We let her in ONCE because it was really cold overnight, and now she thinks she lives here.
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I think she lives there now too 
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She DOES live there. 
Congratulations on your new cat!
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Congratulations on your new cat.
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Cats are Masters of the Multiple Residence Life.
“Let her in once” equates to New Place in the feline mind.
It’s part of the reason I never replaced my barncat.
I don’t leave food out, but still occasionally see passerby cats exiting my barn.
They keep the rodent population down, so I’m more like a Fast Food place than a home.
So yeah, Congrats on your new cat 
Since this is an In/Out cat, check with neighbor & if they don’t treat for fleas, you might want to.
Or you’ll likely get an infestation when it warms up.
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We think alike. My great fear of all things exoskeleton means she got treated the second she started hanging out in the vicinity of my cats! (We don’t talk to these neighbors ever since they decided one of our kids is trans, scared the heck out of him and called the sheriff on us). Neighbor Cat has been living in a heated cat house on my porch and hitching rides on my carriage and in various cars for about a year now. The level of animal husbandry exhibited regarding goats, rabbits, chickens and ducks back when I was trying to be nice to the neighbors does not suggest regular parasite control is practiced.
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The wise cat has made his decision. And rightly so. A cat knows what is best for the cat.
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Love you new house kitty. 
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I once had a cat who would disappear frequently for a couple of days and once for two weeks. The strange thing when he returned was that he always smelled of an unfamiliar perfume. I found out he had been two-timing me with a neighbor.
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She is alive. She is in your house. She lives there. Done!
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My sister’s cat would visit around and my sister told the neighbors to not let him in. He would be gone all day and return smelling of smoke. Turns out he was visiting the neighbors all day in their living room lying next to the fireplace. He was no fool.
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We had a pair of cats when I was a child. It became a single cat when one of them decided to move next door. It far preferred their canned pilchards in tomato sauce to our normal cat food.
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One of ours decamped in favor of neighbors who cooked but did not eat–chicken giblets and other delicacies. I imagine that he had a very happy life with them.
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This is actually one of the things I admire about cats. A dog will be loyal to Jack the Ripper or Attila the Hun if it lived with them. Cats do show affection, but they also are open to investigating other offers if better conditions are out there. I remember several years ago, I encountered a clerk at the gas station 7 miles away. She lives not far from me and noted myself and my neighbor (1 mile away across gigantic pasture, 13 cats) in line, and she was complaining that she liked cats but never could keep one because it always took up with either neighbor or myself. She said recently, she had lost a solid black one. Since I had gained a solid black one not long prior, I asked if it was a long hair. She thinks so. She thinks so?* Yeah, great home there and loved cat, obviously. She said, while not appearing too regretful, that she still sometimes missed Twinkletoes.
I went home and asked Mystery, “Did your name used to be Twinkletoes?” Mystery didn’t respond. In his defense, I wouldn’t have, either. He remains a Mystery.
Congratulations on your new cat.
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The problem here is that when you take the cat that has adopted you to the vet and the vet scans and finds a chip, the vet is obligated to contact the registered owner (in my location the vet must do this). And if the legal owner, even from a decade ago, wants the cat you have raised and love returned to them, do you surrender the cat?
Does your vet automatically scan?
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I won’t forget getting a call from my vet, “Have you lost Russell?” “No … he goes out for the day and is always home for dinner.” “Ok, call this number, it’s one of your neighbours.”
I called and met one of my delightful neighbours who told me my cat came for ‘tea’ at 11am everyday and asked me if that was ok or whether she should stop letting him in. “Is he causing any problems with your cats or would you prefer not to have his company?” “No! He is welcome to visit!” And so he did until he got old enough that he was only allowed supervised garden outings.
Mine does. I can bring a cat or kitten from a barn, one who I’ve known since birth, and they will scan just in case it’s a stray/lost animal.
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Scans at every visit, yes.
So was my very first cat.
I was about 3. We got 2 kittens from a shelter, one for me amd one for my sister. We named them Jack and Jill (Jill was mine) though it turned out they were both male. As they grew up, “Jill” didn’t like being one of two male in the same house, and he would often wander, being gone for a day or two at a time.
A couple of years later, we were getting ready to move, so we kept the cats in the house (we lived in faculty housing on the campus of UBC, Vancouver). We started seeing notices from a grad student couple, looking for their lost cat (who sometimes wandered, but had never been gone for long). Eventually they started going door to door looking for him, and found him at our house!
We (really my parents) decided to let him decide. If he was going with us, he had to go into a boarding facility (prior to beng shipped across the continent) on a specific day. If he was with us that day, he would move with us. If not, he would stay wth the grad students.
He stayed with the grad students. I never forgot (or forgave) him, but I knew it was the “right thing”.
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