Hi all
I know it sounds insane but I really think he might have done. Please bear with me, it's a long story, but I need to explain all the details for you to get the full picture.
He moved in with me, my 2 kids, and my cat, 3 months ago, he was a friend of a friend, about 28, and seemed nice and normal. He soon grew very fond of our cat and was always saying how much he loved her and was often skypeing his sister overseas to show her off....
However after a month or so it emerged that he was a stoner - and although he obviously
wasn't smoking it in the house, his room smelt of weed. He was also doing dopey things like leaving the back door wide open and going out. I gave him a couple of warnings to sort it out but after a couple of weeks nothing had changed.
I then saw 2 weekends ago that he had spilt a load of red wine on the beige carpet in his room and just dumped a pile of cat litter on it, and also that he was using one of my daughter's storage boxes full of her schoolwork, which he had taken from the living room, as a bedside table. This was the last straw so I told him I needed to leave.
His response (via text) was that "it was just a disused box" and that he didn't see why it was a problem. Not sorry, and no explanation of the wine stain, so I told him he was being really disrespectful and gave him 2 weeks notice.
That night he came home while we were all in bed. I heard him come in then fell asleep. My daughter woke me up minutes later to say that weed smoke was coming in through her bedroom window. He was sitting outside his bedroom, on the flat roof above the kitchen, smoking a joint!!
I was furious and told him to leave ASAP. He apologised for that, but also said the same thing again about the box, and that he felt I was getting at him constantly and being unfairly demanding.
This was 2 weeks ago. I have been working away a lot and my kids have been with their dad 3/4 days a week so we haven't seen him since the night of the confrontation , but I could see he had been gradually moving his stuff out and staying elsewhere.
Cut to last night - I was in London and he texted me to say he had moved the last of his stuff out - was leaving the key - and did I know where the cat was. He asked if it was 'with the girls' which I thought was strange because if the kids are not at mine, they obviously don't take the cat with them.
I said not to worry, that she had probably had a wander and that I would be back soon.
He said that if I would be home soon he would wait to say goodbye, which I again thought was a little odd as he had been avoiding me for the last fortnight . I didn't get back to him and he texted to say he was leaving 20 minutes or so later.
I came back from work this evening - no cat.
My daughters last saw her yesterday at 4.30 pm, she had been in the house with them all day and they had fed her and then gone to their dad's.
I have asked all the neighbours - nothing - it's totally uncharacteristic of her to vanish like this. I texted the lodger to ask when he saw her and he kept saying the back gate was open (it was, it's broken but has been for a few weeks) and that he had been trying to tell me that he was concerned. Also that he had spent an hour looking around the house for her and that he would come by after work tomorrow and help look for her.
My daughter then said a couple of hours ago " What if xxxx took her?" My head has been in a spin ever since.
Has he been spinning a big lie, making out the cat was already missing last night and checking to see when I would be home, then nabbing the cat because he became really attached to it / is a bit unhinged / wants to get back at me - or is that just nuts?
It almost doesn't seem possible to me that he would have taken it, but at the same time, it is almost too much of a coincidence that the cat disappears the night that the lodger, who seems to feel he's been wronged by me, and is capable of both taking our stuff ( the box) and erratic behaviour ( the smoking on the roof) moves out.
I don't have a forwarding address for him and don't want him to know I am suspicious of him, so don't know what to do next. Phone the police?? Or is that totally crazy and am I just being paranoid?
Please help!!
Thanks for listening
X