Cat concerns

TEMPERANCE, Michigan (WUPW) - There is a battle brewing over stray cats in a Temperance neighborhood. Some residents fear being forced to move because they're helping the homeless felines.

Neighbors in Inverness Estates estimate there are between 50 and 100 feral cats running around their mobile home community. Some neighbors have paid out of their own pockets to feed them and have them spayed and neutered. However, they say that has landed them in hot water. They claim they are charged fees for having food dishes in their yards and are threatened with eviction. They go as far as to claim the cats are treated inhumanely.

"There are a lot of cat lovers. There are a lot of cat haters, too," said Inverness Estate resident Kristi Falbo. "They’re either poisoning them, trapping them. Whether it is the lady down the street's cat with a collar on it they don't care. They don't let anyone know and they take them to Animal Control and they're killed in seven days."

Falbo continued, "What I would like to see is 'trap-nueter-return." Trap the cats, get them neutered, bring them back and offer them food and shelter in each phase of the park."

The park's manager says she must control the cat population in the 500 unit community she oversees. She says she uses humane, live traps to catch them. But she draws the line at animal cruelty.

"We trap them. We take them to the humane society. If they're caught feeding strays its grounds for eviction," said manager Mary Denonia. "I don't want to see the animals get hurt and if they keep feeding them they'll keep coming back and one time they may hit a bad feeding dish and I don't want to be mean to the cats."

Monroe County Animal Control says, under Michgan law, cats have the right to roam. But, if they are on your property and don't want them there you can trap them and turn them in. Right now it has about 100 cats. More than 1-thousand have been taken to animal control so far this year. Cats that aren't claimed and can't be adopted are destroyed.