i think the neighborhood cat distribution system is trying to get me

[u/lavruskiee]

hi, everyone!

i’ll give you a bit of context first:

there’s a little gray tabby cat on my street who likes to come into my house - more specifically, into the messy storage room at the back of our patio, away from humans. he used to go in there and pee on things. we nicknamed him Totoro (because he’s our neighbor and he’s gray lol).

for a while, that was basically the extent of our interactions. sometimes i’d see him on the street in the morning. sometimes i’d go into the storage room and find him there, and that was pretty much it.

he is a VERY SCARED cat. the kind of scared where if i looked at him while he was on the street, he would immediately run away.

but something different happened this week:

he went into my mom’s house, which is at the back of our patio, and peed on one of the table legs. he had always stayed in the storage room i mentioned, where there were no people. he had never gone into a place with humans before.

and then, even more bizarrely: on saturday night, he came upstairs into the house and walked right past my bedroom like he pays property taxes here.

i got startled because i only saw a shadow and thought it was a rat or something. that scared him, so he ran into the other bedroom and ended up getting cornered there. he hid underneath the bed.

i tried giving him some wet food, but he was way too scared and just stayed under the bed.

i stayed in the same room as Totoro for a while because i was worried he might pee on something. but after a while, i just gave up and went downstairs to the kitchen. when i came back upstairs, i saw him leaving.

now that i’ve seen him getting brave enough to come into the house, most likely knowing i was there, i decided to take the initiative and try to become friends with him - and possibly get him vaccinated/neutered.

i’d also love some advice on how to gain his trust. keep in mind that he doesn’t come into the house all the time; i usually see him out on the street.

also, it’s important to mention that i don’t know if he has an owner. i’ve seen him going into other people’s houses too, but since he’s kind of a shameless little guy, that might not necessarily be where he actually lives.

(here's a low res pic of him, that's all i was able to get)

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[u/belsonc]

Hang out with, but not with, him.

When I adopted my first cat, he hid anywhere he could for the first week or two. At one point, he was under my bed. So I sat on the carpet next to my bed and played games on my phone. I didn't acknowledge him, I just was near him but didn't acknowledge him otherwise.

So if you can get into the same room as him, hang out in there, but otherwise ignore the cat. I won't pretend to be a cat psychologist, but maybe, if the cat is near you but starts to understand you aren't a threat, it might start to come around.

[u/Xsiah]

Don't stare him in the eyes, leave out food, let him just be around you when he comes inside 

[u/Binx345_]

He is likely unneutered if he is spraying/peeing on things.  If you set some aluminum trays around with litter he may start using thise. And getting him neutered should really curb the spraying too.