Bunnies Police Run-In

One evening in the distant past, when I was a naive bunny owner, I was renting a second floor apartment in a two family house in a small town with my new husband.  We had five fairly young neutered bunnies that stayed in a closed in pen in our kitchen in the back of the house. Not that I'm advocating this, but we were trying to also keep them a secret from our landlord, who lived on the first floor below us. We were quiet and generally good tenants, which was a relationship I wanted to maintain.

We had settled in for the night and were fast asleep.  Around 2:30am, we were abruptly awakend by the doorbell and a loud pounding on the door. I awoke easier than my husband, but he was startled too. I looked out the window but couldn't see anyone. The front door wasn't visible from the window due to the awning from the porch and our upstairs front porch. I did finally see a police man look up at the window from the sidewalk, so I ran quietly down the stairs so hoping the landlord wouldn't hear me (or the police for that matter).

One of the escape artists - Woody Bunny

I peeked out through the blinds, saw another officer and opened the door.  I don't think I said anything, but probably just looked at the officer quizzically.  His partner came on the porch and stood next to him, which started to make me nervous.  The officer then spoke, "Did you know you have rabbits on your roof?". I couldn't quite figure it out. Since taking in the bunnies, I had begun to have several strange dreams about them and then thought that this was one of them. The cooler night air hit me though and made me realize that I was awake.

Staring at the officer, probably looking groggy and confused, I just said, "Huh? What do you mean?".
He told me there were rabbits on our roof. On the front of the house on the roof. They were hopping about freely.  Then I remembered our little rabbits and although confused was hoping I wasn't going to be arrested for cruelty or negligence.  I didn't have my glasses on but saw movement when I looked at the roof from the sidewalk.

Sally, Domino and Woody in a hutch during our house renovation-all in the police line up.

I told them I needed to get my glasses and my husband.  I invited them up and brought them to the living room.  My husband completely woke up, came out and was just as confused as I first was. I told the police we owned rabbits and went to check on them in the kitchen. Four weren't there, only one. I got panicky now for the bunnies. They couldn't have got out.

Through the living room there was a door that led to a little balcony that goes over the front entry inside stairs. That door was ajar.  That small balcony had another door that led to a small sitting porch for our apartment.  We would sometimes let the bunnies play out there with our supervision on a nice day. Well, it seems that they liked that porch outdoors a little too well.  The door to the porch was ajar also.

This is the house with the small sitting porch on the second floor.  I tried to take a picture that would show how the rabbits could reach the roof.

The half wall that led to the roof seemed like it was too high for the bunnies to hop over, but on the porch was one little bunny, and three others on various places on the roof adjacent to the front of the house. With the help of the police, we somehow got all the bunnies back safely and carried them to cages.

Little Grumble, the only one who was a good citizen during  that night of crime.

The police told us to keep them in lock down. They couldn't stop laughing at the whole thing and said that it looked like we took good care of the bunnies otherwise. For me the tension of it all, the ridiculousness of it all and then the laughter gave me a big sigh of relief in my silly disbelief.

Since then, the bunnies never were allowed to be out at night, although we still have the occasional escape artist. The doors are all checked before going to bed.  I have no idea how they got out through the doors.  I figured they had jumped the pen enclosure in the kitchen and perhaps were either able to jump high enough onto the porch wall and the roof or jumped on furniture then the roof. I was surprised how daring they were and how they all made it.  I, to this day, am thankful they were okay.  I used to pray for God to look over them.

At the time, the landlord never seemed to be aware that this incident occurred and I was so thankful for that also. Who knows?

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