Conference misery::feline_v1

599.0. "The Great Feline Escape Trick" by CLUSTA::TAMIR () Wed May 27 1987 12:14

    This past Saturday, around 4:30 in the afternoon, the phone rang
    at my house.  When I answered it, I heard the sobbing voice of a
    friend (and fellow feline noter).  Her 8 month old kitten had run
    out of her apartment and managed to find a place to "escape to another
    dimenension" under the apartment building stairway.  There is a
    crawl space between the floor and ceiling beneath it that appeared
    to run the entire span of the building, and he was trapped in there.
    I rushed over to see what I could do about the situation, praying
    that this little pea brain had not been hurt or trapped somewhere.
    
    We tried calling him (what cat comes when you call????), but to
    no avail.  He had already been gone for 3 hours.  I wanted to start
    ripping up floor board to at least determine what kind of space
    was beneath the floor.  A neighbor mentioned that the space the
    kitten had crawled in to used to be a stairway that had been covered
    over when the building was refurbished.  Panic set it.  If the kitten
    had fallen down there, there was no way he could get out.  So I
    started ripping out floor boards.  Armed with a hammer and screwdriver,
    I started ripping out floor boards.  The first one I ripped out
    was a small one, right beside the staircase.  When I realized that
    the kitten could be trapped somewhere, I convinced my friend to
    call her landlord.  The same helpful neighbor mentioned that someone
    had lost a kitten years ago in the building (unhappy ending).  Even
    though she didn't want her landlord to know about the kitten (No
    Pets Allowed!), Sherri started up the stairs to call.  Just then,
    I saw a little bit of fluff thru the floor board I had ripped up.
    Sherri crawled back under the stairs, and stuck her hand thru the
    hole and was able to feel the kitten.  I could see him thru my opening
    in the floor and he appeared to be unhurt.  He also appeared to
    be having the time of his life!  We tossed Bonkers to him, talked
    to him, but he just wasn't ready to come home.  Finally, an hour
    later, we managed to grab him and pull him up to safety.
    
    We were all dirty, dusty, and very much relieved.  The kitten, a
    blue point Himmy, was just as dirty and dusty, and didn't seem to
    be impressed with our efforts.  The hole under the stairway is now
    blocked off and a lesson has been learned--the hard way.
    
    The moral of the story---if there is any place your cat can crawl
    into, he/she will!!  Even if they never get out of the apartment,
    look around and make sure that if they do, something similar won't
    happen to them.  Fortunately, this story had a very happy ending.
    
    Mary (and Sherri)

    WARNING:
    
    That sweet little fuzzy has now learned that it will be fondly
    rewarded with Bonkers for crawling in said crawlspace!
    
    Such a *cute* trick!?*@%
    
    	;-)

    That story reminds me of a cat we had when I was a teenager.
    He was an outdoorsy type cat, but we had kept him inside for
    a few days after having surgery done.  One day we just couldn't 
    find him anywhere in the house.  He was missing for
    a couple of days, and we figured he somehow got outside 
    without us knowing it.
    
    Well, one night at about 11:30 p.m. I was reading in my bedroom
    when I heard a cat crying from my walkin closet.  I called my
    parents over and we searched for about 20 min. but couldn't find
    him.  Finally, we realized the cries were coming FROM THE FLOOR.
    My father took a crowbar and ripped up one of the boards, and low
    and behold, there was our cat.
    
    To the right of the closet was the slant that covers the stairway,
    and the cat must have climbed up the slant and fell through a
    narrow passage that went under the floor.  He wasn't smart enough
    to start crying until about 2 days later - my mother spent the next
    day trying to deordorize my closet, and my father covered up the
    hole that caused all the trouble to begin with.  
    
    Kitties always find wonderful ways to keep us humans occupied. .
    .