A Vancouver man who sold his used couch had no idea his cat was hiding inside of it

When a Vancouver man sold his used couch, he had no idea his cat had stowed away in a storage pouch right before it was carried out the door.

Matt Lumabi and his cat Marley have relocated a few times recently, and he says his beloved pet gets skittish and spooked when she sees boxes or furniture being moved around.

In the commotion of their most recent move, which included downsizing by getting rid of a couch, Lumabi says Marley went missing. He was convinced the three-year-old, long-haired Calico had jumped out of a window.

For the next three days, he put up posters, made phone calls to veterinarians and the SPCA, and reached out in online neighbourhood groups.

"I was freaking out because she's been an indoor cat her whole life," he said, adding that his new place is close to the highway.

"I was like, 'Oh my god, if she is outside with all these cars passing by – she's probably scared as hell.' Those three days that she was missing, it was raining really, really hard. So I was just upset that she might be stuck in the rain just spooked out by all the noise, wet with no food. I was convinced that she was outside."

But on the fourth day, he learned where Marley had been when he got a message from the people he had sold his couch to.

"She just burrowed her way in there and when they took the couch, they took Marley with it," Lumabi said.

The buyers hadn't been in the market for a couch with a built-in feline, but had no idea that's what they had purchased until they re-sold the couch to another buyer who discovered the crafty kitty in her hiding place. That's when they reached out to Lumabi so they could reunite him with Marley.

"They asked me to refund their money, which I was happy to do because it meant that they were bringing home my cat," he said, adding that Marley did seem a little overwhelmed when her ordeal ended. "She was doing this thing with her mouth where she just kind of kept it open, like she was kind of surprised."

Since then, she's been keeping very, very close to Lumabi and getting used to her new home.

"I can tell that she probably doesn't want to head outside anymore," he said.

The happy ending is just one of the upsides to what was otherwise a stressful and bizarre experience. Lumabi says he was truly touched by the way his new neighbours showed up to help him with his search.

"These are people I don't even know. I literally just moved in. I had people in my building, I had people on neighborhood apps and Facebook groups – all these people randomly messaged me and said that they would help me look for my cat," he told CTV News.

"So I thought that was really, really incredible."