Imagine living in a neighborhood where a neighbor’s cat wanders around and hangs out at your house. Would you shoo the cat away, or would you let it stay?

In this story, one person is in this exact situation, and he decides not to shoo the cat away. After the cat owner yells at him, he decides to be even nicer to the cat.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITA – I let my neighbors outdoor “neighborhood” cat hang out in my house without the owners permission because she was underweight and pulling her own fur out from stress

About 2 years ago I was working on my car outside and I noticed a cat that was just sitting there staring at me.

She’s a golden striped/spotted leopard looking cat that has bright green eyes, a very small build (very skinny when we met as well, could not have been more than 6 lbs full grown), and a skittish nature.

She also at the time had a lot of fur missing from her rear end which I came to find was her pulling it out in tufts (apparently called “stress grooming”)

At first I thought she was just curious or maybe wanted water because it was a hot day so I gave her some water and thus began our relationship.

The cat got bolder.

So it went on like this for a few weeks until one day I was exercising with my window open (a window that has a missing screen) and she jumped into the window and scared the living hell out of me.

She sniffed around the room and then left.

Next day, same thing.

I thought maybe I should shoo her away.

Then the cat’s owner showed up.

One day I was working on my car and she was sitting there sunbathing and her owner (woman, mid 30s) from down the street came up to me on my property and said “You have to stop hanging out with my cat, she’s not your cat, she’s not coming home at night, you should get your own cat” and picked her up and left.

Mind you at this point I had ONLY had her jump IN the house twice and never given her anything other than water and she had never spent the night so I have no idea where she was going all night.

I didn’t particularly have any attachment to the cat at that point but the general thought I had in my head was

• A. Your cat is way underweight,
• B. it’s stress grooming and actively seeking out company from other people, and
• C. You’re being aggressive towards me for being friendly to an animal that YOU LET ROAM AROUND the neighborhood.

He did exactly the opposite of what the cat’s owner wanted him to do.

So as any spiteful person would do, I started feeding her.

And this is probably where I’m a jerk, but I don’t like being spoken to like that and after all I didn’t come and steal your cat from your house.

After a while she seemed happy to just hang around and get a meal and a spot to chill.

Also she started gaining weight and stopped stress grooming. Her fur came back and we are great friends.

He has gotten attached to the cat.

She may as well have dual citizenship between my house and her house at home.

I haven’t heard anything from her owners in a year but they must know that she goes somewhere all day.

I don’t know what I’m going to do either way – if I don’t let her in she sits at the door crying until I do, and I’m a softie for animals so I don’t have it in me to stop and ignore her.

She’s getting old anyway so I guess I won’t have to wonder much longer if I should stop, but I’m going to pay for this anyway because eventually one day she just isn’t going to show up and it’s really going to suck to not even know if she’s gone.

He needs to give the cat a name or somehow find out what the cat’s name is. It sounds like he’s a better owner than the cat’s real owner.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks the cat’s owner is neglecting it.

It’s not like he’s going to the cat’s house. The cat is coming to him.

A cat owner weighs in.

If the cat owner is so upset about it, she can stop letting her cat outside.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.