I live in what I consider a large subdivision in Texas, with roughly 200+ homes, which are roughly 30ft apart. Since moving here I noticed a big problem with free roaming cats, and I'm not talking strays as many of them have collars on. I have on multiple occasions talked to the owners that I have identified either by seeing the cat at their home or by looking the cat up on our neighborhood Facebook page (all the residents post their pets under a specific pinned post so if they ever get loose the owner can be found). I explained that I have two dogs that don't like cats and I'm concerned they will eventually catch and injure or kill the cat, or possibly our animals will get hit by a car if my dog is loose on my property and chases the cat. Typically my dogs are very obedient and stop at the property line, or go just into a neighbors yard and stop, but I don't want to chance it. I have also posted on the neighborhood Facebook page asking for people to be mindful of letting their cats roam freely. Which usually gets a few others commenting about how they are tied of their yard being a litter box for these cats as well, but of course also gets the cat owners commenting as if their pet is doing the neighborhood a service by keeping rodents away.
These conversations have fallen on deaf ears so I spoke to the HOA as it's also in the by-laws that pets must be confined to the owners property, and they said they can't do anything about it, which is a whole other frustration for a different post.
As such, I took matters into my own hands, with the blessing from my immediate neighbor next to me who doesn't like her yard getting cat poop in it due to them having a toddler that likes to play in the yard, I contacted animal control who came and set a trap between our homes. In the past two weeks we have caught 5 cats, and the officer provides an update each time one is caught so we know only one was a stray and the othe 4 were pets, which the owners had to pay a fine to have their pet released as well as getting a citation for violating the city ordinance on loose pets. This led to a Facebook post in our neighborhood page where the cat owners are complaining that those of us calling animal control are just AHs cause their cats deserve to be able to go outside. Of course the neighborhood is divided on the topic, so I figured I'll ask it here.