Plumber's snake with camera finally finds feline trapped in wall

MARION, Ark. -- When Bubba the cat disappeared inside the home he shares with Cheryl and Phillip Albers, they knocked holes in walls looking for him, but he couldn't be found.

Bubba's meows could be heard through the night Monday, Cheryl Albers said, after he vanished following a visit from an air-conditioner repairman.

Bubba normally hides high atop a kitchen cabinet when there is a stranger in the house that he doesn't want to meet, Albers said. He wasn't there, however, after the repairman left Monday.

Taking their cue from where they thought the meowing was coming from, the Albers cut holes in the walls of their dining room, their hallway and their closet. Then, they cut through the floor boards in their attic and ripped out insulation -- all to no avail. The meows continued, but there was no sign of the cat making them.

Finally, on Thursday, the Albers called Roto Rooter.

"We're plumbers, not cat finders," Roto Rooter's Fred Simmons told Memphis, Tenn., television station WMC.

But using a camera-equipped metal snake to search between the walls, Simmons turned out to be a cat finder after all.

"We just run the camera down through it and seen two eyes," Simmons said.

Bubba had fallen into a hole in the wall at her favorite hiding place and got stuck in a narrow passageway between the cabinet and the wall. After putting one more hole in the hall closet, Bubba was set free.

"She's really good today," Albers said Friday. "She's eating and drinking and we're all happy again."

In typical cat style, Bubba snubbed the man who saved her life, but her owner couldn't be more grateful.

Simmons said Roto Rooter won't be charging the Albers for the hours spent looking for Bubba.

But Bubba's adventure won't be cheap -- they still have to repair the damage they did to their home.