An angry cat owner is seeking compensation from the government for the loss of his purebred Russian Blue cat. The cat escaped when Tainan City Health Bureau personnel legally broke into the owner's Tainan City home to carry out mosquito eradication measures.
The owner, surnamed Chuang (
This year's dengue fever season in Tainan has had a widespread impact, with more than 1,300 people coming down with the mosquito-borne disease. In an attempt to curb the spread of the disease, the bureau enforced compulsory insecticide spraying for all households within a 50m radius of dengue fever patients, in accordance to the law governing infectious disease control.
On the morning of Oct. 21, bureau personnel hired a locksmith to enter Chuang's home after nobody answered the door. As soon as the door opened, "something" ran out of the house, bureau personnel said. It was only later that they discovered that it was Chuang's Russian Blue cat.
Chuang said that bureau personnel failed to inform him of his cat's escape. Instead, he came home to find his cat missing. The worried Chuang searched fruitlessly for his cat before reporting the missing cat to the local police and making inquiries at the health bureau. It was only then that he discovered how his cat escaped.
The health bureau said that several days before the spraying, a notice had been pinned on Chuang's door informing him of the procedure.
Since compulsory spraying begin in June, more than 90 percent of households cooperated by having someone there to open the door for bureau personnel, bureau officials said. In the remaining cases where it is necessary to break in to a house in order to spray, police were always present to record the proceedings in order to assure residents that no improprieties take place.
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