At our apartment complex, we have a very strict "No Pets" policy. If, for whatever reason, a tenant is caught harboring a fugitive pet (whether it be a dog, cat, rat, penguin, or whatever) they are immediately fined $100 and all of their roommates are also fined $100 each as well. Tenants are given 24 hours to remove the pet from the property, or we are allowed to immediately begin the eviction process.

Yeah, so don't be bringing your damn flea-infested critters round here.

You would think with such extreme rules in place, the students here would obey, but alas. There are always those who think they can pull a Winky-Winky Kitty-Cat Shuffle, just like these Asian students tried to pull on us.

We had been seeing clues that pointed towards a cat for the past few months in several apartments, all occupied by Asians. However, whenever we would go to investigate the apartment we thought the cat was being harbored, we would find no cat. And of course, the students would say "Nope. No cat here."

But clues still came trickling in. Sometimes the kids would leave their trash on their balconies before taking it to the dumpster, and there would be an empty bag of Tidy Cat visible in one of the bags. Or we would go into an apartment and find some little balls or other cat-toys scattered around on the floor. Or we would go to another apartment and find a half-full bag of Cat Chow in the laundry room. Little things like this, but still nobody could find a damn cat.

What was really happening was the Kitty-Cat Shuffle. If these Asian students knew we were going to one apartment (for work orders, changing AC filters, the bi-monthly inspections that the Big Burrito does, or whatever) they would shuffle the cat to another apartment. We found cat evidence in four separate apartments, all in different buildings. But there may have been more than just 4 apartments involved.

Today, it reached its conclusion.

I had gone into one apartment on the third floor to check an AC that was leaking. Sure enough, there was a lot of water on the floor. (This is usually caused by the condensation drip-pan not draining properly). Anyway, it was big enough for me to decide that I needed to check the two apartments directly below to see if any water seeped down thru the floor. Sure enough, the unit directly below it had a small wet spot on their carpet right where I expected it to be.

When I went into the ground-floor apartment, nobody was at home. In circumstances such as this, I'm allowed to just let myself in, since property damage may occur if water like this is allowed to sit for an extended amount of time. As I entered, I checked for a water spot where I thought it should be. Luckily, there was no water spot, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had caught it before it had trickled down this far.

As I turned to leave, a solid white (and very fat) cat stood blocking my path, looking up at me as if to ask "What the hell are you doing here?"

I smiled wickedly. "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty."

I cat-napped the fat little bastard and took him to the office, where the Big Burrito held him for ransom. The Winky-Winky Kitty-Cat Shuffle was over. No pets allowed, mutherers!