Cat burglar takes shine to washing-line underwear

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100708/od_nm/us_britain_cat;_ylt=Ah_u11J0NnDuvIEMQZ1jX66s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFmZWM2bjdzBHBvcwMyMDQEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9vZGRfbmV3cwRzbGsDY2F0YnVyZ2xhcnRh

Thu Jul 8, 11:50 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – A spate of thefts from gardens and washing lines in a southern English town had been puzzling police.

Socks, gloves, ladies underwear -- almost anything left unattended was fair game for the thief, especially the knickers, and the rate of offending was getting worse.

But now the culprit has been unmasked as a kleptomaniac cat with a generous nature.

Eager to please his new owners, Peter and Birgitt Weismantel, 13-year-old Oscar had been bringing home presents to the family home in Portswood, a suburb of the southern coastal town of Southampton.

"He started bringing socks home a few months ago and then gardening gloves which we tracked to our neighbor," his owner Peter Weismantel told the Southern Daily Echo newspaper.

"Then we had a situation in which he brought back young women's underwear," said Peter, 72.

"It began to escalate and I telephoned the police as people must have been missing clothes -- especially with women's underwear being taken."

----- (skipping)

"He brings them back as presents," Birgitt told the Echo.

..