Published May 16, 2025
Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
The good news was, my wretched neighbors – a thorn in my side for a long time for many reasons – were finally evicted and left. The bad news was, they left one of their many neglected cats behind to fend for himself.
Once I saw the inside of the hoarding house, filled with cat feces, I knew the poor cat was probably better off outside. Still, who was going to provide food, water and shelter for this abandoned cat, who was traumatized and hissed and swatted at me but needed care?
Well, me, that’s who! And if you encounter a similar situation, I hope you will step up and take care of a feral or semiferal outdoor cat. Ideally, the cat will come around, be socialized, and turn into an indoor pet material. If not, we can still do a lot to make their difficult lives easier. Here are the key components of caring for an outdoor cat that is either feral, or not technically feral but traumatized from abandonment and abuse and acting feral.
Get a Sturdy Cat House
I got an outdoor cat house – although, curiously, I still have not seen Tommy use it. He prefers a nearby detached garage as his hidey hole, but I’m sure the time will come when the house has a new tenant and the garage will no longer be available.
I chose an adorable A-frame house that I got on Chewy in the large size. I assembled the wooden house, and bought a padded bed to line the floor of it. It’s ready for Tommy whenever he decides to enter through the vinyl flaps and cozy up inside.
Get a Canopy (If You Don’t Have a Covered Porch)
Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
The cat house was still so exposed to the elements, given that my back porch is uncovered, and wind could blow water into the house. Plus, I wanted a dry, covered space to put out food and water for Tommy. I ordered a pop-up canopy that is about 6 feet long and tall, and it has worked well to create a little cat cove with some protection from rain, cold, sun, and wind. Be sure to get anchor weights for each leg of the canopy, so that strong winds can’t blow it away.
I had to further accessorize to keep the area dry and clean, since as we know, things can still get wet under a canopy or awning from water blowing in through the side. Plus, leaves kept blowing into the water bowl. To mitigate some of this and provide extra protection, I bought a few shower curtains in a cute cat design, and hooked the rings onto the skeleton of the canopy edges. But the wind blew these curtains hard, so I bought a bunch of new bricks and put them on the bottom edge of the curtains to keep them in place.
Get an Automatic Feeder and Waterer
Due to the food insecurity this poor cat lived with, when I first started feeding him, Tommy showed extreme food aggression. The cat became a menace, hissing and swatting at me when I would try to enter or leave the house from the back door. And I couldn’t even feed him properly; this cat was so ravenous that he would vigorously swat the bowl right out of my hand, scattering the kibble all over the porch, then inhaling it within seconds. I had to do something different, both for my safety and Tommy’s benefit!
Getting an automatic feeder was a game-changer. I got the Cat Mate C500 with compartments for five meals, which appear through a timed rotating function that runs on batteries. Tommy could now fight with the feeder instead of me, much to my relief. The key was getting it onto the porch when the cat wasn’t already lurking there, waiting to pounce.
An interesting thing happened once I’d had the feeder for a week or two: Tommy’s aggression subsided. Now that he was no longer food insecure, and he knew when and where his next meal was, the cat stopped stalking me. He actually has become scarce, and I don’t see him much – which concerns me. But at least I know that he knows where and when to come for a meal.
A Petmate Pearl Replendish automatic waterer has also been very convenient. I just fill up the jug when it gets low, and wash out the bowl every few days.
Secure, Protect, and Elevate
Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
Well, naturally, outside living creates many hazards, including pests and weather and dirt. As Tommy’s ravenous appetite subsided, he became more of a nibbler than an inhaler that ate all the food at once. But this created problems, because at night, slugs started slithering into the open food compartments to feast on the leftovers.
Then, unfortunately, a raccoon discovered the feeder on a day when my garbage wasn’t picked up as scheduled. This dirty, smelly creature gobbled up the food and kicked around the feeder, which I found battered and covered in grime.
Already, I had put a few bricks around the feeder as brackets to keep Tommy from moving it around, but the raccoon was stronger. So, I added some more bricks to keep it in place. I also ordered some copper tape, which repels slugs, and placed it around the feeder’s opening above the food compartment.
Yet still, even with these things, raccoons were still trying to vandalize the feeder, leaves and dirt were blowing into the water bowl, and the feeder still got slightly wet from water that spread on the porch ground. So, my latest investment is a folding plastic table, which elevates the food and water containers by a few feet above the ground. This provides extra protection against critters and moisture and dirt and debris. Hopefully, only Tommy will be jumping up there! I put a little cat bed with a removable, washable cover in the middle of the table, in hopes he will use it as a comfortable lounging spot.
I also remove any extra food by bedtime, to discourage night prowlers. Tommy will have to learn to dine during the day.
Trap and Spay/Neuter
I am working on this step now. Tommy’s neutering status is unknown; the neighbors insisted at least one of their cats was neutered, and I find it peculiar that he doesn’t seem to spray smelly urine the way intact tomcats usually do. But as warm spring weather has developed, Tommy has become incognito, and sometimes I don’t see him for several days. He is likely a tomcat roaming in search of a female, and I need to intervene to make sure he doesn’t contribute to the flooding of shelters with unwanted litters during kitten season.
Soon, I will set out a trap baited with tuna fish and hope to trap him, so I can take the cat into a clinic to be neutered and get a rabies shot and flea treatment. I may actually trap a raccoon, but I will have to keep trying until I get Tommy.
Meanwhile, it seems that he has calmed down enough to let us coexist peacefully. I have moved my back porch chair next to the tent. Hopefully, one of these days, this beautiful gray cat will surprise me by walking up to the chair, rubbing against it, and letting me pet him for the first time. And then, I can get him inside and adopted into a loving indoor home.
“Operation Saving Tommy,” as I’ve been calling it, has been challenging and has cost me a few hundred dollars, but I can’t imagine doing anything differently. Any cat living outdoors deserves to be safe and healthy and happy, as much as possible given the bad circumstances.
If these cats cannot be socialized into pets, then the least we can do is make the effort to make their lives as comfortable as we can by meeting their physical needs for food, water, and shelter.
I hope you will do the same thing for another unfortunate cat who comes to your house, wanting nothing to do with you personally but needing food and care. They are victims of circumstance, and as kind cat lovers, we should do everything we can for them!