03 March 2023 , 11:46
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A pet owner was left distraught when a parcel containing the ashes of her beloved rat was lost.
Jaimie Popplewell’s pet Pumpkin died in January of pneumonia, despite vets' best efforts to save his life.
In a bid to remember his memory, the 21-year-old arranged for him to be cremated, and then sent the ashes to be put inside a rat plushie toy by a business on Etsy.
Disaster struck when the crochet toy was posted back to Jaimie and she received a notification saying the parcel was missing.
Jaimie, who got Pumpkin with his brother Pickle a few months ago said: “I miss Pumpkin so much and so does his brother. It's been eating me up ever since and I'm heartbroken it's been lost.
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The memorial Jaimie set up to poor Pumpkin (Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media)
Pumpkin with his brother Pickle (Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media)“I bought Pumpkin and Pickle as young rats in October, but then we noticed Pumpkin began to limp at the end of last year, and vets told us he had a respiratory condition," she told HullLive.
“They did all they could to save him, and Pumpkin had lots of medication and injections, but died of pneumonia in January.
"I contacted the crematorium and they agreed to cremate Pumpkin, and kindly dropped his ashes off to me free of charge. I missed his cuddles, so looked on Etsy and found a seller who could make me a custom crocheted rat that looked like Pumpkin.
"I wanted to have a bit of Pumpkin in there so asked the seller if I could send her his ashes to put inside, and she agreed, even though she had never done it before.”
The ashes arrived safely and the order was completed and sent back.
The parcel containing Pumpkin's ashes has vanished (Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media)The issues started when Evri said the parcel was too big and the delivery would be rescheduled.
Shortly afterward, the parcel went missing.
She has since been offered compensation, but said her rat's legacy was something she couldn't put a price on.
She added: "I knew something was very wrong when it first couldn't be delivered.
“I don't want money back, it's sentimental and I can't put a price on that, it feels wrong.”
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A spokesperson for Evri said: "Unfortunately this parcel containing the ashes of a pet rat in a crocheted animal is currently missing and we are continuing to search for it.
“However, we have spoken to the sender to reiterate that ashes are prohibited from being sent through our network and that they also incorrectly chose our ‘postable’ service which is only for large letters that can go through a standard letterbox - this item was clearly too big for this service.
“We apologise to Ms Popplewell."