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By Rachael O'Connor
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A couple who made fun of their cat for staring at the walls for seemingly no reason owed him a huge apology when they learned what was really going on.
Engineer Rachael, 26, from Michigan, rescued Sumo and his brother as kittens when they were found by a dumpster outside their old apartment complex.
Five years later, Rachael, her husband and their two cats had swapped the apartment for a house, and one day out of nowhere, Sumo began acting strangely, staring at the walls constantly, leading the couple to joke he was "missing a few brain cells."
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But, as Rachael revealed in a TikTok from her account @razzle.reads on May 14, Sumo was trying to tell them something.
In the viral clip, which has racked up 71,000 likes and 400,000 views in a matter of days, Sumo can be seen on the stairs, looking at the walls and the staircase and meowing, as Rachael says: "Nobody believed you!"
She wrote on the video that they thought: "He's just missing a few brain cells, he just stares at the walls all day. Us: *Discovers we have a mouse problem*." Writing from Sumo's point of view, she then added: "I tried to tell you."
"Sumo used to stare at the walls in our apartment occasionally, too, so we didn't think anything was weird initially," Rachael told Newsweek. "But he's been doing it with such an intensity and dedication that we started to get suspicious."
Sumo first began staring when the couple were renovating their basement, meaning the cats didn't have access to the area. They were aware the previous owners had a mouse problem at one point, and while they hadn't experienced the same thing in the few years they were living there, eventually Sumo's strange behavior made them investigate further.
Catching signs of potential mouse activity, they put out non-toxic traps in areas inaccessible to the cats, and just 10 minutes before taking the viral video, they found a mouse in the trap, thoroughly vindicating Sumo's staring.
"He got a huge apology," Rachael said. "We broke out the good wet food and my husband bought him a rotisserie chicken the following day."
She added: "I think it's important for everyone to know that part of why we didn't believe Sumo at first is because we have two cats, and our other cat has shown absolutely no interest in the walls or the floor!"
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Cats can express themselves with a multitude of body language and noises, from chirping, chattering, purring and growling, but unfortunately, it can be hard to narrow down what staring or meowing means.
The Humane Society of the United States writes in an online publication: "Meowing is all-purpose; your cat may be using 'meow' as a greeting, a command, an objection or an announcement. Some people have observed their cats walking around the house meowing to themselves."
And a blog post from Cats.com written by veterinarian Dr. Louise Barnes noted that a cat may stare blankly at walls as a symptom of an underlying medical issue but added that "cats have excellent vision, smell, and hearing, so when they stare at walls it could simply be because they can detect something that we can't."
Rachael and her husband are still dealing with their mouse problem and are trying to figure out how the animals are getting into the house, but thanks to Sumo, they got an advanced warning.
Sumo's video proved hugely popular with TikTok users, who commented on the post in the hundreds, one admitting: "This is my biggest fear. Cat looking at the wall or ceiling, I'm like WHAT DO YOU SEE TELL ME."
"This makes me concerned cause I have a cat who screams and attacks invisible wall demons all the time," another said.
"Ours kept staring under the fridge and same thing, there was mice," one user recalled, while one told a horrifying story: "My cat once solved our mice problem by hunting every one of them in one night and leaving them in my bed for me to wake up to."
Rachael told Newsweek: "Some of the comments are hilarious, I've enjoyed reading and responding to them. I am honestly shocked it got as many views as it did, I definitely didn't expect that. I just thought the whole mouse situation was funny and wanted to share it with my followers."
Adding that she usually uses her TikTok account to post book-related content, Rachael said she was "surprised that my best-performing TikTok was a low-effort video of one of my cats. The internet just loves cat videos, I guess!
"Based on the majority of comments I've seen on the video, a lot of people have similar situations with their cats discovering things in their homes," Rachael said, such as mice or bug infestations or even gas and water leaks.
"So it might be smart for everyone to investigate any areas their cats become too interested in!"
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
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