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Most people expect the occasional surprise when they come home after a holiday gathering. Few expect to walk through the front door and discover three cats comfortably settled inside the house as if they owned the place.

That’s exactly what happened to one couple after returning home on Mother’s Day. Thanks to a door that hadn’t fully latched, three cats helped themselves to the property and quickly made themselves comfortable.

Wanting to do the responsible thing, the couple took the cats to a veterinarian, checked for microchips, searched for missing-pet reports, and began addressing some apparent health concerns.

But then a social media post surfaced that complicated everything.

Read the full story below.

AITA for not returning “missing” cats when I saw the sketchy post?

When my partner (who I now live with) and I came home from Mother’s Day festivities, we found 3 cats literally just inside our house, chilling there.

Our back door doesn’t shut properly unless you put a good bit of force into it; we must not have shut it properly before we left.

When we came inside, the cats all started purring and 2 of them already wanted to snuggle.

The older one (1 is teenage age, 2 are around 6 months we believe) has been around before and actually has come into the house before, but we didn’t have the facilities to care for a cat at that time, so we let him go.

Now, we take care of them entirely and they’re incredibly happy.

The cats chose them.

I take them to the vet the next day to see if they have microchips (in my state, having an animal microchipped is the legal requirement for ownership… keep that in mind).

No chips. No missing postings that match any of them.

The vet staff are elated that we’re going to keep them, and I schedule the earliest appointments they have available.

All of them seem to have some upper-respiratory issues, so I grab some OTC meds that the vet suggested for the meantime.

The cats have been here for a few days now, have been incredibly happy, and haven’t tried to leave once.

But then things changed.

Yesterday, my partner’s grandmother sends us a FB post someone made about all three being theirs and missing.

It was very obviously written by AI, kept referring to the three cats as two, and included a guilt-trippy clause about this being a 4-year-old’s cats and how the child is incredibly heartbroken.

I think, okay, this sucks, but these are their cats, so I’ll contact them and give them back.

Turns out the post was anonymous with no contact info. Great. Guess I’m chasing someone down.

In the meantime, my partner finds the personal account of the woman who wrote it.

It doesn’t seem like a safe home for them.

Turns out she admitted to “leaving her cat door unlocked” (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s a thing?) and has multiple previous posts about losing her pets.

She also seemed to lie about the timeline, and said she last saw them all on her cameras when they were already in our house.

Also waited to make this post for 4 days apparently?

Again– none of them were microchipped.

A comment she made to someone asking for details implied that she’s had these cats since before the two littlest ones were born; vet estimated they’re about 6 months old.

Red flags galore!

If you want to take ownership of them, that is PLENTY of time to take them and get them chipped.

Not to mention, every cat I’ve had has never tried to escape, which this woman’s seem to do very frequently.

My partner’s mother believes this is a morally bankrupt thing to do, since they “already have a home”.

Quite honestly, I have no reason to believe this woman’s story is true, and I have less reason to believe that she’s been properly caring for these cats.

I legally have every right to keep them, and am confident that’s the right thing to do, but I woke up today with doubts.

AITA?

I think the answer is pretty clear.

But what did Reddit think?

Exactly.

Yup!

It’s dangerous.

Another commenter chimes in.

Something to consider.

Of course they would consider returning the cats if this were a normal situation, but it isn’t. The posts about other missing pets say it all.

As they looked more closely at the post and the account behind it, they began noticing a lot of red flags. The post about the missing cats itself contained inconsistencies, lacked direct contact information, and appeared to conflict with other statements made by the person claiming the animals.

The absence of microchips also made them question whether it would be a good idea to return the cats. Because the cats had apparently been owned for months, the couple felt that basic steps associated with responsible ownership in that area should already have been completed.

The cat distribution system sent them there, and you can’t argue with it.