I know there's a ton of other posts about this already, trust me I've probably read them. Our situation is a little unique though so let me explain. This will be a bit long but please please read it. I really need help.
First of all, my husband and I are in the Netherlands. I'm an American that moved here almost two years ago. My Dutch isn't great. We just moved from his parent's house to our own house at the end of May this year. We adopted Eddie on July 1st. A little soon, but we had lived with my MIL's cat Jinx for years now and we were really missing having a cat around the house.
We picked up Eddie at a foster home in a city at about a 40 min drive from our house. He was terrified. He was a little under a year old and had spent the first four months of his life on the street. We spent the next few days just letting him get settled into a single room upstairs. Over the next couple weeks he gradually came out of his shell and actually got used to the new house rather quickly. By day 4 he had explored downstairs. By day 7 he spent most of his time down here with us. He would regularly come out for food and spent his time lounging by the windows. He still wouldn't let us get too close (within a couple feet) or touch him, but he was remarkably comfortable in the house and he seemed to enjoy our presence at a distance.
We had hit so many milestones in just two weeks. We had completely fallen in love with this guy and bought entirely too many toys, quality wet food, beds that he never used, several big cat trees... We had play sessions daily and he'd always come out for breakfast and dinner. In fact he was starting to get quite vocal about it and start whining for food at least an hour before he was supposed to be fed. He also was not picky and would eat anything - any brand or flavor I put in front of him. He turned out to be remarkably bold and curious about everything (except people) - the closet is the one area we don't want him getting into and of course he was smart enough to open the sliding door with his paw, so we had to put little blockers. Also I think the fact that he was bold enough to come downstairs after only 4 days and still being terrified of us says a lot.
Anyway, backstory over. On July 19th I was a complete fucking idiot and left the upstairs window open maybe 3 inches. The last we saw him was at 9 pm when my husband came home and he went down to greet him. At around 11 pm we noticed he wasn't downstairs with us like he normally was. I went up to check. Window open. No cat. Searched upstairs thoroughly. No cat. Searched downstairs even more thoroughly. No goddamn cat.
Now, our house is pretty small. Like it may as well be a two floor apartment. We have no yard in the front, the door goes straight out into the street. We have a tiny back garden area with an even tinier roof terrace. The window Eddie escaped from is at the front of the house and it leads onto this.. maybe 4 inch gutter with barely any room. Our house is also connected with all the other houses on our side of the street, in true Dutch style. We're pretty confident he isn't up on the roof as we look multiple times a day and probably would have seen / heard him by now. It's possible he could have gone into someone else's open window, but I think a neighbor would have noticed or said something.
Guys, we have done everything. We talked to all the neighbors that would answer the door (husband did most of the talking). We put up flyers. We've been going on evening walks around town. We've checked the house again and again. We've put out his food and litter box. We've posted on the official Netherlands missing animal website, registered his microchip status as missing, posted on Facebook groups, called all the nearby shelters. Two nights ago the food we put out in the back garden area was gone. We set up a humane trap and a camera last night and we were so hopeful. The trap closed at around 11 pm and it wasn't Eddie. It was some neighbor's cat that we had seen during our evening walks. We didn't think he'd be bold enough to come straight into our garden and eat Eddie's food, but there he was in the trap. Back to square one.
What do we do. What can we do?? I don't know how else to get advice and get the word out except to make this post. Husband has been doing most of the work when it comes to contacting people because my Dutch is garbage and I can barely even navigate Dutch websites. I know it's a lot of information but context is really important here. Every website likes to put cats into categories ranging from "bold and curious" or "xenophobic". Eddie is both - bold when it comes to his surroundings, extremely skittish when it comes to people. So is he more likely to travel or hide? Nearly every post I've seen about a missing cat is about a cat that's lived with their owners for at least months, usually years. We've had Eddie for two and a half weeks. He was doing so much better than he was at the start, but really, how attached could he possibly be to a place he's spent half a month in? Would his "homing instinct" even kick in? At this rate he'll spend more time being missing than he spent with us. How likely is it that he'd eventually show back up at our door?
I know a common bit of advice is to ask neighbors permission to search their yards. But uh, the coronavirus is still a thing, plus we only just moved here ourselves. No one knows us. We've had maybe two friendly conversations maximum. It would be so obnoxious and invasive to go up to a stranger and be like "hey I know you don't know us at all and we're in the middle of a pandemic, but we've lost our cat, can we go poking around your property?"
Husband and I are totally lost. We're exhausted and devastated and completely drained. Our families and people on Facebook have been so helpful and supportive, but there's only so far moral support can take us. We feel like we've failed. We're so ashamed that we managed to lose him after less than three weeks. We love and miss him so much. Please - if there's anything at all you can think of that might help, let me know. I don't know what else to do.
EDIT: Didn't even put identifying info on here. He's black and white, about 11 pounds / 5 kg. His first birthday was yesterday (we had bought a special meal for him and everything).
EDIT2: Here the post on the missing animal website, has some pictures: https://www.amivedi.nl/detail/?meldingid=1619737
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/hweakd/please_help_my_cat_is_missing_and_i_dont_know/
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