‘My Cat Is A Thief’: Oregon Woman's Cat Steals Neighbors' Stuff

BEAVERTON, OR — Esme is literally a cat burglar with an impressive haul.

So far, the sly feline has hauled home hundreds of masks, at least three dozen pairs of gloves, bathing suits, a camera, a running belt, a ball of string and a slew of other items stolen from her neighbors.

"She even once brought a taxidermy bat," Kate Felmet, Esme's owner, told Patch.

Felmet is publicly shaming the sneaky thief — and letting her neighbors know where they can come to retrieve items that had mysteriously disappeared.

“My Cat is a Thief,” she wrote on a hand-lettered sign planted in her front yard that included a drawing of Esme with a glove in her mouth, news station KOIN reported.

Felmet told KOIN that her cat burglar had brought something home from another yard just about every day.

The shaming may have worked. The cunning cat was catching on. After she put up the sign, the pillaging stopped for at least week.

“I had the impression she was a little mad about it,” Felmet told the Portland-based television station.

Understandably so. Esme seemed quite proud of her collection. And at first, Felmet encouraged it.

“When she brings them, she comes to the back door and yowls, like ‘Wooooar!’ till I come and tell her she’s done a good job,” Felmet, a doctor at the Oregon Health and Science University, told KOIN.

Felmet said that since news outlets around the world — including the United Kingdom’s Mirror news outlet — ran stories on Esme, people have come by often to take a photo of the cat thief sign. Esme’s secret was out, and the neighborhood thief caught.

"The sign isn’t just a joke," Felmet told Patch. "It’s because I actually have to return things to their owners. And I don’t know where she gets the stuff."

The publicity surely makes it more of a challenge for Esme to continue her kleptomania.