A cat burgling cat is on a crime spree in the UK

A town in England has been repeatedly targeted by a cat burglar stealing seemingly random items of clothing.

This cat burglar just so happens to be a cat-burglar; a four-legged feline putting her paws on what is not hers.

Taboo the cat has been stealing clothes from neighbours in West Yorkshire

Taboo, a 12-year-old black and white cat and resident of West Yorkshire, England, has stolen gloves, socks, underpants and shoes from her neighbours. 

Sandra Danskin, owner of the cat-burglar, has tried to make amends for her felines felonies by regularly sharing pictures of the loot on social media so locals can reclaim their stolen items. 

Unfortunately, the kleptomania seems to have no end, with Sandra sharing that “Whenever I come home from my shift there are all sorts of things waiting for me, either dragged in through the cat flap or left on the drive.”

In a recent haul, Danskin stated “I had four pairs of socks and a pair of underpants,” adding that “She loves bringing back items of clothing like that, but also we’ve had a mop head and kitchen rolls.”

Victims of the cat-burglar have joked of changing their locks

Neighbours and victims have joked they changed the locks of their houses, and others have advised Danskin to train her pet/thief to discern worthless goods from high-end goods like Rolexes.

Sandra believes Taboo steals the clothes from washing lines or sneaks into houses through open doors, but the cat burglar has a good record so far, only being caught once by a neighbour spotting her taking a t-shirt from his clothes dryer. 

Taboo the cat is confident too, “If she brings back a sock she will always go back and get the matching one so there’s a pair,” Danskin said.

Sandra Danskin has tried to stop the kleptomaniac cat

Even though Sandra has “tried talking to her about it,” klepto-cat apparently “shows no signs of stopping”. 

“I can’t tell you how many pairs of gardening gloves she’s brought me. I’ve never heard of a cat doing anything like this before,” claims Sandra Danskin. 

It’s not unusual for cats to bring in dead animals back home, but returning with random objects is harder to explain.

Scientists are still unsure what compels cats to steal seemingly worthless items

“We are not sure why cats behave like this,” says Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a biologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, “All around the world there are cats doing this, yet it has never been studied.” He now hopes that will change.

A cat crime spree in in the small town of Frigiliana, in Spain, made it awkward between the owners and their neighbours, but was a new opportunity for scientists, including Hiemstra who said “documenting cases like this could be the start of more research in the future.”

However, the verdict is still out, and the criminals are still loose, no matter how hard their owners try to set them on the straight and narrow.