Possum the cat pops her head out of vent in ceiling, woman uses hilarious tactic to get her out: 'I recorded her meowing and played it back'

Briana Viser • Writer and Editor

Jun 10, 2026 12:45 PM EDT

Sometimes the universe drops a cat right on you, literally from above.

It's true. There are times in life where something happens that we can't quite put our finger on, but we know it's meaningful. Take the story from Reddit's r/CatDistributionSystem for example. The woman lives in an area with a lot of stray cats, so we're starting there. The home she lives in wasn't taken care of so well before her, and there are some cracks places that need fixing. Due to these issues, it's actually quite easy for a cat to sneak itself inside. And that's exactly what happened. It all happened one night; she heard meowing one night around 3 in the morning and it sounded like it was coming from inside the house. She looked and looked but couldn't find anything. Then after looking for 15 minutes or so, she started hearing the meowing again. She took off the vent cover to her bedroom and then suddenly this little kitty pops its head out a few minutes later.

She tried her hardest to tempt the kitten with food, but she wouldn't budge. Then she decided to get creative: she recorded the cat meowing and played it back to her, making her think there was another cat there and sparking her curiosity. She actually managed to grab her and the rest is history. Never doubt the cat distribution system!

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It's actually pretty genius how this woman decided to catch this kitten. I never would have thought to record the cat meowing and play it back to her. I would probably have just kept trying with food, and if that didn't work I'd just leave the vent open and see over time. If the cat still didn't come out, I might even get a ladder or something and crawl up myself! I wouldn't be comfortable to just leave a kitten up in a ceiling vent. There's not a ton of air up there, and it would really worry me that the kitten was there alone with no mama cat and no family.
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Another void cat! They're stereotypically not well liked always, but here at I Can Has Cheezburger they certainly are! Enjoy.
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