"I found the leak. Where's the cat?"

"Obviously, my job involves going into people's homes. That often means coming into contact with their pets. Normally it's the dogs that are the scary ones, but on one job it was a cat that nearly gave me a heart attack. I'd been called out to tackle a leak under a floor, and when I lifted some boards I found a burst pipe. Thankfully it only took around 15 minutes to fix, even though the owner's frisky cat was doing its best to distract me.

"After putting everything back together, the lady was kind enough to make me a nice cup of tea. It was then that we noticed that the cat wasn’t under my feet any more.

"Or rather, his meow revealed that he was….literally. Whilst I was working he’d snuck under the floor before I replaced the boards.

"I’d never moved so fast. But then, nor had he when I prised up the floorboards."

Mike Waters, AA Home Emergency Response Engineer