Playfully nicknamed Denis the Menace by his victimized neighbors, the cat's kleptomania began when he was just a kitten. He stole a sock from a neighbor the first week he was ever let out of the house at just six months old.
In just a month from that first stealth operation, Denis' sock pile grew to more than five, and soon doubled in size. His largest prize to date is a bath towel and his most expensive is a Fred Perry polo shirt. On one memorable occasion he took a woman's sandal from a garden on a neighboring street -- and then returned a week later to pinch the other one. 'I tracked down the lady who lost her sandals and Denis would have had to scale five 6 feet-high fences to get there and back," Newman keeps the pilfered items -- now numbering over a 100 -- in boxes, just in case anyone arrives at her door to claim ownership.
"I have never tried to stop his behavior, I would much rather him bring objects into the house than dead animals," Newman told the Sun. "He normally leaves them outside the front door but sometimes he will bring them up to my bed while I am asleep. He obviously thinks all these items are prey. "
