There’s always that one neighbor who just can’t seem to leave things alone.

What would you do if that neighbor kept messing with your friendly, outdoor-loving cat?

Would you keep your cat inside to avoid the drama?

Or would you just hope they’d back off?

In the following story, one person finds themselves in this very dilemma.

Here’s what happened.

AITA For allowing my cat outdoors, resulting in her getting catnapped by our neighbor (twice)

About a year ago, I lost an uncle in a private plane crash, which resulted in the adoption of his cat, Eva.

She lived on my uncle’s farm and had free roam of about 10 acres.

She’s one of the friendliest cats I’ve ever known, and she loves people.

After a month or so of living with us indoors, Eva began expressing interest in going outside (she’s very vocal).

At first, I was reluctant as we only have an acre, but she always kept to our backyard, which backs into a forest.

As her confidence grew, she began visiting our neighbor’s houses.

This is when the problems started to happen.

One afternoon, Eva never returned from her outdoor adventures, which cats are known to do.

After two days passed, I began to get worried & started searching the local “lost and found” animal social media pages.

Sure enough, I found someone had posted a photo of Eva, and I promptly reached out.

It turns out the neighbor down the road had the cat.

The poster owned a house three doors down from ours and proceeded to allow Eva inside their house and feed her.

This neighbor then took Eva to a shelter ~30 minutes away.

I headed to this shelter as soon as I could, and when I picked Eva up, she looked like death.

At this point in the story, I blame myself for this.

At the time, Eva had a collar but no name tag.

We corrected this issue by having the animal shelter create for her a tag with my number and the phrase “I am an indoor/outdoor cat.”

We also discovered she was chipped which we now pay a subscription for.

It had only been three days, but Eva had lost a considerable amount of weight.

She also had developed a respiratory infection and was having trouble keeping food down.

We took her to a vet, and after a couple of treatments of antibiotics, Eva was 100% again.

Several months later, the same neighbor got involved again.

Fast forward 8 months later to this past weekend.

I get a text from my neighbor saying Eva was once again at their door.

I politely asked our neighbor to leave Eva outside and to not feed her.

My neighbor then proceeds to drive Eva down the road and drop her off in a stranger’s yard across from a busy supermarket.

The homeowner saw this take place and chased my neighbor down in their car to ask what they were doing, pointing out the “Indoor/outdoor” collar.

I then get a call from this homeowner, Jeremy, who explains the whole situation and allows me to come grab Eva, who was hiding in some shrubbery in their backyard at the time.

AITA?

That’s a tough situation.

On one hand, it’s not fair for the cat to be cooped up in the house, but at the same time, she could get lost or injured.

Let’s see what advice the folks over at Reddit have to offer.

As someone who lives in Europe, this person sees nothing wrong with an outdoor cat.

According to this comment, the cat will get out one way or another.

Here’s great advice.

In this comment, the person explains why cats shouldn’t roam.

This person is concerned about the cat’s health.

There has to be a better solution.

This situation is dangerous for the cat if nothing is done.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.