A missing cat was rescued alive after being bricked up inside the foundations of a new-build house next door for more than two weeks.
Owner Rosy Clark, 26, feared the worst after her beloved Dexter, a four-year-old tabby-Bengal cross, wandered off from her home in Kingsteignton, Devon, earlier this month.
Miss Clark was stunned when she heard a cat ‘crying’ nearby while sitting outside in her own garden.
She followed the noise to a nearby house that had been finished two weeks earlier and heard the cat scratching and mewing under the air bricks.
Relieved: Owner Rosy Clark, left, feared she would never see the Bengal-tabby cross, right, again. She found him after following the sound of a cat mewing to the house down the road
Rescue mission: Dexter the cat was recovered from the foundations of a new-build house, pictured, after spending more than two weeks trapped behind the bricks
With permission of the developer, the bricks were removed and Dexter was pulled into the light.
He had a scratch on his paw and had lost weight but was largely unharmed.
Student social worker Miss Clark said: ‘He was just under the house. When he appeared his eyes were streaming because it was so bright, and couldn’t see me. I literally just burst into tears.
‘I pulled him out and I was shaking. It was the most incredible feeling, I never thought I’d see him again.
‘He has lost quite a bit of weight and has a cut on his paw, but overall he’s acting like nothing’s happened. He just wants lots of attention and fuss.’
Miss Clark, who bought her house in October last year, believes there was a water source under the house that helped keep Dexter alive.
Hopeful: The rescuers used food to help bring Dexter out from beneath the house
She said it was a ‘fluke’ that she found Dexter after she heard a cat while drinking wine in the garden.
She said: ‘At around 9pm I said, “can you hear a cat crying?”, but thought it was my wishful thinking.
‘At 11pm I heard it again, I turned to my friend and said, “mate can you hear that?” It sounded as though it was coming from the newly built house next door.
I had put posters everywhere and I thought he might have been stolen or was stuck in a shed but never in the foundations of a house two doors down. I really have no idea how he survived that long
‘I climbed into the garden of one of the two new houses, and I could just about hear him under the house under the air bricks – crying, scratching.
‘For the next three and a half hours we were working out what to do.’
Miss Clark phoned the emergency number for the property developer, Baker Estates.
She added: ‘They have been fantastic. At 7am on Sunday morning we got the go ahead to get the cat out by any means possible.’
Working with an electrician neighbour and a builder, bricks were pulled out safely and Dexter was found.
She added: ‘I’ve had him since he was 8 weeks old and he is now four. I really didn’t know what had happened to him.
‘I had put posters everywhere and I thought he might have been stolen or was stuck in a shed but never in the foundations of a house two doors down.
‘I really have no idea how he survived that long. The only thing I can think is that there is a water source under the foundations but I don’t think he had any food.’
The developers Baker Estates have been contacted for comment.