This 'klepto cat' stole so many items from his neighbors, his owner set up a reclamation shelf

Cats can be sneaky little things, but perhaps no one comes close to Charlie. The furry friend was lovingly dubbed "klepto cat" by his owner, 41-year-old Alice Bigge of Bristol, U.K., after she discovered he had stolen dozens of items from her neighbors. Some of Charlie's contraband includes rubber ducks, plastic dinosaurs, spectacles and cutlery. In an attempt to reunite the stolen goods with their rightful owners, Bigge has since set up a reclamation box, where her neighbors can identify their items and take them home. The pet parent discovered her cat's thievery when she woke up one morning and came face to face with a toy diplodocus on her pillow, Good News Network reports.

"He’s well into clothes pegs at the moment," Bigge revealed in an interview with the media outlet. "He brought back a rubber duck recently, which was quite large and I have no idea how he managed that—and got it through the cat flap. He went through a phase of coming back with those little mini-skateboards too." Charlie, who is only a year old now, brings all of his finds back to the Bigges. The family adopted him and his sister Smudge after they were abandoned as kittens.

During the first three months, the kittens were not allowed outside. However, as soon as Charlie was allowed to explore the outside world, he began bringing back "souvenirs" from his adventures. Bigge shared, "He wasn’t allowed out for three months or so. But it was almost as soon as he was allowed out that he began bringing things back. Over the course of a week or so, loads of toy dinosaurs kept appearing in the house which was really weird. I saw a green stegosaurus one day and wondered if one of my mate’s kids might have dropped it here. The following day, I saw a red stegosaurus, and they just kept coming! I woke up with a diplodocus right next to my head on my pillow—which made me think of that moment from 'The Godfather.' Charlie just sat there looking proud of himself."

As it turned out, Charlie was nabbing the toys from a children's nursery at the end of Bigge's road. "It turned out he’d been going there and picking them all up and bringing them back here one by one," she said. "He has never caught a bird or a mouse or anything like other cats do... He just goes off and finds whatever he can."

As a result of his kleptomania, Bigge has set up a shelf on her outside wall where she leaves the bizarre items he brings home. Her 11-year-old daughter Martha has even made a sign for their wall. It reads: "Klepto-Cat. Our cat Charlie likes taking things, do any of these things belong to you? If they do please help yourself!" "I think there’s something about the quest that he enjoys," Bigge said. "Whether it is discovering something new or just wanting to please me and bring his family a present. It’s so funny now that people are loving his story because we’ve been laughing about him for over a year. Whatever it is, we still love him to bits!"