Keith the thief roams for loot
A Department of Corrections officer’s shirt, ladies’ swimsuits, entire washing lines with the pegs still attached, the local tradie’s steel-toed boots, bras, shoes and live eels.
You name it, Keith the kleptomaniac has probably pinched it.
In the small hours of the morning, Keith, a 5-year-old black cat, roams his quiet street in suburban Christchurch, committing burglary after burglary and lavishing his owners, Ginny and David Rumbold, with elaborate gifts.
So bad is his recidivist offending, the couple have had to put two plastic containers at the front gate of their Hoon Hay property with Keith’s ill-gotten gains, complete with an apology note, so that locals can reclaim their possessions.
On any given night Keith drags home up to six goodies. Some are so big he can’t get them through the cat door, so he dumps them on the deck or the driveway.
The offending began when the feline felon lived with his old owner just a few doors down.
It ramped up about three years ago, not long before Keith had a fallout with his sisters and decided he would rather live with Ginny.
Ginny would wake up to bras, washing lines with clothes and pegs, a net curtain off a ranch slider door, pairs of Adidas or Nike shoes, underwear and tools strewn across her driveway.
Some items would return again and again – Keith took a particular liking to a local tradie’s steel-toed boots. Not one to do things by half, he would drag one shoe home before returning for the second.
So fed up was the builder that he put 2.5-kilogram weights inside each boot, to no avail. Keith still managed to drag the boots home between his front legs.
When he wasn’t taking the tradie’s boots, Keith was stealing the man’s underwear and once took an entire load of washing off his clothes horse.
The local roofer has had his sealant gun nicked.
But the most embarrassing gift Ginny received from Keith was a Corrections officer’s shirt, underscoring the cat’s flagrant disregard for law and order.
Of late, Ginny has woken to slimy live eels on the plush red rug in her lounge after Keith branched out to fishing in the nearby Heathcote River.
She revived them by bathing them in the kitchen sink, before returning them to the river.
Bravely, Keith will enter houses through open windows or cat doors even if there is a dog inside. Only winter curbs his offending, when windows are mostly shut. Then, the Rumbolds only need one container at the front gate to hold
the wandering cat’s loot.
Sleeping all day to burgle all night, the past two days have been disappointing in the Rumbold household with only a black rag and pyjamas to show for Keith’s pilfering.
‘‘I suggested to him diamonds and cash would be better, but that hasn’t happened so far,’’ Ginny said.
Luckily the neighbours think the feline reprobate’s antics are hilarious. Keith is known to most of the homeowners in the street who often see him padding his way to the bus stop with Ginny for a social outing.
Ginny believes Keith may have some burmese genes – a breed that has been known to get bored easily and to seek out mischief.
‘‘He’s just got the cheek of old Joe,’’ she said.