While his girlfriend was at work, Roy Dufek helped strap the mattress and box spring to the top of the buyer's car. When he went back inside his girlfriend's suburban Portland home, Camo the cat was nowhere to be found.
Dufek said it was impossible for the cat to slip outside undetected because there are three sets of doors in the apartment complex.
After a 20-minute search, Dufek called his girlfriend, Hayley Crews, who told him Camo liked to hide in a hole in the box spring.
Crews had previously taped up the hole and had filled the space under the box spring with boxes. But in preparation for the sale, she removed the boxes and the tape that covered the hole.
"I knew right away what had happened," Crews said. "When the furniture was being hauled out, Camo got scared and that's where he would have hidden."
She said Camo "freezes" in frightening situations and does not meow. Crews raised the 5-year-old feline since he was a kitten, she said. He's an indoor-only cat, and he was her companion – her "fur child" – when she lived alone, she said.
The couple think it's likely the cat scurried out of the box spring when the mattress buyer took it off the car roof in his neighborhood, or he jumped out while the car was moving.
Dufek and Crews have searched the mattress buyer's home and yard, and they've set up an animal trap with food and water in the garage where the buyer stored the mattress. They even rented a thermal camera to search the neighborhood.
A week later, Camo's still missing. Dufek and his girlfriend are offering a $200 reward to whoever finds him.
"I am worried and devastated," Crews said. "Bad weather is coming, and time is of essence when it comes to finding him."
Crews said she's not mad at her boyfriend – after all, he didn't know about the hole.
