In Beaverton, Oregon, a cat named Esme has been terrorizing the neighborhood.
She’s running a full-scale theft operation, and her owner, Kate Felmet, finally had to do something about it.
Esme steals everything. Gloves, masks, bathing suits, knee pads, rolls of tape, packages of paint rollers, lengths of fabric. If it’s not nailed down, Esme is taking it.
Her favorite targets are neighbors’ garages and a nearby park. No open window is safe. Esme treats the whole neighborhood like her personal shopping mall.
Every time Esme brings something home, she meows loudly, demanding praise. She’s not sneaking around ashamed. She wants credit.
Her record haul was 11 masks in one day. She brought them home one by one, meowing after each delivery like she’d completed a mission.
Esme has a particular obsession with gloves. She doesn’t just take one and call it a day. She brings them separately, but almost always goes back for the matching glove. She’s thorough.
Kate, an ICU physician, got so embarrassed that she put up a sign in her yard.
The sign reads: “My cat is a thief. Please take these items if they’re yours.”
She drew a picture of Esme holding a glove in her mouth. Next to the sign, she hung a clothesline displaying all the stolen goods so neighbors could reclaim what was theirs.
But neighbors didn’t really come to take their stuff back. Mostly, they came to take pictures of the sign. The school bus driver stopped one day and grabbed a few pairs of gloves, but otherwise, people just wanted to see the infamous thief’s mugshot.
Kate said the neighbors are mostly amused, though things are reportedly still awkward with the family whose kneepads keep disappearing.
Some cats bring their owners dead birds. Esme brings bathing suits and computer mice still in the packaging.
Kate said she was just relieved Esme wasn’t bringing home birds. She praised Esme for the stolen items at first, maybe even gave her a few treats. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.
But at this point, what can you do? Esme is who she is. A thief. A menace. A legend.
OFFICER! THIS CAT RIGHT HERE!
