A few years back, Maria Cassano spotted a stray cat clutching a kitten trying to make it through her father’s backyard. She immediately got worried whether the mother would have enough nutritious food to produce milk for her newborn kitten. Maria’s dad was quite skeptical about feeding the neighborhood’s homeless cats, but she managed to convince him to make an exception and took good care of their so-named Mama the cat. The baby kitten was soon adopted by their neighbor and the Cassano family carried on feeding the stray felines of the area.

As winter was coming to Long Island, they started fearing the harsh weather conditions for the cats and this is where Maria’s dad truly comes into the story to save the day: he came up with an idea to build a cat house. Not the biggest fan of pets in the house, her dad Steve still wanted to help out less fortunate cats.

This is Mama, a cat that was looking for a shelter for her newborn kitten and ended up living in the cat house

Image credits: Maria Cassano

The crafty dad ordered all necessary waterproof materials for a heated cat house to build on a base in their backyard. Mama the cat had a second kitten and Maria’s dad took it even further by installing a camera in the cat house so that he could keep an eye on whether they made it there safely every night. The Cassano family didn’t expect to end up snapping a bunch of cute photos of the fluffy stray cats gratefully sleeping away in their shelter.

The crafty dad built a shelter so that she could be warm and comfortable in the harsh weather conditions

Image credits: Maria Cassano

He constructed the cat house in the backyard using waterproof materials and is fully heated

Image credits: Maria Cassano

Maria managed to bring Mama the cat and her kitten to a local vet in order to get them checked out and vaccinated. She was assured that Mama was well enough to survive winter, but her kitten was too young to brave the winter. She ended up taking care of the kitten, later finding him a loving home for adoption.

The quite comfortable cat house started being frequented by new feral cats and now Mama gets to hang out with Inky and Finky. Turned out that the strays are very independent and don’t come inside the house or let the Cassanos touch them. But the family is more than happy to provide the cats with a cosy place to live and share their backyard.

After installing night vision camera the family ended up snapping cute pictures of the cats sleeping

Image credits: Maria Cassano

The stray cats are often taking naps in the lawn chairs and taking advantage of the family’s backyard facilities

Image credits: Maria Cassano

The internet is buzzing with admiration for the Cassano family. This story not only has people sharing similar examples, but it also encourages others to start helping their fellow street animals during the harsh weather seasons and throughout the year overall. Users are delighted with the adorable night vision cam photos, but also, it turns out that there are people who also have similar recording systems installed to monitor if the strays are ok.

Image credits: Maria Cassano

Since the first cat house, they now have a “cat igloo” and a few extra houses so that all their purring residents can stay warm and healthy. The Cassanos now jokingly refer to all of the cat houses as “Steve’s condos”—named after the dad.

And this is how people reacted

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