My neighbor threatens to hurt my cat. How can I stop him?

There are two ways to deal with this.

Criminal Aspect

If your neighbour treatens to hurt or kill your cat it is a threat to damage your property and in the UK is a crime (Criminal Damage Act 1971 — 1971 CHAPTER 48). You should call the police and they should interview your neighbour and that may be enough to stop him or her. However, it will obviously create even more tension between you and your neighbour and may make your relationship intolerable.

In the USA I suspect that the law is very similar to the UK and therefore it is certainly a crime to threaten to hurt or kill your cat.

This is because the cat is considered a “chattel” or a possession, no different to any other item possessed by a person. Hurting a cat is tantamount to criminal damage. Therefore in the USA you should call the police if you want to deal with the matter in that way. But below I recommend an alternative way to deal with the matter which may help to keep on reasonable terms with your neighbour if this is possible.

Proactive Steps – Non-criminal

My neighbor threatens to hurt my cat. How can I stop him? Not an untypical question, but, I hope, reasonably rare. The sensible answer is to be proactive and prevent your neighbor making threats. There is little point calling the police after he has hurt your cat. It may bring some satisfaction but the objective is to stop your cat being hurt. Also getting police involved in general is not a good idea, neither is antagonizing your neighbor even more. However, it would obviously be a crime to hurt or kill your cat in all countries in the West. You’ll just have to prove it and that might be tricky.

Person threatens to hurt my cat
Photo of angry man by Jan Tik (great photo, well done). Photo of cat by Michael. He is Charlie.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

If your cat is irritating your neighbor either the neighbor hates/dislikes cats and/or your cat is roaming around his garden irritating a fairly normal person. Perhaps your cat is defecating on your neighbor’s garden? A lot of people hate that.

No matter how much a person loves cats and wants their cat to be content by behaving normally, the cat owner has to think of other people and comply with the law.

In America, the answer might be: keep your cat inside as a lot of cat owners do. In Britain the answer might be: if you have a garden of sufficient size, build a cat enclose. Or in both cases, if and when your cat goes out, supervise the trip or put your cat on a leash. Also, it is more socially responsible to pick up feces if he defecates in a public place, although I understand the difficulties of doing that. Your cat should be prevented from going onto your neighbor’s property if he strongly dislikes it.

All of this may sound tough, even impractical, perhaps, but the first call upon a cat caretaker is the cat’s safety and if your cat is unsafe wandering around outside because of threats to his health and welfare something has to be done, proactively.

Also it is important to try and keep on good terms with your neighbors. Neighbor disputes are the worst kind. They make you miserable. There are no winners. It is lose-lose.

In many neighbourhoods people won’t mind a wandering cat. Many people accept it and like it. It creates a more human and friendly feel to the neighbourhood

In this case someone does mind and you can’t take the risk that he is just making an idle threat. People sometimes trap a domestic cat on the premise that the cat is a stray. They take him to the pound or shelter where his lifespan might be only a matter minutes. Or they might put down poison. It is almost impossible to catch people poisoning cats or prevent people from hurting a companion animal. Shooting at cats is another nasty pastime for some people.

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39 thoughts on “My neighbor threatens to hurt my cat. How can I stop him?”

  1. On the way out yesterday I passed the body of a cat obviously struck by a car. This summer we ended up having to eat a 500 dollar deductible on my car when some idiot was letting his dog run loose on the frontage road. Pets belong at home in the house and walked on a regular basis or in a secure fence or enclosure. I do not understand the entitlement of some pet owners who think everyone should tolerate their dog or cat running loose or in the case of dogs yowling all night.
    We had to call the police on my neighbors over their loose vicious dogs. along with other people who had the nerve to try and take a walk and threaten them with a lawsuit over the constant nonstop racket of barking dogs. Another neighbor was put on notice. I am an animal lover but at some point after numerous requests you find your own life being infringed upon in an unreasonable and excessive manner.
    Lawsuits are now being settled by the use of cheap and easily set up recording devices.
    If your neighbor has taken the time to ask you in the most nice non confrontational way possible assume they are probably at the seething point already as most of us are loath to say anything hoping the situation resolves itself.
    I don’t understand the concept of calling my pet a family member and then letting it wander all over creation where just natural dangers can take it’s life of cause great injury or illness not even taking into account the sick animal haters who will dispose of your pet without a second thought.
    One more thought. Be less worried about the person who confronts you than the ones that never say a word.

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  2. It’s a dangerous world out there — especially for animals. Legalities aside, this neighbor has given you fair warning that he may harm your cat. Whether he means it or how much he means it, the only way your cat can be safe is to keep him in.
    You may invoke the law but then he may do something sneaky or impossible to prove. My 5 are all indoors now that the area has built up & there’s lots of traffic — it gets a bit crowded but it’s worth it to keep them safe.

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    • Nail on the head there. Your pet is safest in your care and eyesight. When we accidently went from a modest 2 cats to 4 We realized we couldn’t make the house bigger but we could add space by going vertical for our cats. There is now an abundance of upper space. Most lawsuits or legal action happen after the damage is done in a case like this no matter the outcome your pet is still injured or dead.

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  3. Hi I have indoor cats and I have strays in the back 2 to be exact who where born in my yard and bother no one. One of them gave birth else where and brought the kittens to us now after 2 months now they are playing among themselves in my neighbors yard in which they don’t mind as they are not hurting anything and the jerk next door to them starts spitting at them and mind you in the past this guy even though I have no proof but know in my heart it was them poisened serveral kittens on me he is just a hater!!!! He is a much older jerk who wants to grow all of this stuff in his yard and just blames the cats for everything. I just hate him and know one day he will have to answer to a greater power. Any suggestions I can do to get this jerk off my back?

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    • I know what I feel like doing to someone like this jerk who hates cats and probably poisoned cats but being a neighbour you will probably agree that you have to keep the peace as best we can because you’re living next to him and if you are engaged in warfare with your next-door neighbour you’re going to be miserable and so will he although he wouldn’t admit it.

      It may be impossible to achieve but entering into a dialogue with him about how best to deal with the matter may get him to work with you rather than against you. You may be able, for example, to build a cat proof fence. There are some good products in America which can convert a yard into a cat enclosure. The objective I think is that you have to prevent your cats going on to his property. I don’t know whether they do go on to his property but there has to be some sort of visible guaranteed barrier preventing them which will satisfy him. You may not have the funds to build such a barrier but I don’t think they are that expensive. You may hate the idea but your welfare and the safety of your cats are at stake and there is nothing more important than that therefore thinking big and spending money is probably a wise thing to do.

      Of course, you could take the hard route and get evidence that he is trying to poison your cats or whatever (I am thinking of a covert video) but then you have to other sue him through the courts or try and get the authorities to prosecute him in the criminal court but all that will be nearly impossible and in trying to achieve it you’ll be at war perpetually with your neighbor. The answer has to be constructive. It’s a bit like the Israel versus Gaza war that is going on at the moment. No one wants to do anything constructive and everybody loses in the end.

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