No sign of treaty in box war as B.C. cats hold owners' blender hostage for almost a month

In a standoff that has lasted nearly a month, three cats based in Langford, B.C. on southern Vancouver Island have tried to claim ownership of a blender box a saga that has fascinated social media users worldwide.

It all started on Dec. 16, according to Nikii Gerson-Neeves, one of the trio's owners, when she brought in a new Vitamix blender and left the still-unopened,knee-high box on the kitchen floor.

Her four-year-old tuxedo cat, Max, immediately jumped on the box, amusing Nikii's wife Jessica, who took a picture and uploaded it to a Facebook group that celebrates chunky cats.

By morningthe situation had escalated: Max's two 13-year-old siblings, George(Destroyer of Worlds) and Lando Calrissian, had taken an interest in the Vitamix box, too. From there, Nikii says, thingsspiralled out of control.

"We're creeping up on a month. It has been just shy of a month, which is ridiculous," Jessica said.

It's a month that has seen the couple deprived of the blender as their three fluffballs, all rescue cats,take turns atop their box perch, and theirFacebook pageexplodes in popularity.

"When we started the page we have for the cats on Facebook it had around 50 followers, something like that," Nikii said. "[Now] over 19,000 people follow the page."

Max, Georgeand Landohave made their household famous, with stories of the cats' anticsgoingbeyond the shores of Vancouver Island.

"There are people commenting, 'Hey, from Italy!', 'We saw this on our news in Australia,'" Jessica said."Like, what?"

"Someone sent us a post translated into Chinese the other day it's everywhere," Nikii said.

"Cat videos go viral all the time, you just never expect it to be your cats."

Decoy boxes

After days of being deprived of their expensive blender, the couple hatched a plan to get the cats off their new throne. Theyreached out to Vitamixto ask the company forsome dummy boxes.

"We thought that they might get a kick out of how much the cats had fallen in love with this," Jessica said. "If they decided to send along three empty boxes, great, it'll be a terrific laugh for everybody involved."

That's exactly what the company did, sending the B.C. couple three empty Vitamix boxes.

Thecouple has reinforced one of the decoy boxes, filling it with material so a catcan sit on it and not fall through.

Now, photos show two cats sitting on boxes in the couple's kitchen.

Making people happy

The battle over the Vitamix box has been a much-needed distraction amid thecycle of grim news in the province, according to the couple.

"Of course, we're not actually being held hostage, we can move the cats anytime we wanted," Jessica said. "This is about having something sweet and fun and whimsical and silly."

"There was a lady who said, 'I'm a COVID nurse in an ICU ward, and every day before I get out of the car to go into work, I read the latest post and I laugh.'"

Jessica says she wantspeople to contribute to their local animal rescue and adopt their own cats if they can.

"It's not big and consequential. It's not traditionally newsworthy," Nikki added.

"It's not high stakes, but it's making people happy and that's not nothing."