Have I ever told you about my sister’s overly-friendly neighbours?
You might like it! It involves cats! With pictures and a video!
When we were moving my sister into her flat, a black cat rushed in between our legs as we were shuffling in furniture.
He rushed straight for the bed and dove under the lap table, where he promptly flopped and started to purr.
This cat was huge and his purr was LOUD.
He was wearing a little collar with a bell.
I joked that at least she’d already made friends with a neigbour. We gave him some cuddles and put him outside.
Every time we visited my sister — whether we were carrying furniture or noisy bags or just coming to hang out — this cat would appear and rush inside.
He was usually waiting outside the building, or inside the building with the outer door open, waiting to be let into the flat across from my sister.
We assumed he was an illegal pet and felt sort of bad for him that he seemed to *always* be waiting to be let in.
My sister usually didn’t let him stay long.
But other cats started appearing as well. An enormous, seemingly unneutered ginger tom would sit on her windowsill and stare at her, paws against the window.
A scrawny black-and-white cat with a little bow-tie on her collar would try to rush inside as well.
In fact, the black-and-white cat leapt into my car the moment I opened my door, and also jumped into a taxi with my sister.
Meanwhile, the black cat was always waiting outside the flat across from my sister, and always ready to rush in the moment her door opened.
‘My neighbours must be nice,’ said my sister. ‘They have the most trusting cats in the world!’
We were still not 100% sure where any of these cats lived. They seemed to treat everywhere as their home. Especially the black cat.
There was no name or address on his collar and we were all becoming so familiar with this cat that it was becoming a big mystery for us. What were we supposed to call him? Who did we contact if he needed help?
I got a message from my sister one day: ‘I know who’s cat the black cat is!’ she said. ‘It must be the neighbour across from me! He is always talking in baby-speak to the cat and just now someone came and scolded him for the cat’s behaviour!’
Mystery-solved, we thought. Though I still desperately wanted to know this cat’s name.
The cat continued to visit.
The next time I visited my sister, I received an update: ‘It’s not his cat afterall!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The post deliverer mentioned how friendly the cat was and how he always tries to get into the van, and my neighbour said “People always say that. He’s not even my cat.”‘
‘Then why did he take the long complaint from that lady the other day?’
The mystery continued.
I saw the cat in the window of a nearby house. ‘Maybe that’s his house!’
Joh reminded me: ‘He’ll go into *anyone’s* house. That doesn’t mean anything.’
I realised it didn’t. And I still saw the cat most frequently waiting to be let into the flat across from my sister — a flat that was confirmed ‘not his home’
Maybe he is that neighbour’s cat, I thought. Maybe he just meant he didn’t know who the cat belonged to before. Maybe the cat moved in after someone moved away. Maybe he belonged to the previous tenant of my sister’s flat.
Maybe the cat doesn’t actually have a confirmed owner anywhere, and just lives with as many people as put up with him.
We may never know the truth of the black cat — nor the other extremely friendly cats that try to bust into my sister’s flat.
But she’s softened a lot on letting the black cat visit.
He watched anime with us just the other day, having a blast sitting on my sister’s puzzle, biting her hot water bottle, and receiving cuddles and gentle play from everyone in the room.
Anyway, that’s the story of the cats that are trying to live with my sister.
And here’s some photos and a video to go with them.
