Need Advice - Bad Situation W/ Neighbor & Stray Colony - Long Story

[DuranOnasi]

I'll explain everything while being as brief as I can.

I bought a house in Florida and as I was shaking hands to close the deal, a cat walked by.
"Do you have any cats? You do now! Hope you like them!" the real estate agent joked.

I do love cats, and I hate to see them suffer, which is why a neighborhood infested with starving stray cats is my worst nightmare.

While I was moving in, a young cat jumped into the back of my moving truck. In the following days she would come running up to me acting friendly, so I fed her. She was so friendly that I was able to just pick her up and put her in a carrier with zero resistance, so I decided to adopt her. I took her to get spayed and her vaccines and found she was pregnant...kittens were aborted. After the spay, she was so skinny from malnutrition that I was amazed she was alive. That cat lives inside with now so she got a happy ending.

After living here for a few months, I learned that there is a colony of fertile stray cats living directly across the street from me. There's an elderly lady that apparently feeds them and allows them to breed on her property.

I caught children throwing rocks at the cats and yelled at them, asking them how they would feel if rocks were thrown at them, and told them to stop.

After a few more months and a few litters of kittens, a couple of the cats started wandering onto my property. They looked extremely hungry - either skin and bones or bloated from parasite infestations. Unable to turn a blind eye to their suffering, I started feeding them with the intention of neutering any cat that comes to me for food.

However, after feeding the two initial cats for about a week in an effort to earn their trust, the rest of the colony realized there was food and came onto my property in a stampede.

This quickly gained the attention of the neighbor who had been feeding the colony. She came across the street and spoke to me:

Her: How many of these cats do you want?

Me: None, I was just trying to help them because they seemed hungry.

Her: Yeah they are hungry huh! They eat too much! It's too expensive! I decided they need to go on a diet so now I don't feed them anymore. Haha!

Me: Well that's no good.

Her: I was gonna take the kittens to the fire station, there's just too many of them.

Me: There are free spay and neuter programs offered by the county.

Her: No, I don't mess with that.

Me: I can take the cats in for you if you want. That way they'll stop breeding.

Her: No, I don't do that. That's unnatural, it's not "God's Plan". Besides, I love having the little kittens running around. They're so cute. I've loved cats all my life.

Me: Uh...

Her: The neighbors, they think these cats belong to me, and I tell them, they're not my cats! I just feed them! But they complain about cats coming in their yard. So I told them, 'If you don't want the cats coming in your yard, throw rocks at them and they'll stay out'! Haha!

Me: Ok. How about I take them to a vet to get them vaccinated for you at least?

Her: No no no, they don't need any vaccines. I never let these cats inside my house. They're outside cats only.

Me: The vaccines are to protect the cats, not y-

Her: That's alright. Listen, what happened to that brown and gray cat that used to go in your yard?

Me: I adopted her, she lives inside my house now. She's doing fine.

Her: Oh yeah, she's in there? Alright. Anyway you have a nice day.

After this..."conversation", I realized that communication is pointless, but since she claims the cats "don't belong to her", she should have no problem with me undertaking a TNR mission with them.

So I continued feeding the cats, luring more and more of them into my yard and earning their trust. I believe there is an average of 10 cats that swarm my front door whenever I go outside or come home from somewhere now.

I know that it looks bad. The other residents on my side of the street are glaring at me with open hostility and judgment when I go out to feed them. One came up to me and asked me why I was feeding all of these cats. I said "because I don't want to let them starve. They came from across the street."

Most of them trust me enough to let me pet them now, and they seem friendly enough (with me at least, since I'm their food source) to be adoptable, theoretically. Unfortunately, I haven't taken them to get neutered and spayed yet, because the clinic that accepts strays/ferals lost its vet and was shut down for nearly two months. They just recently reopened.

Here's where my problem starts. I took stock of all the cats coming into my yard and figured out how many males and females there are.

5 Male adults
4 Male kittens
1 Female kitten (teen? could be in early stages of pregnancy or have worms?)
0 Female adults

I thought, 'Where are the kittens coming from if there are no adult females'?

Well, after keeping an eye out I found them...across the street...with the neighbor. Two or three adult females (hard to tell from a distance). She apparently feeds these females regularly enough that they never come into my yard, even though they know there's food (have seen them watching from a distance). And of course, they're pregnant. Again.

Also, all these non-vaccinated cats in one area was just begging for a disease outbreak, which is what happened. Some highly infectious disease hit all of the cats, causing them to sneeze and have oozing red eyes. Most have recovered so it doesn't seem to be fatal, but it was especially sad to see the kittens in that state.

One good thing is that I haven't seen any dead cats in the road, which is what I feared with all the crossing the street between the neighbor's house and mine. Have seen several near misses. Sadly one of the kittens (now approaching a teen) now appears to have broken hips, or a broken leg. It can walk and eat and even move quickly when threatened, but it walks very awkwardly and doesn't seem to want to put any weight on its legs at all.

I thought I had a solid plan of action - TNR all the cats, colony stabilizes, no more starving cats or dead kittens, life is good. But I feel like my discovery that the neighbor is intentionally feeding pregnant females in her yard and refuses to spay them has ruined my plan.

One more piece of information...I already own two cats, so I can't use the inside of my house as a staging ground without spreading the disease to them.

Now I don't know what to do and I'm starting to panic. The cat situation is overwhelming me and affecting the mental health of both me and the people that I live with. It's making me feel like a prisoner in my own home - when I go outside, I get swarmed by cats and glared at by humans, so now I tend to stay inside whenever possible.

Reasoning with, threatening, or confronting the neighbor is not an option, and calling animal control, the city, or making a big deal with an activist group is not an option either. I live in what is commonly referred to as a "bad neighborhood" and I will not do anything that has any possibility of putting me or my family in the crosshairs of retaliation or retribution.

After sitting down and thinking for a while, the conclusion I came to was:

"I can't stop this colony from breeding because the pregnant females won't come in my yard. Meanwhile, feeding the cats that do come on my property without neutering and vaccinating them just makes me as bad as the neighbor. "

So from now on, I will
1) Every week, take as many cats as possible to get neutered
2) Only feed those cats that are neutered or will be neutered in the near future
3) Only feed the cats in a private location, out of sight from other cats and neighbors
4) Do not feed any additional cats that are bred and born across the street
5) Turn my brain off and stop caring/looking at/thinking about about the horrible breeding/starvation cycle going on across the street, because there's nothing I can do to stop it.

This isn't the outcome I was hoping for but I'm out of ideas.

I stumbled across this forum while trying to help my father with an unrelated issue (how to capture a violent cat in a carrier) and decided it was worth a shot to make this post.

If you've read all this, thank you for reading and please respond with any thoughts, opinions, or advice you may have. Thank you.

 

[fionasmom]

Wow...I just want to say that I did read this and am in complete empathy with you. These types of people are out there. I work in a area where there are a lot of stray animals and at one time we had a feral colony in the parking lot. Management did not care that we did and it is a long story from there so I won't go into it. When I found the local family who was mostly responsible for the strays and the not-ferals who were just hungry, plus the hungry dog who came around, I offered them information about spay/neuter services, coupons, etc. They were not powerless to have transported the cats to a van pool or even to a place like FixNation itself. They acted completely insulted, refused the help,got the "God's plan" speech. I think that your plan is as good as it can be. Step 4 and 5 might end up a little differently though as I think that the cats who are in the area who are hungry will find you, so you will have an ongoing neutering/spaying process which is not so bad under the circumstances if you are able to do this in a way that is financially agreeable to you. Let me know if you are able to get step 5 to work as I have still, lo these many years, not been able to turn off the cycle in my head about uncared for animals.

 

[DuranOnasi]

Thanks for the reply. Your empathy does make me feel better and I'm glad I'm not alone.

My fear regarding Step 4 is that if I do continue to feed any additional cats that are born and come up to me for food, won't the population in my immediate eventually explode to an unmanageable level (and probably get in me in trouble with city authorities)?

Initially I was only feeding 2 cats, then 4, and now 10. If more kittens are born and I feed them too then I'll be in a situation where there are 20 cats are in my yard.

I wish I could put them up for adoption but I live in a heavily populated area, all of the no kill shelters are full or have disconnected phone lines, and social networks are swamped with adoption ads already.

It is possible that eventually the females will wander into my yard and I can capture them in a trap. That would be great, but I don't know if it will ever happen.

 

[DuranOnasi]

Went outside and snapped a picture (it's nighttime but flash is on)

One of them grabs at my ankle and pulls on the leg of my pants with his paw when I try to go inside. Even if he already ate, he just likes spending time with me.

 

[fionasmom]

I do get that completely and that is the tragedy of what these people cause when they do what your neighbor did. If your neighbor feeds, she may maintain a steady population there and you will only get a few to wander over. You are very kind to do whatever you can, and it will never be perfect. Maybe focusing on what you did or can do will help to ease the stress of this. If you are new to the area, you might quietly keep on the look out for a group or person who could help you in a very low key way.

Just saw your picture...that is so sad, all the little orange cats who are no doubt the boys. Some may be adoptable if you run across anyone who would be interested, can mention it at work, or some other venue.

 

[DuranOnasi]

I will keep doing my best and hope that things work out. It was hard for me to accept that I couldn't do everything myself and that forces were working in direct opposition to my goal.

I fed them all right after I took that picture but yeah, it is sad.

 

[msaimee]

Since you know where the females are, can you lure them away from this neighbor with tuna fish or some Fancy Feast canned food? Once you feed them something really tasty, you can lure them towards your house and hopefully into a humane trap for spaying.

Is there a Humane Society in your area? If so, contact them to see if they can send staff to assist you with TNR. Or they might know of another group in your area that does TNR. At the very least, they could loan out or cheaply rent out a few humane traps.

Don't spend time or energy trying to reason with crazy neighbors.

Worst case scenario, you might eventually need to call animal control. They will trap the cats and the ones who aren't adoptable will get euthanized, but that may be preferable to having generations of cats being born into misery.

 

[DuranOnasi]

I do have one humane trap already, more would surely be helpful if I could get them on loan.

I can't call animal control because doing so would invoke the wrath of the neighborhood upon me. The lady across the street claims that she loves the cats even if they "aren't hers", so she would not take kindly to animal control being called. She's been living there for a while and is friends with everyone in the community, and, like I mentioned, it's a bad neighborhood, so I don't their idea of justice being inflicted upon me in retribution.

Luring the females only with tuna is a good idea, I'll try that if they ever do wander across the street.

 

[msaimee]

Well, no one would ever know for sure who called animal control, and you could deny it. But that would be the worst case scenario if the cat population continues to multiply. I may have inadvertently been responsible for animal control coming near my work place when I called the police to discuss the legality of my keeping a cat I rescued from a known drug dealer who was a cat hoarder. I asked the police not to call animal control, but two dozen sickly, starving cats seemed to disappear from the block afterwards. As sad as I am for whatever fate befell them, I feel relieved knowing there aren't still dozens of suffering cats on the street this winter.

Could you cross the street and lure the female cats to you with tuna and other treats? Cats are clever, pretty soon they would be waiting for you. Since they're not your neighbor's cats, she shouldn't object to your feeding them even if she sees you. It's important to make spaying the females a priority, because they will continue to go into heat and mate even during the winter. I hope you can find a neighbor, friend or organization to help you!

 

[Willowy]

Yeah, if she told you they aren't her cats, any time they step foot off her property you can snag 'em. Offer then some tempting food, call them over for petting, etc. Are there any other neighbors on that side, or public property, that you could put traps on?

Since the county has free TNR service, just get whatever cat who wanders by TNRed. Let the other neighbors know that you're getting everyone fixed and vaccinated, and see if they want to help. That should reduce some hostility, knowing that you want to do something other than let them have kittens all over the place.

 

[DuranOnasi]

Figured I'd post some updates here:

There's a very benevolent non-profit only about 20 minutes away that I take the cats to for their procedures. I explained my situation to them and they told me I could bring cats in for sterilization without an appointment because it's a high priority, so that eliminates one complication.

Since I last posted I caught one adult male cat and got him neutered. He had a nasty abscess on his rear which the vet treated for free as soon as she discovered it. It's encouraging to see how there are other good people in the world that are willing to help animals.

Tomorrow I'm going to trap another and bring it in, hopefully a female kitten/teen. I'm stressed about how I'm going to pick one cat out of a group of ten, and the pressure of "how long before she gets pregnant/unless she is already/when will she give birth/oh no" is definitely on. But that cat lets me get pretty close to her and pet her as long as I do so from behind. Maybe I can somehow lure her away from the rest of the feeding group and then trap her specifically, maybe pick her up with gloves, or do the "throw a blanket over the cat and then toss the bundle in a carrier" trick that I saw recommended in some places.

I might also have to buy more traps to expedite the process...can't find any organizations that loan them out, I guess they're in too high demand.

Tried luring the adult females but they don't trust me, one came into my yard and bolted and one came to eat once but was growling and slashing at the males (even though they were just eating from their own food pile..), so the disturbance scared her off.

Progress on cats:

2/5 Male adults neutered
0/4 Male kittens neutered
0/1 Female kitten spayed
0/2 Female adults consistently lured from across the street

 

[fionasmom]

I am glad that you found a non profit to help you and have discovered some kind people along the way. You are doing a great job in the face of all this. Will the female kitten/cat who is relatively friendly come for a treat like KFC or fried chicken of sort? When I had to do 6 over last summer I found that using more than one trap was a help and that the chicken was the best bait. It was surprising who would go into an available trap despite the fact that they must have had some idea, or seen others who were trapped.

 

[marmoset]

This is how I got into feral/ community cat TnR/ rescue. I bought a house that had a colony in the back.

I never expected it and we certainly did not see cats in the yard when we visited the home on any occasion that we visited before putting down an offer. When we were in contract we did see two dead cats on the road on separate occasions but we still did not think that meant we were going to inherit a colony.

We haven't had to deal with ignorant people though. Our neighbors know about the cats but no one has said they feed. They are just happy someone is doing something to stabilize the colony. No one has offered help but again, no one is offering resistance so we are grateful for that.

Your situation seems a lot more extreme though. If I were local I'd help with trapping and fostering. Here we at least have a lull in winter. It's not long but it's a respite.

 

[Kefa]

I only have experience of this from my neighbor, who successfully managed a feral colony. He didn't neuter all the males. His theory was the males would spread out and claim territories and reduce pressure on his yard. He did trap and neuter every female he could track down, and found most of them homes. From me he got the idea to use Whiska's Temptations to bait the last female he couldn't catch, because the kitten I brought into my house was addicted to them.

You might try that with the females. Throw a few Temptations at them. Get them used to the idea you have crack. Then see if you can lure them to your yard to a trap. It's easier than trying to use canned tuna. He did that, he would find her, and just throw a Temptation at her, and walk away. Pretty soon she was cautiously following him, and in about a month he got her into a trap.

 

[DuranOnasi]

Latest Updates:
I got another male neutered today, but I sense that I'm running out of time to spay the female teen before she inevitably gives birth. She does let me put my hands on her, so next week I'm going to just come up behind her while she's eating and grab her with the gloves + blanket trick. The plan is to gently drop her in the trap if I stand it up vertically. I wasn't able to isolate her even though she trusts me and follows me, because there are always other cats around.

Another adult cat that I've never seen before showed up out of nowhere, but I shot my garden hose in its direction because it was being very aggressive.

I found out that the elderly woman across the street perpetuating the breeding cycle receives cats from her granddaughter. What I mean is that the granddaughter will find stray cats, or receive them from people she knows, and then drop them off at grandma's house as if it's a free-range utopian cat sanctuary.

It's not. It's a residential neighborhood in a densely populated city.

Replies:
@ fionasmom Thank you for your kind words of encouragement, yeah I will have to get another trap.

@ marmoset Yeah, no lull in the Winter down here. Congratulations on your success with your cats. Good to know that I'm not the only one that got a free cat colony with their home purchase. Maybe if I reach out to local groups someone kind like you will volunteer to go speak to the neighbor for me.

@ Kefa The trick of tossing treats a cat's direction sounds good in theory, but there are always so many cats around that it's very hard to single one out.

As for leaving the males intact and only targeting females, that may be the easier thing to do but even in the best case scenario, they end up going to another neighborhood and contributing to a feral population problem there. And so far, the males have never made it very far when the Alpha drives them out of his territory. They only make it about as far as across the street - to my house - and then I see these skeletal cats in my backyard and I have to feed them (which is how this started).

 

[m3rma1d]

I have no real advice but wanted to tell you that you're awesome.
If you wanna PM me the crazy old bat's name & address I'll gladly drop the dime on her. (IE report her to authorities..) Good gawd she sounds terrible.
Or maybe at least karma will get her eventually.

Keep up your good work, meantime.

 

[msaimee]

You are doing a wonderful job. I don't honestly know how one can specifically target male or female cats when setting humane traps. It seems to be the luck of the draw regarding which cat goes into what trap at any given time. Tractor Supply sells humane traps for about twenty dollars. Do you think you could collect donations from concerned neighbors and friends to purchase a few? Each cat that you are able to trap and neuter or spray makes a world of difference.

I would not report the neighbor who is feeding them for one reason only. She is feeding them. As long as she is not harassing you for trapping and fixing these cats, she is at least helping take care of them. It might be worth while to try to talk to her daughter and educate her about not bringing more cats to your block. The daughter may be more reasonable than her mother.

This is a difficult situation, and you are doing a great job.

 

[fionasmom]

You are doing an incredible job against all the odds. I do agree that more traps will help if there is anyway you can get them. When I had the feral cat family fiesta this last summer I had no control over who walked into the trap...if you can touch a cat and get them into a carrier it is another story, but if you can't it is really just a roll of the dice. I also would not report the neighbor. Yes, they are idiots, but they are feeding and helping in their own way. There may also be a backstory as to why the granddaughter does that and the mother may be helpful. A local man who does cat rescue got into it because his son brought home 7 kittens in one week...not from the same litter, so he made an agreement with a rescue group that he would help them if they would take cats that his son found. The boy did not understand the ramifications of simply picking up strays and stockpiling them. For some people there is a massive disconnect between feeding an animal and preventing unwanted litters.

 

[DuranOnasi]

Thank you all for your encouragement and advice. Knowing that there are people reading on these forums does motivate me to keep doing my best, and thinking of updating this thread always keeps me going if I feel like giving up. I will look for one of these $20 traps, the one I bought at home depot was very expensive. Donations from neighbors is a nice thought but nobody has offered to help, I've explained what I'm doing to several of them and they mostly seem confused as to why I'm bothering.

Looking on the bright side, I am glad that none of the neighbors are trying to poison the cats, I understand that's a serious problem for many people.

Latest updates:

Last night around 1 am I put the trap down and the "pregnant female" teen just walked right into it like magic. I took her in to get spayed, picked her up, was told she was actually male. I was very surprised and confused. She must've had parasites, but I don't know why I failed to identify the gender correctly every time I looked.

Also managed to get one of the adult females into my yard several times today so that's good progress.

Regarding reporting the neighbor, I never had any plans to report her or the cats because it would upset a great number of neighbors, make me a public enemy and also probably get the cats picked up and euthanized. If I manage to sterilize all the females then at least the colony will be stable and stop growing.

The male kitten with broken hips seems to be healing well. He's putting weight on his legs again, can move quickly and has shown massive improvement compared to last month when he could barely walk. I always made sure that he got plenty of food because I figure he was at a disadvantage with the reduced mobility. Like to think I helped him recover.

Next priority target is a very friendly kitten that definitely has worms. Going to bring him in ASAP, he's pretty bloated, you can tell from 60 feet away. It will be easy for me to bring him in since he rubs all over me and follows me around.

Current stats:

3/5 Male adults neutered
1/5 Male kittens neutered
0/0 "Female" kitten spayed - turned out it was male!!!
1/2 Female adults consistently lured from across the street
0/2 Female adults spayed

10 males and 2 females...must be because they're orange cats?

Here is a picture of the last adult male that I got neutered. He's very healthy now and has fully recovered from his abscess and ailments.

 

[Avery]

I just wanted to tell you what a great job you are doing and thank you for caring about these cats. I can understand feeling like a prisoner in your own home, feeling overwhelmed by the situation, but now that you are taking action, I hope you feel better. You are really making a big difference for these cats. Keep up the good work and know there are lots of people here who are on your side and are rooting for you!