Ok everyone, i need your opinion on something...
We recently moved into the suburbs near St. Louis. Our new house is in a nice, newer subdivision and it's full of families with small children. Our next door neighbors have a lovely backyard full of plants and trees and such. Well, shortly after we moved in I noticed that they had an outdoor cat... or two...ok well more like 4! They usually stay in their yard and will sit on the neighbor's deck. I'm fine with outdoor cats, as long as people have them spayed and neutered as to not allow overpopulation. They do not bother us, but they do come up on our deck and walk around and poo in our yard. However they are not aggressive and run away if we make an approach. None of them wear collars and all of them are somewhat slim.
Today I was outside and i noticed 3 adult cats in the yard between our houses. Then i noticed 3-4 kittens with the adults. The neighbors have two smallish bowls on their deck for one or all of the cats, i don't know. My problem with this is A. the cats are not spayed/neutered and are reproducing and B. We are getting a kitten saturday from a breeder and I do not want the male cats spraying/marking my house because they smell my cat inside (our cat will not be going outdoors). Not to mention if we had the screen door closed but the glass door open, i am afraid they could pass something between them.
Listen, I have no problem with outdoor cats but I have a problem with people who do not keep them responsibly. I see so many cats in shelters and it makes me sad because sometimes those litters are the results of feral, un-fixed cats like these next door.
My question to you all is, what should i do?
I personally want to call animal control and have them taken away. But i also do not want to offend my neighbors. My plan is that tomorrow i am going to go knock on the door, introduce myself, chit-chat, and kindly ask if all of those cats are theirs or not. Then i will ask if they know that the cats had kittens and what they planned on doing with them, and possibly offer to call animal control/humane society for an extraction. I personally don't want my yard overrunning with cats, as they are slowly making their way into our yard as well. Am I way out of line? What do i do if they say they don't care? Are there ordinances against nuisance feral cats?
We recently moved into the suburbs near St. Louis. Our new house is in a nice, newer subdivision and it's full of families with small children. Our next door neighbors have a lovely backyard full of plants and trees and such. Well, shortly after we moved in I noticed that they had an outdoor cat... or two...ok well more like 4! They usually stay in their yard and will sit on the neighbor's deck. I'm fine with outdoor cats, as long as people have them spayed and neutered as to not allow overpopulation. They do not bother us, but they do come up on our deck and walk around and poo in our yard. However they are not aggressive and run away if we make an approach. None of them wear collars and all of them are somewhat slim.
Today I was outside and i noticed 3 adult cats in the yard between our houses. Then i noticed 3-4 kittens with the adults. The neighbors have two smallish bowls on their deck for one or all of the cats, i don't know. My problem with this is A. the cats are not spayed/neutered and are reproducing and B. We are getting a kitten saturday from a breeder and I do not want the male cats spraying/marking my house because they smell my cat inside (our cat will not be going outdoors). Not to mention if we had the screen door closed but the glass door open, i am afraid they could pass something between them.
Listen, I have no problem with outdoor cats but I have a problem with people who do not keep them responsibly. I see so many cats in shelters and it makes me sad because sometimes those litters are the results of feral, un-fixed cats like these next door.
My question to you all is, what should i do?
I personally want to call animal control and have them taken away. But i also do not want to offend my neighbors. My plan is that tomorrow i am going to go knock on the door, introduce myself, chit-chat, and kindly ask if all of those cats are theirs or not. Then i will ask if they know that the cats had kittens and what they planned on doing with them, and possibly offer to call animal control/humane society for an extraction. I personally don't want my yard overrunning with cats, as they are slowly making their way into our yard as well. Am I way out of line? What do i do if they say they don't care? Are there ordinances against nuisance feral cats?