Eventually, China found her way outside again, but to her mom’s relief, she began to turn up with objects as gifts — instead of live ones.
First, China brought her cigarettes, then matches, leaving them outside the front door. Vicéns wasn’t sure where the items were coming from and assumed they were her roommate’s.
“A few days later, more items started appearing and that’s when I pieced it together,” Vicéns said. “She had been burglarizing my neighbor’s yard and wouldn’t stop. I would put everything back in their yard as soon as she dropped it and she would bring them back immediately, like, ‘Hey! I thought I gave you this!’ So, I had to wait until the end of the day to return all the items.”
Vicéns figured out that every time China left the house, she stuck to a routine: “She’ll quickly run to her favorite patch of dirt to roll around in it then she’s off to burglarize the streets,” Vicéns said. “She’ll come back with something, drop it at my door, sit and yell for me.”
When Vicéns told her friends about China’s cat burglaries, nobody seemed to believe her. So she set up a camera outside the door to catch her in the act, posting the videos on Instagram and TikTok. Still, Vicéns was afraid her neighbors would be upset with China’s thieving.
“I couldn’t keep covering for her so I came clean,” Vicéns said. “I left the neighbors a bag with their items and a note explaining what was going on.”
Luckily, the neighbors had no problem with China burglarizing them. Vicéns has since set up a “return box” on their property where they can find their missing backyard items.
China can certainly be a handful, but Vicéns wouldn’t trade her for the world. “[She] loves to roll around in dirt, hunt, steal, knock things off tables and annoy me as much as possible and I love her to death,” Vicéns said. “She makes me laugh every day.”