Kitty horror story

Well at college one day, the group somehow got onto the subject of cats (Somehow, meaning me,lol.)
So anyways, one of the guys there started to say how much he hates cats and how much his father hates them. Obviously it was mean, but to each their own. Then he randomly started telling me about his father, and how he gets irritated when the neighbors cats use his garden as a litter box, so he said he trails a string along the garden wall, catches them, kills them and throws them in a pile at the back off the garden.
Then when his neighbors come round asking if he's seen their missing cats, he says no.
Then the guy that was telling me all this, started laughing.
It was all very disconcerting. I'm not sure if I believe him, but now I get nervous when letting the cats out.
It's not likely to be true is it? I mean he was about 35, so it's not like it was a kid trying to be funny or something. Also when I kept calling him evil, he just replied "I just hate cats."
Anyways it's not true is it? I tend to over worry about these things, so just need some confirmation.

 

Some people are just cruel. I wish I could tell you it wasn't true, but the chances are reasonably good that it has happened, although probably not the way he told it. For one, I doubt his neighbor is idiot enough not to have figured out what's happening if it's cost him more than one cat. Make no mistake, there are people like this out there, and as a general rule, they choose animals as victims because they aren't as able to fight back as a human one.

The other side of the coin, though, is why a cat owner is letting his cats out to run the neighborhood and cause problems for his neighbors. Cats love vegetable gardens because the soil is loose, and it's easy to cover. However, cat urine and feces is not good for vegetable gardens, and if it happens often enough it will harm the plants. And of course, there's the smell if cats have a particular place in the yard they like to go.For someone who doesn't like cats to begin with, it's particularly offensive to have to clean up after them.

Killing a cat, or any other pet in the manner you described is unacceptable, and enticing one into the yard for that purpose is even more so, but I can see why the neighbor come to want to. That doesn't excuse it if it happened, of course, and he should be held responsible. But cat owners do need to take responsibility for their pets' behavior.

 

Unfortunately, all you have to do is go to some animal rescue websites to see how sick ordinary people can be. One rescue agency had a tabby cat dumped on their doorstep completely wrapped in duct tape like a mummy.
My local Humane Society just adopted out a kitten who is paralyzed in her back legs because a man beat her with a baseball bat.

I don't think you should take your classmate's comments as a joke.
Consider the cruel things people do to cats every day. Your classmate might be one of those people. Call a rescue organization and see if they have any advice. Someone might come to discreetly check out the story and see if there are any dead cats in his garden.
You could potentially save some precious lives by reporting your suspicions. Better safe than sorry.

As for your classmate's comments "I'm not evil, I just hate cats." no he's definitely evil. A decent human being wouldn't harm an animal or lure them into their garden and then lie to the pet's owner.

 

Thanks for you comments. What you said about cats using the neighbours gardens is very true, it can be a nuisance. In fact I remember my aunt complaining about her neighbor's cat using her garden and she wasn't happy about the fact that she had to clean up after it, which is totally understandable sean as I hate cleaning the litter and chose to have a cat, lol.
I would prefure to keep Sebby in doors, but he's very active and jumps across the table or does anything that is basically annoying until you let him out(He just doesn't get tired,lol).
You made some really good points, while it is cruel to kill cats, owners do have some responsibility if they are just letting them out to save themselves the bother of changing the litter.

 

Oh god, I really wish I hadn't read that bit about the animal abuse. I find those types of story's so disturbing and have trouble shaking them.
My brother told me a story about a man who filmed himself as he threw a dog off a building and it was whimpering on the ground... I don't know why he told me that, I really don't...

I was really hoping the story he told me wasn't true, as I have heard of a few horror stories, but chose not to believe them because I tend to get overly stressed about these types of things... Thanks for your advice.

He is heartless, he kept smiling while he was telling the whole story as if he thought what his father did was funny. It was very disconcerting...
Thanks again for your advice.

 

So, OP have you called any animal authorities or rescue organizations to report this guy?

Covering your eyes and going "La la la, I can't hear you." isn't going to stop him if he is killing cats.

 

Unless the animal authorities can hunt this guy down using only his first name and then somehow find his father and locate his home address, all on a tip that may or may not be true, is quite unlikely.
However, I did receive some helpful advice from the other people here and will look into a viable solution.
Thank you for your comment.

 

I was afraid that was probably the situation, which is why I didn't suggest finding an agency to look into it. A casual conversation like this is often exaggerated to get reactions (and yes, even 35-year-olds are still looking for shock value sometimes), or to make an impression, or to see how you'll respond in order to decide where to take the conversation next. If you responded in horror, he knows of some of the topics he can't discuss if he wants a date (or conversely, the topics he needs to talk about to get a rise out of you). And, sad to say, it could just have been a very mean and cowardly way of changing the subject. Maybe he thought you'd drop it after he told his malicious story.

Another thing about this kind of story is that you have no real frame of reference for the time (unless he told you it happened last week, or last year, or the like), so it's unlikely that digging for more information in order to file a report would have done you much good. Sure, if it's ongoing behavior, maybe you'd have saved an animal or two, for a while, but maybe not. If he does this sort of thing regularly, a visit from the police isn't likely to stop it. And there's a chance the story, if true, is a childhood memory, long past helping or harming.

Sometimes the details of the story are telling. For instance--and yes, this does get gruesome and disgusting--since he said his father tossed the remains in a pile at the back, you can start to doubt the truth of the story. If he did that, wouldn't the neighbors have a little something to say? After all, a pile of dead animals in the yard is going to create a stink that will carry quite a distance (consider roadkill on a summer day, and then multiply it, since we're led by the story to believe there are several). Only a sociopath has a hatred strong enough to put up with that in his own yard, and his neighbors wouldn't put up with it either.

Finally, since he laughed through the telling, the odds are good he wasn't laughing about the story. He was enjoying your response, and being a stranger, that makes him a bully at best, and not worth your consideration. It's quite possible he made the whole thing up on the spot to torture you, especially considering some of the details.

 

Oh yea thats true, I didn't even think of that. It could've happened ages ago. Thats a really good point.

I know right, that's what I was thinking. There should have been some kind of smell, and wouldn't the neighbors see the pile of cats in his garden?...

Yea, I don't know I didn't give him much of a response other than looking like
Then asking "That's not true is it" and what I mentioned before.
But it was pretty random. He seemed like a nice bloke before that, but what you said does make sense, he could have made it up.
Thanks for your response, I feel alot better now.