I lived in an apartment with two roommates, one of which was a cat.
The human roommate didn't know where the cat had come from, since the cat had already been living there when he moved in. It didn't belong to the guy who had just moved out so we always joked that it was his apartment and we were just renting from the cat.
The apartment was on the third floor, but had a balcony with a cat-door. We thought he was an indoor cat because of that.
Until I ran into him down at the corner store.
He looked as surprised as I was. I picked him up and took him home. I thought about how he had got out and figured he must have snuck out with me when I left.
After that I made sure he wasn't slipping out anytime I opened the apartment door.
A couple weeks later I was walking nearby and again came across the cat. Again I took him home, while thinking about how he got out. I was sure he had not snuck out when I left, and my roommate had left before me or the cat, so he hadn't let the cat out either.
A couple days later we set a stake-out for the cat.
We both left for the day like normal, but we only went across the street, then set up surveillance.
We waited about an hour and then saw him. He walked out on the balcony railing and then slid out onto the brick wall.
He then scaled down the brickface until he was almost at the ground, where he found me waiting and staring at him.
When he looked over and saw me, he changed direction and climbed back up.
When I confronted him inside, he just pretended nothing had happened.
After that I realized that he was an outdoor cat. If he was smart and agile enough to climb brick, then he had some survival skills and should be ok.
I didn't even know it was possible for an animal to climb a flat brick wall, but he made it look easy.
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