The cat Charlie has a problem.
His vice isn’t too much catnip or an abnormal need for mouse blood, but rather stealing. He just can’t seem to stop himself from stealing.
As a result of his misbehavior, the feline has been dubbed “Klepto Cat,” and has stolen everything from plastic dinosaurs to skateboards from his neighbors.
As a result, his owner, Alice Bigge, 41, must devote a significant amount of time to reuniting her one-year-old pet’s stolen items with their original owners.
She accomplishes this in part by erecting a dedicated sign on the front of her house, which she uses to put Charlie on notice.
She hangs the unclaimed objects Charlie has taken on this wall, along with a notice that reads, ‘Our cat Charlie likes to take things, do any of these things belong to you?’ Please assist yourself if they do!’
The sign was made by Alice’s 11-year-old daughter, Martha, who wants to help teach the cat some etiquette.
Regrettably, this public humiliation has had no effect on Charlie’s desire to commit crimes. He doesn’t show any remorse for what he’s done.
When Alice awoke one morning to find a toy diplodocus on her pillow, she realized the cat’s nasty behavior.
“He wasn’t permitted out for three months or so,” Alice, who teaches A-Level cinema at St Brendan’s sixth form college in Brislington, said.
“But he began bringing items back nearly as soon as he was permitted out.
Over the course of a week or so, a slew of toy dinosaurs began to emerge in the house, which was strange.
I saw a green stegosaurus one day and wondered whether it had been dropped here by one of my friends’ kids.
I spotted a red stegosaurus the next day – and they just kept coming!”
“I woke up with a diplodocus on my pillow next to my head, which reminded me of the scene from Godfather.”
“Charlie just sat there, beaming with pride.”
Those dinosaurs were discovered to have been taken from a nearby children’s nursery.
“He’d been going there and collecting them up one by one and bringing them back here,” Alice explained.
Charlie returns all of his ‘finds’ to the Bigges, who adopted him and his sister Smudge after they were abandoned as kittens.
In some ways, his thieving is charming – he’s clearly trying to show Alice how much he cares.
“He has never caught a bird, a mouse, or anything like that to bring back to me,” Alice revealed. “He simply wanders off and catches anything he can.
At the moment, he’s really interested in clothing pegs.
He recently brought back a giant rubber duck, which I have no idea how he achieved – and got it through the cat flap.”
“He also went through a phase of returning with those tiny mini-skateboards.
I believe he finds something pleasurable in the hunt.
Whether it’s the desire to learn something new or simply to satisfy me and send his family a gift.
Whatever the case may be, we still adore him!”
