Our geriatric retired lawyer neighbor had a half dozen cats. One of them was a big black tom who roamed the neighborhood impregnating countless female kitties until we had a huge glut of black cats. You could not leave or enter our neighborhood without one of them running in front of your vehicle.
At that time we had a beautiful 1941 Cadillac which was fully restored and our pride and joy. The big black tom cat liked it too and would sneak into our garage when the door was opened even briefly and piss all over the car. If we left the windows open it would get inside the car and do its dirty business on the genuine mohair interior. If the windows were cracked it would somehow pee through the cracks and also on the windshield. It would sneak out of the garage when the door was opened and often we would not even realize it had been in there until we found or smelled the damage. It was extremely stealthy.
I confronted our old neighbor about the problem and he refused to do anything about it. He said the cat had very good taste and that he would always be free to roam and that keeping him away from our car was our own responsibility.
I finally caught the cat. After quite a struggle I got him into a pet carrier and relocated him ten miles away in a nice neighborhood on the opposite side of a freeway from us. I wished him luck finding a new hopefully more responsible family. BUT HE WAS BACK THE VERY NEXT DAY. He was sitting in front of our garage growling at me and flicking his tail back and forth before running off. After experiencing nearly homicidal rage, I finally gave up; cleaned the car up and sold it on eBay.
Not long after that our recalcitrant old neighbor had a massive heart attack and died. His family took the cats they could catch to the pound. The house was sold and the new owners had to completely gut it to undo all of the damage the cats had done. Coyotes moved into the neighborhood and ate all the remaining black strays that were still running around. We are currently working on a 1942 Cadillac.
My current kitty is the son of a huge orange tom who impregnated many generations of local female kitties. He was a cool old man kitty, with a bad habit, he continually hosed my front porch with cat pee. One day our home was invaded by one of his numerous kitten sons after days of freezing rain. Little fellow just strolled in and made it clear that if we would take him in, he would work hard to be the best behaved cat ever, so we kept him. One day a few months along his daddy was doing his thing on our porch when his son got up in the window and pleaded his case for respecting his property rights. The old boy never peed on my porch again :)
Dogs and cats are skilled at finding their way back to their homes and territories.
It’s a shame your neighbor was not responsible enough to have his cat neutered and keep it from wandering the neighborhood.