ACROSS AMERICA — We expected the fur to fly over the question for this installment of Block Talk: "Your neighbor won't stop feeding stray cats. What do you do?"

We got more than 6,200 responses on Facebook. We trust you'll forgive us here, but we couldn't swing a stray cat without hitting someone with an opinion. And some of them — again, begging your pardon — were downright feral.

"My neighbor does that," a reader of the Oak Lawn (Illinois) Patch wrote, explaining she finally took the matter to her homeowner association "because at times, there were 20-30 cats out there fighting for food. "At night, all they do is meow and won't let us sleep."

It seemed to have worked. Feed the cats where the neighbors won't be bothered, she was told.

"This is the worst," a Patchogue (New York) Patch reader agreed. "I had neighbors feeding cats. My yard was a litter box and breeding ground."

The feline-friendly neighbors eventually moved, and the cats were relocated. Still, "people don't realize the situation they're creating by feeding stray cats," the Patchogue Patch reader said.

It's a fair point and then some. Feral cats with all their reproductive organs intact can populate their own little kitty city in no time at all.

Females can get pregnant when they're 5 months old, and they can birth two or three litters of between one and eight kittens a year. That could amount to about 24 kittens a year. Over the course of her reproductive life, one mama can have as many as 100 kittens, according to the Humane Society. And if each kitten in the kindle grows up to have 100 of her own kittens and they are equally fertile as adult cats — well, you do the math.

The quick answer: The size of the clowder of cats — or, less frequently, a clutter, pounce or glaring of cats — will grow exponentially.

You'd pounce and glare, too, if you had to deal with the collection of woes this reader from Fredericksburg (Virginia) Patch reader described:

"I want to be able to enjoy a garden without cats turning it into a litter box and making the produce unsafe for human consumption. I want birds and other wildlife in my yard. Some ain't safe for the cats, the cats ain't safe for others. Also, cats leave fleas in my yard. That's a no."

"I wouldn't be so annoyed if they didn't use my flower beds as their litter box," a Brick (New Jersey) Patch reader wrote.

The problem isn't limited to the potential for grabbing a handful of cat poop while weeding the flower gardens, some readers said.

"Feeding stray cats and 'community cats' also provides food for animals most people do not want near their homes," a Branford (Connecticut) Patch reader wrote. "These animals include skunks, raccoons, opossums, rats, and mice. They all love cat food and will even take up residence and raise families near this food source. They often spread illnesses among the cats enabling the cats to become disease vectors themselves."

Come on, though, some readers said.

The neighborhood cat whisperer is just being "a very compassionate person," a Malden (Massachusetts) Patch reader wrote, adding, "The world would be a better place with more people like your neighbor."

"Have some compassion," another Brick Patch reader wrote.

"Give them a hug," a Canton-Sixes (Georgia) Patch reader suggested.

A Joliet (Illinois) Patch reader thinks it's a good idea to "help them with spay/neuter." Also, the reader said, "mind your business."

"Help her/him, then try to work with a rescue to find them proper homes or at least provide proper care," another Joliet Patch reader agreed.

"Help with the food expense," offered a Concord (New Hampshire) Patch reader.

"Put out little shelters for them, so they'll have food and a safe place to sleep," another person from Joliet said.

"I am not a cat person," a Newport (Rhode Island) Patch reader wrote, "but anyone helping an animal or a human being is good in my eyes."

"There's bigger problems in the world," wrote a Waukesha (Wisconsin) Patch reader.

"Tell them THANK YOU," another Waukesha Patch reader wrote, using capital letters and a "heart" emoji for emphasis.

And another voice heard from in Waukesha: "Pet them?" the reader wrote. "Go snuggle them, or is that just me?"

"Dance a jig because I don't have mice!" a Concord Patch reader wrote.

A Temecula (California) Patch reader recalled a story about a woman in her old neighborhood in Orange County who would round up as many feral cats as possible and take them to the vet.

"Yes, she was odd," the reader said. "She spoke to them, and they told her their backstories (or so she claimed), but it brought her happiness in her old age, and it never created a problem. Let people be happy. Happiness is such a rare thing these days."

Whatever the response, "don't be a Karen and put a note in my mailbox like my neighbor a few years back in my old neighborhood," a Canton-Sixes Patch reader wrote. "And thank them for being kind to animals."

("A Karen," of course, is a pejorative slang term for angry, entitled white women.)

If it's that troublesome, don't just sit around caterwauling about it — do something positive, other readers said.

"Sell your house and move into a condo in a high rise where you won't have a yard and won't see cats," a Lansdale (Pennsylvania) reader wrote.

"Call animal control when she feeds them," wrote a Newport Patch reader who assumes the neighborhood cat Welcome Wagon is run by a female.

"If she's leaving food outside," wore another Malden Patch reader, who also made some gender assumptions, "call the Board of Health."

"Buy a dog!" a Malden Patch reader joked (we think).

There are less-drastic solutions that don't involve moving out of the neighborhood, increasing the chances a neighbor will be fined or getting a dog to chase the cats away.

Anyone heard of talking to each other civilly?

"Try to educate her that she's creating a serious issue, then call the local wildlife preserve and hopefully they have a team of vets that can fix them and treat their parasites and or [feline immunodeficiency virus] before re-releasing them," a Brick Patch reader wrote.

It's possible, a Fredericksburg (Virginia) Patch reader pointed out, that feeding the cats is the same as taking possession of them, "whether you meant to or not." It's neighborly to give fair warning, the person wrote.

A Glen Burnie (Maryland) Patch said sprays her garden with a natural repellant and leaves the cats alone. "It's a human's fault there are feral cats," she wrote. "We do have that here. One of the neighbors feeds them, catches them and releases after they are fixed."

Tame the feral cats and give them a home, a Patchogue Patch reader wrote.

"Adopt a baby who had a rough start in life in a colony," she wrote. "You love him, care for him and three years later he will purr and love your lap."

A Maple Grove (Minnesota) Patch reader said she and her family found a family of seven cats under their shed and worked with a rescue group to trap them and get the mother cat spayed.

"We fostered the kittens until they got into a rescue," the reader said. "We still leave food out for Mom, since they released her back to the space she is most comfortable and safest for her to continue her life.

"It was a great opportunity to love on these sweet animals and help the kittens find forever homes," she went on. "We didn't ask for them, but we did what was right for our neighborhood and the kittens."

Another Newport Patch reader suggested talking to the neighbor about TNR — trap-neuter-return — "so no more baby cats."

"Then I see who is friendly," she wrote. "I think I can take at least two kitties. But I would put cameras at the traps so nobody harms them! Because sometimes that has happened."

"Trap them and bring them to a shelter," a Concord Patch reader wrote. "It's an easy fix and solves all your cat problems."

"There's not much you can do except try to trap the cats and get them neutered," a Lansdale Patch reader concluded. "Of course, that isn't cheap."

But it may be worth the cost, he pointed out, noting "stray cats kill hundreds of thousands of birds every year, spread disease, and destroy landscaping."

Or, a Patchogue Patch reader emphasized, lean on local and state governments to increase funding for TNR programs.

Block Talk is an every-other-week feature on Patch offering real-world advice from readers on how to resolve everyday neighborhood problems. If you have a neighborhood etiquette question or problem you'd like for us to consider, email beth.dalbey@patch.com, with Block Talk as the subject line.

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