I think I'm the bad neighbour
Many moons ago when I was living at home with my parents we had a cat turn up in our garden who had somehow managed to get over the fence. It was very friendly and I took quite a shine to it even though it looked very old, had no teeth and could only walk about 2 foot.

My mother asked the neighbours if anyone had lost a cat but to no avail. So being the good Samaritans we are, we kept it in the garage and fed it porridge hoping someone would claim it. 3 days had passed and my mother was not too happy about the arrangement and took the cat to the vet as it didn't move a lot and we thought it couldn't survive on porridge.

I arrived home that day to find out the vet had decided it was best to put the cat down as it was very old. Surprise, surprise the door bell rang that night with our new neighbours enquiring if we had seen their cat.
To be honest they took it very well considering it was the oldest cat in Britain at the time, 23 human years old!

Oh well it probably saved the old scamp from meeting Ian Wright on Guinness World Records.
(dagenham77, Fri 26 Aug 2005, 3:30, Reply)