EDIT: I got my kitty back tonight everyone, and what a story it is! So early this morning I printed out 50 more of my lost cat flyers to put on people's doors in the neighborhood, but I didn't have a chance to put any of them up until tonight about 3 hours ago. So my roommate jessica and my boyfriend alex all drove around the neighborhood putting up tons of flyers everywhere, and reinforcing the ones I put up the day after she disappeared.
Then we went around my apartment complex and put a flyer up on every single entranceway to each apartment unit, so basically 1 flyer on every 4 apartments. And so we were finally back to my apartment building, and we were putting up our VERY last flyer for the night, when I hear a meow. We kind of looked around, but it was very distant so we thought it was from inside the apartment we were next to. Then we heard it again, and it was louder. I looked around and she was constantly meowing at that point like she was panicking, I never heard her meow like that before.
So there is this tiny little hole in the base of the apartment just big enough for her to crawl through, almost as narrow as my arm. So I figure she's in some funky pipe inside the apartment. I stick my flashlite down into the hole and I can see that it actually isn't a pipe-network at all, it's some sort of drain into a huge under-ground basement. The hole just fell straight down what looked about 10 feet, so I thought she may have injured herself. My roommate called the non-emergency police line to see if they could help us, but they said they couldn't do anything to help us get down there, that we had to talk to the managers.
We had an emergency number to call if there was a maintance issue that needed immediate help, so we decided to call that number. I explained the situation and the lady who lives in the complex and deals with late-night emergencies came over and wanted to help. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to get the cat out of the place, or how to get a human down there. She thought they may be some sort of access in one of the ground level apartments, so we asked the neighbors who were directly above her cries if they had a trap door. They looked in their closets, but couldn't find anything.
After futilly searching around for an outside door, the emergency coorespondent on-site called the landlord to ask about access, finding out that the storage closet on our balconies actually have a carved out floor that can be removed and someone can go down. Well we are immediately excited so we go back to my apartment and start ripping out all of our empty boxes we had been storing for when we moved again, and we have to use a couple of screwdrivers to help pry the damn trap door open and finally we get it open only to find out it's like a 12 foot drop straight down. Luckily there was a little ledge, so using a little acrobatics my boyfriend was able to swing himself down to get inside the basement/foundation area. He searches around, only to find that there is a wall inbetween half of the complex, so we help him climb back out.
It's over to the same neighbors again to use THEIR trap door, because symetrically we figured they should have one too. They are very friendly and let us in, so we go to their storage and find out that there is indeed a trap door! Hurray! They were storing many very expensive pieces of art in their storage, so we carefully moved it all out and got the door open with little trouble, only to find that they didn't have a convenient little ledge to climb down onto like ours did. The ledge they had was much smaller and was oriented in such a way that you couldn't swing yourself down onto it like ours. At this point we could see Rika and she could see us but there was no way to get down to her.
The man of the apartment tells us he has a ladder in storage, so he decides to go get it for us from the storage shed down the way. Meanwhile, we three and his wife have about a 15 minute discussion of school and their plans and our plans, etc while he gets the ladder. He finally comes back with a very long 2x4, and says that the ladder wouldn't work because it's not high enough. The 2x4 could have worked as a sort of ramp, but it wasn't quite long enough and could only stand more or less completely verticle. We decided at that point to make contact with the police department again, and so my roommate called. She found out from the police department that there wasn't anything they would be willing to do for us (even though they could) and recommended we ask our friends for a ladder. Well, we don't have any friends with ladders, but meanwhile I had the idea to use some sheets and a basket to get her to climb into it and pull her up.
We tried a small basket first, but she wouldn't get in it. Then the apartment tennant had a rope and a bigger bucket, which she wouldn't get into either. So as I'm trying to get a rope tied to a laundry basket, alex manages to miraculously pull her up by her shoulder because she had gotten up to that ledge and was kind of reaching up the side of the wall, just BARELY within grasp. Finally, she was saved!
Jessica and I then went around getting all of our flyers down. I'm so glad to have her back, and it was just such a great story I had to share it with you guys. Thanks so much for caring and wishing her well!
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