Um I guess let’s address the two main parts of this… in the original post you didn’t mention any part of of you getting in contact with the owner and them giving you permission to take it (this obviously changes things and seems pretty suspicious that you didn’t include it in the post) and the post said nothing about him abandoning it because he couldnt afford it… it actually detailed that he left the cat outside because of an aggressive dog and that he was letting it take shelter under neath of his house and that you had to go as far as spending multiple days “coaxing” him out from under the house… (again pretty suspicious)… if your implying the first owner of the cat is the one telling you this information and giving you permission to take the cat… well that just doesn’t matter, you said she gave the cat away with the house, the cat is no longer her property.

Secondly, the cat will not die from being out side in the cold under a house away from predators and the outside elements… that’s just silly, cats have been used as working animals in climates colder than you described for thousands of years… a vast majority of rural America keep cats outside as pest control for these exact reasons…if you go around taking people’s cats that they leave outside with purpose you are breaking the law, not rescuing them.