Hi anyone here dealt with a “possessive” community feeder?

We are a family who recently moved into our BTO and there’s a community cat that would follow my daughter and I for a few steps and meow sadly whenever we return home from our evening stroll.

We guessed it might be hungry or looking for attention, but as there are already feeders in our area we would just give this orange cat 3 to 4 pieces of cat treats (the healthy type as my husband kept a cat before). We’d also pat the cat after which it’d trot off quietly and loaf somewhere contentedly.

A neighbor thanked us one day as the cat has been meowing loudly at same time every day (but she’s afraid of cats so did nothing), and our small act has made everyone happy.

Then this (self proclaimed) feeder waylaid us this morning on our way out and accused us angrily of “feeding the cat”. We said we didn’t as it’s just a few pieces of healthy treats. We saw ourselves as more playing with the cat and the treats a stimulant to win trust.

But the feeder didn’t believe and ended up lecturing us for almost 30 min on the harms of feeding cats certain type of food (which we didn’t); interrogating us on what we do for a living and which unit we live in, etc etc.

She’s elderly and we don’t want to be rude but we eventually got past her.

Then our helper texted just now to say someone has rung our doorbell (when we are both still outside). The description fitted the feeder. We told her not to answer the door.

The feeder’s behavior has clearly gone beyond normal concern for cats - esp when she didn’t see us interact with the cat before and was just jumping to all sorts of crazy conclusions.

Any advice or suggestions? We are worried about running into her again, esp if my daughter (who’s only 12) might be on her own.