiterating that as you clearly stated in your op that it was a house cat.
I was really amazed where this thread was going....
A spray bottle by the back door? If you get woken up, grab the bottle, spritz the cat a few times... maybe it’ll go off and bug someone else for a while.
That's a great idea, why didn't I think of it? Can you give me their name and phone number because I don't know who they are..........thanks!
That is probably the least expensive and most effective solution. However, if the temps are close to or below freezing it will kill the cat or at least make it very sick. If you catch it you could wait until morning for the hose-and-release treatment so it would survive to learn the lesson.
Why? Cats keep the rodent population down, which is a good thing. They do their best hunting at night, when the rodents are about.
Post a sign on the community bulletin board or by the mailboxes that animal control has been patrolling at night looking for a nuisance cat.
Please do not hurt the cat.
If it’s truly not a feral cat, why not “adopt” it?
@ reply #25 you were contemplating "blasting it with a hose for a good ten minutes while trapped".
You must have a very loose definition for the word bad
I’d go with the live trap and friendly notice to the owner.
I caught my neighbor’s cat a few weeks back and they were just happy that I use a live trap and said they’ll try to keep him in at night. I don’t have any issues with the cat but I tild them that I trap coons and possums so if their cat didn’t come home they could check the trap.

I have a guy in the restaurant business...
S.S.S.
What kind of person are you? In my day, house cats walked the streets free of molestation! They add character and charm to the neighborhood and teach young kids how to interact with animals.
What a bunch of Scrooges on this thread!
That is what I would do as well. Just because it is not feral doesn’t mean it has a current home. But get the animal inside because outdoors at night is the most dangerous time for kitties (isn’t this obvious ? :)
A long time ago and in a town far away, there was a cat getting in the garbage can outside in the carport.
It was discovered that a .22 short is barely audible, and effective.
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