CATS IN THE ATTIC!
Barnsley man in spot of bother after loft leopard discovery
AYorkshire DIY-er’s dream of maximising the value of his property lies in tatters thanks to woke bureaucrats and the fact that his disused roofspace is home to a breeding pair of Amur leopards.
SOUTH
Former hardworking homeowner 61, was hoping to convert his loft into a third bedroom, adding a tidy sum to the value of his semi-detached house in Wombwell, Barnsley. But the discovery of endangered big cats living in the loft now means his home improvement plans have had to be put on hold.
“Last year the neighbours put in a dormer window, stuck their house on the market and got the asking price inside a week,” the estranged dad of two told his local paper The Barnsley Trombone and Flugelhorn. “For me it’s a no-brainer, as I need to get out of this town, fast.”
He continued: “I’m sick to death of the whole stinking place and
CLARENCE LYONS,
every single person in it. If I could start over somewhere else, all my problems would simply go away.”
But the unemployed former kitchen salesman’s escape fantasy became a nightmare when he invited a builder to quote for a similar conversion job on his own two bedrooom house.
“I’d only ever opened the loft hatch once, a couple of years back,” he said. “A flap of sooty lagging flopped on my face, so I slammed it shut and have never so much as looked up there since.”
According to Lyons, a local builder, Bob Plumb, arrived and clambered into the loft to assess the state of the timbers. “I was downstairs in the kitchen filling the kettle to make us both a cup of tea when the screaming began,” he told the paper.
“There were blood-curdling yells from the loft and the builder came down ten times faster than he went up,” he said. “He was covered in blood.”
“Rather than haggling with him, and him dropping hints about discounts for cash as expected, I found myself doing first aid and dressing some horrific wounds.”
brevet
An ambulance was called and as Mr Plumb was carried away, he managed to tell Clarence that whilst up in the loft, he had been attacked by two fully-grown leopards and would not be submitting a quote.
Tragically, Mr Plumb died on the way to hospital. Not of his wounds, but by drowning after the back door of the ambulance opened on a tight bend near Barnby Basin, where the stretcher bearing the hapless artisan flew out, skated across a busy road, and plunged into the canal.
Shaken by news of his big cat infestation, Lyons brought in pestcontrollers to get rid of his unwanted guests, but their verdict was not good. It was, in fact, the exact opposite (ie. bad). They told him that they had identified the animals in his loft as Amur leopards, a protected species.
A recent survey by the International Union for Conservation of Nature suggests no more than two-dozen Amur leopards remain alive on Earth, and due to the endangered status of the beasts, Lyons is prohibited by law from disturbing them with home improvement projects.
“I can’t trap them, poison them, gas them or anything. It’s woke political correctness gone mad,” he said.
“Utter mad wokeness gone politically correct,” he added for emphasis.
“If I harm or distress these leopards in any way, I’m looking at an unlimited fine and potentially a custodial sentence. And we all know what happens to people who mess with endangered species behind bars,” he said. “In the showers, I mean.”
testimonial
According to experts from the Environment Agency, the leopards in Clarence’s loft are a male and a female, the only breeding pair of wild Amur leopards outside the species’s native habitat, the snowy regions of southeastern Russia and northern China.
“It’s just my effing luck,” Clarence grumbled. “The bloke from the agency said they were unique and literally priceless. So I asked him: What about me? Aren’t I priceless and unique too?”
The Environment Agency officer responded that while there were only a handful of these leopards left, people like Mr Lyons were ten-apenny and nothing special. To add insult to injury, he told the former photocopier paper salesman that if he fell under a bus right now, no-one would care.
“It was a bit brutal, to be honest,” he said. “Clearly the authorities believe these leopards are more important than me.”
To make matters worse, the leopards have now learned how to open and close the hatch and have begun prowling around Mr Lyons’s house.
According to experts, the big cats are generally active during the night, so during daylight hours, Mr Lyons should be able to move around his house without fear of attack. But he told reporters that he is taking no chances when he goes to bed, piling furniture behind his bedroom door.
“Thank God I’ve got an old chamber-pot which my ex-wife picked-up on a flea-market and left behind in her hurry to get away,” he said. “So luckily I’m catered for in that department.”
“All the same, it sticks in my craw that I am reduced to slopping-out every morning like a convict.”
“Not that I would know what that’s like, as I have never been inside,” he added.
Lyons has been told by experts that if he does encounter one of the leopards prowling on the stairs or landing, he should not be too concerned as they are shy creatures and would probably not kill him unless they felt threatened or were hungry or startled. But he says this news gives him little comfort.
“I’ve seen what they did to the builder, and I can’t say I’m in a hurry to put that theory to the test,” he said.