A MIRACLE moggy accidentally locked inside a shipping container for two months survived by eating SPIDERS and licking condensation off the walls.
Twelve-year-old Monty used up several of his nine lives after he became trapped for more than eight weeks at an industrial yard in Helston, Cornwall.
Monty’s devastated owners, Beverley and Paul Chapman, had given up hope of ever seeing their beloved tabby again.
But after a passerby heard him crying inside the steel unit at Helston Gunsmiths Trading Estate he was finally rescued.
Although he had lost two thirds of a his body weight, his owners believe his bug diet kept him alive.
Beverley said: “We think there must have been condensation inside the unit which he licked and maybe he ate spiders.
“We can’t think how else he would have survived.”
They revealed it’s not unusual for their moggy to go walkabout but this time it was different.
Beverley told Cornwall Live: “Monty is a bit of a rover – he’s very independent. He has seven or eight second homes.
“There’s nothing unusual in not seeing him for a week or so, but we started thinking ‘he’s been gone for a few days now’.”
The family stuck up missing posters in Helston and put details on Facebook week in and week out, to no avail.
“You get to the point where you think he’s getting older, he could have just gone away to die,” said teacher Beverley.
“We were half expecting a phone call from someone saying we’ve got your Monty, but we didn’t hear anything.
“After a month to five weeks, we hoped for the best but expected the worst.
“We really had given up hope after seven weeks or so. We thought he must have been hit by a car.”
Then two weeks ago, on Beverley’s first day back at work, her phone pinged.
“It was a message from my friend. Apparently someone had been outside their storage unit and heard a cat crying,” she revealed.
“They rushed to open it as it had been closed for two months.”
Fortunately, Monty was micro-chipped and after being given the once over by a vet he was returned to his relieved owners.
“We had given up hope of seeing him again. I couldn’t believe it. I texted my husband, daughter and son to tell them Monty was alive,” said Beverley.
She also revealed that Monty is now recovering well from his ordeal.
“It hasn’t stopped Monty going out but he’s very cuddly now – he gets up on the sofa and the bed. He never did much of that before, ” she said.
Beverley added: “He’s got 99 lives that cat. He’s got an injured leg from when he was run over by a car when he was a kitten.”
However, not everyone is happy the tearaway puss is back home.
“Our other cat Jasper’s nose has been put out of joint – he thought he was going to rule the roost when Monty went missing,” revealed Beverley.
