You could say that this is taking ‘a message in a bottle’ to the next level! In these very strange and worrying times, most of us are still contained in our homes in self-isolation and lockdowns imposed by the governments. Even though some countries around the world are easing the lockdown bit by bit, we’re still very far away from being able to live our normal lives without keeping distance between other people.

These neighbors have figured out a unique way to stay in touch during the pandemic, they decided to rely on the four-footer Bella!

Sam Cramer is Bella’s proud cat owner and she couldn’t live without her. The woman has actually been exchanging notes with a couple of her neighbors, and Bella delivers the letters herself.

“I truly am getting messages in a bottle,” Sam told CBC. “I’m checking the mail every day. I’m checking cat mail.”

“This has been the highlight of my pandemic-in-the-house time.”

In case you’re wondering, there hasn’t been any scientific proof that pets can actually transmit the SARS-CoV2 virus to humans. There have been a couple of cases where pets were infected with the virus, but it has no effect on them. As of right now, animal to human transmission of the novel coronavirus seems impossible, so it’s a safe method of communication.

It all started when Sam saw her cat wearing a collar with a small bottle attached to it.

“I look over and I’m completely dumbfounded and confused because this cat is wearing a pretty red collar. My cat has never worn a collar,” the woman said in a radio interview with CBC. “It just throws me into a state of confusion. Is it my cat, is it really my cat? I check out the cat and, yes, it has the same scraggly ears and, yes, it has a bad attitude so it’s definitely my cat.”

There was a tiny handwritten note inside the collar, a message in a bottle.

It was written by the family next door! Bella was actually leaping from one home to the next.

“She’s been doing this for days. I had no clue. Thank God they like cats,” Cramer said.

“I think she’s nice to them. She’s persnickety, probably more than most cats. So if they’re enjoying her, she must be really putting on a show.”

Sam then wrote a message back to apologize for the feline intruder, noting that Bella certainly has a personality and demeanor of her own. However, the family didn’t mind her visiting at all. In fact, they quite enjoyed it!

The 15-year-old Wynne Burdett was the one that first noticed Bella on their balcony.

They had no idea who she was, so Wynne and her dad Steward nicknamed the kitten ‘Chip’ because she had a scar. Wynne was absolutely thrilled to get visits from the mystery cat, but she also wanted to make sure that her return home was safe. They started with the messages in a bottle, and these neighbors have been communicating like this ever since!

“We heard some friendly meows at the door again and instead of our message in the small bottle on her collar, it was now a green paper and we were very excited to see we got a response,” she said.

“Then we sent a message back and it just kind of carried on from there.”

“I just thought it would be a good way to know if she had a home and a name and now it’s turned into a daily thing,” Wynne added. “We’re always really excited to see her at the door.”

Sam and Wynne’s family are actually penpals now, thanks to their feline messenger.

These neighbors had seen each other before in the building and said hello, but they didn’t really know each other. That all changed in the middle of a lockdown. Just to be sure, the bottle is disinfected after every use.

“I hope there are several months of cat mail to come,” Bella’s owner said. “I really hope they don’t get sick of it because I really enjoy it. It’s so much fun and we all need some fun right now. It’s been a hoot, an absolute hoot.”

As for Wynne, she isn’t planning on stopping the messages in a bottle anytime soon.

“It’s always a very bright part of the day,” she said. “It’s always something to look forward to.”

What an amazing story! You can hear Sam’s interview with the Edmonton AM show on CBC Radio below.

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Source: CBC (Radio)