Directors of Iles & Jenkin, Neil Jenkin and Sue Iles, reveal a comical tale of a client’s cat back in their earlier days of estate agency.

Back in our early days, Neil and I worked together, just the two of us running an office in Axbridge as Annagram Property Services.

One afternoon Neil had lots of viewing appointments so off he went to his first one. The clock ticked by and after an hour I was surprised that he hadn’t come back. A quick glance confirmed that the keys for the next house were still ready and waiting for him on his desk.

Twenty minutes later, I answered the phone to a very flustered Neil asking if I could please bring the keys out to him in his car and that he would be outside the office in a few minutes time.

Sure enough, Neil screeched to a halt and the first thing I noticed was a cat looking angrily at me through the back window of his car. Neil wound down his driver’s window and one look at his face told me that all was not well. I gave him the keys but before I could ask any more questions Neil was off, with the cat still glaring at me as he drove away.

Neil returned to the office and I heard the story. Neil had arrived at the viewing and parked on the driveway of the first house, but as it was a hot day he left his car windows wound down. His viewers had taken a long time to view the house and so after they had left he quickly jumped back in his car but it was only when he was a few miles into his journey that he became aware of a ‘meowing’ sound. He slowly turned around to come face to face with a very angry looking cat, perched on his back seat. He was not sure who was more startled.

Short on time, unable to take the cat back home, Neil wound the car windows up to keep it safely on board, came back to the office, picked up keys and headed off to his next two viewings, all the while carrying an extra passenger! Finally, a good two hours later, he was able to return to the first house and deposit the cat back.

To this day we’ll never know if the owner was ever aware that Neil had inadvertently ‘kidnapped’ his cat for an entire afternoon, but Neil learnt his lesson and never left his car windows down when parked at a client’s property ever again!

For advice on all property matters call 01934 512537 or pop in for a chat at the office located on Worle High Street.