A mum and daughter who were made homeless by flooding are desperately searching for their beloved cat after she went missing while staying with a family member in Leicester. Gemma Brown and her daughter, 11-year-old Lily, lost everything and were forced into temporary accommodation when their home flooded for the fourth time in September.
However, the council-supplied accommodation was strictly ‘no pets’, so Gemma, 39, placed five-year-old Izzy with a relative in Wetherby Road, near Appleton Park, in Rushey Mead, while she resolved their housing problems. However, Izzy got spooked by something and bolted from her carer on the evening of Thursday, December 19.
The family said they were desperate to get Lily’s “best friend” home, and were hoping readers of LeicestershireLive could help. Gemma said: “This year has been non-stop. The flooding was devastating. Everybody lost everything and it wrecked our home. Now we’ve lost Izzy.
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“Myself and Lily went into temporary accommodation and the rules were that we couldn’t take her with us. So, she came to stay with a relative in Leicester while we sorted ourselves out.
“We’ve had her since she was a kitten. She’s very much a family cat and we love her. She’s Lily’s best friend and really helped her get through Covid.
Missing: Five-year-old Izzy
“We’ve had a rough ride and we’re lost without Izzy. We just want her back. We’re worried because she doesn’t know the area.
“If she’d gone missing back at home we wouldn’t be quite so worried. We’d be much more hopeful she would be able to find her way home.”
The family, who had been living in their mobile home, at Billing Aquadrome, in Northampton, for more than four years, are receiving expert help from a group called Beauty’s Legacy, a charity which helps distressed owners find missing or stolen pets.
Its founder, Lisa Dean, was in Leicester yesterday (Tuesday, December 31) to organise a search, much of it focussed on Appleton Park. She has produced posters and fliers to get the appeal to as many people as possible.
Missing: Five-year-old Izzy
Lisa put out bowls of food alongside Wi-Fi-powered cameras which she can monitor. If needed, she said, she could use a drone and a thermal imaging camera to search the area.
She said: “We’re hoping we can draw Izzy out. We’ve had an excellent response from people in the area this morning. One gentleman invited us in when we knocked on his door, made us a coffee and printed off some more posters for us.
“We also spoke to a lady who walks her dog in this area who thinks she might have seen Izzy. She said she’d never seen this cat in the area before and that she looked like Izzy.
“If people do think they have seen her I’d urge them to call us immediately and not try to chase or catch her. She might run away and we want her to stay in this area while we look for her.
“Beauty’s Legacy has been running since 2016 and we’ve been a charity for four years. We have helped get more than 2,000 animals back. When we started off we had a success rate of maybe 35 t 40 per cent, Now I’d say it’s more like 60 to 70 per cent – so we are hopeful.
“They are a lovely family and they have been through so much recently. It would be lovely if we could help get Izzy back for them.”
If you live in the Appleton Park area, please check in and under sheds, decking, bushes, vehicles. If you have Ring doorbells or CCTV please check your footage. If you can help, call 07783 075179, 07926 189782 or 07866 026343.
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