So on the way to the vet at lunch time, I heard a cat crying. I searched around and found that one of the Kitten Trio (the strays I feed. Betty’s babies) had fallen through the tiny windows into the locked storage room of one of the apartments.

The tiny kitten couldn’t jump up high enough to get out and had been there the whole day. I couldn’t recall if I saw her yesterday or last night, so she might have been there longer, but I hadn’t heard her crying until today.

As I was late already for the vet, I asked my neighbour to call the housing department (which she did, and they said they would “send someone right over”) I also flagged down a passing housing van and asked them what they could do – which was nothing, but they said THEY had called someone as well.

When the girls and I eventually got back from the vet, I checked on the kitten… she was still there. And, upon shoving my head into the tiny window, I discovered the poor deceased old black cat. He was a scruffy old man, with a wonky leg, which is probably why _he_ couldn’t jump out the window either. 🙁 He’d been dead a while. He was smelly, and … flat. I only hope that the fall killed him, and not starvation. I’d never heard him make a noise, so I don’t know if he’d ever called like the little kitten. Maybe he thought nobody would come even if he did. He was a loner. A true survivor. He had made it so far on his own. A sad, tired, silent end to a rough, tough soul. I said a little farewell to him, silently.

I called various housing departments and didn’t get hold of anyone – they’d all gone home or where not bothering to answer as it was nearly 17:30 and way passed their work day’s end. I then called the MP desk – non emergency of course. I leave that for last because USUALLY there’s so much paperwork to go with a call out of the MP’s that nobody wants to get in touch with them! But thankfully, in this case (non-human related) there was none. Or, there was none that I had to fill in. I spoke to a SGGT Luke and he was VERY helpful (and he’s probably the type of guy who filled in all the paperwork without bothering me about it)

He couldn’t get hold of housing either, to get the key to the storage room. But then, by chance, I actually MET the new neighbour who was moving in to the apartment that belonged to that storage room! So when the MP arrived, I told him that we should speak to the young gentleman in that apartment. WHich we did, and he was also VERY helpful, and I in turned helped HIM to find his correct storage unit (the Housing representative also went to the wrong storage room when he showed the young man around and the key didn’t work in it – which is what our new neighbour told me when he handed it over to us)

The kitten, BC or Brave Cat as I call her, at first was too scared to even leave the corner she had squashed herself into (As far from the dead body of the old cat as she could get) and as I edged closer (because I wasn’t sure which one of the trio it was, at first) she did hiss a bit and raise her hackles at me, but then I spoke to her, and showed her the open can of her favourite food and she searched my face (I had my hat on, so she wasn’t sure at first) and she recognised me and got up and first thing she did was head-boop me on the hand and the knee and then she dived in to the food. She was so hungry (and so relaxed now that she knew it was me) she let me pick her up, wrapped in a towel (just in case) while she scoffed the food up. She then purred happily and rubbed her face against mine a few times.

I carried her outside and around to where her little siblings waited for her. I put the rest of the food out for her, and some milk and she gobbled it up, barely noticing when I left the area.

Then I returned to the storage room, after gathering two trash bags and some gloves from my apartment (the dogs were very confused, poor things) and SSGT Luke and I collected poor dead, Old Cat. Even SSGT Luke was saddened by the situation. Poor dear cat.

I made sure the window was tightly shut, so this didn’t happen again, and SSGT Luke said he would get housing to sort out cleaning up the rest of the mess in the room.

I thanked him for his help and he thanked me for sorting it out and taking care of the animals and we went on our way.

I said another silent farewell to Old Cat.