WASHINGTON – A homeless couple is currently trying to get back on their feet in Shoreline just lost one of the few sentimental possessions they had left.
The rental truck Ashlee Dibble and her boyfriend Christian MacMinn had been using to store a few of their belongings was stolen from a park-and-ride lot. The couple lived in the rental truck for about a week-and-a-half until a friend offered them a place to stay.
“It was actually right here next to the Sebring that just parked,”
MacMinn said on Friday while pointing to the spot where the rental truck once was parked. MacMinn is positive that it was locked up the last time he went over to check on their cat.
“I came over to check on Saddie, give her some more water. She was fine with food. I ended up giving her some lovins and I locked the door,” MacMinn stated.
Saddie had been staying in the truck since the man MacMinn and Dibble are temporarily living with across the street is highly allergic to cats.
When MacMinn returned to the rental truck early Wednesday morning to make sure Saddie was alright, she and the truck were nowhere to be found, he said.
“I’m like ‘Maybe I moved it.’ Looked around the parking lot and I’m like ‘Well, crap. There’s no truck.'” MacMinn stated. “I come running back into the house yelling ‘Ashlee! Ashlee! The truck’s not there! It’s gone.’”
“That was our vehicle of transportation for the time being,” Dibble said.
MacMinn spent many hours searching through several nearby neighborhoods and called a number a tow truck companies in the area, but there’s been no sign of the missing truck, he explained.
The couple are saying they’re less concerned about their pillows, blankets, and clothes that were inside the truck.
All they want back is is their cat, Saddie. She belonged to Dibble’s mother, who passed away last year right before she lost her father.
“I’ve had her since she was one. She was my mother’s cat. She is one of the last pieces of memories that I have that’s living of my mom,” Dibble stated. “She’s a precious, important part of our family.”
Saddie has a little black mark on the right side of her nose, white hair from her neck down to her belly, and also white hair on the edge of her paws, Dibble said.
Dibble explained that the hardest part of what she and her boyfriend have been through will be telling her 2-year-old daughter that Saddie may never be back.
“I don’t want to have to be the one to tell her that Saddie’s gone. To tell her that ‘Saddie won’t be coming back to play with you.'” Dibble stated. “I don’t want my daughter to have to go through that kind of heartbreak again at the age of 2. I mean… it’s bad enough for an adult. But for a 2-year-old, it’s a life-crushing experience.”
Dibble and MacMinn noted that they’re on a fixed income and couldn’t afford to have Saddie micro-chipped.
