Woman Hears Noise from Tied Bag in Dumpster—Can’t Cope With What’s Inside

A woman’s mundane task of taking out the trash has led her to a life-changing discovery.

In a Reddit post, u/samantha_maya shared that the sound of faint meowing from a dumpster across the alleyway prompted her to investigate further, only to uncover a tied-up bag containing two helpless kittens. Her quick thinking and immediate action saved the kittens from a grim fate and brought her a new best friend—a cat named Milo.

Since the post was published, it has received 11,000 upvotes.

Recounting the dramatic rescue, she wrote: “One night in April of 2024, I was taking my trash out when I heard distressed meowing…[I] realized it was coming from inside the dumpster. I opened it to discover two kittens inside a bag.”

The woman immediately took the kittens in, providing them with a much-needed bath and a clean bill of health from the vet. She found a home for one of the kittens with a friend and kept the other, whom she called Milo. The timing of the rescue was nothing short of miraculous.

“I am so fortunate I came across him when I did, as it was a Monday night and trash gets picked up on Tuesday morning,” she shared. The thought of what could have happened still sickens her. “I cringe thinking of what would’ve happened had he been picked up by the garbage truck.”

A Rescue Story and a New Beginning

The rescue wasn’t just a coincidence; it was a needed moment of connection for the woman who had recently endured a loss.

“I lost my dog, Maya, in a fire eight months prior,” she wrote in a comment. “I was a mess, and so depressed and lonely.” Now, though, she is far from alone, with both Milo and a new little sister she adopted for him.

Milo and his kitty companion from the dumpster were an inseparable pair, which made the decision to separate them difficult. But Her landlord’s restriction on having only one male cat meant she couldn’t keep both.

“I wish I could’ve kept both,” she admitted. “It worked out because they both have loving homes, and Milo’s new little sister is so bonded with him now. Everyone is happy.”

The story resonated deeply with Redditors, who expressed outrage at the cruelty of those who abandoned the kittens, and gratitude for the poster.

“Who…would do such a cruel thing?” one person wrote. “Dumping them outside with no way to protect themselves wasn’t enough, they had to absolutely make sure this cat was going to die in one of the worst ways imaginable? I can’t imagine what it must be like to carry that amount of sickness in your heart…But you saved him from that, and that’s an amazing thing. And what a beautiful boy!”

“You are an emergency [cat distribution system] agent. Thank you so much for saving Milo and sharing the happiness with the rest of us,” another wrote, while one shared their own rescue story: “Wonderful! I also have a garbage kitty (Oscar). We suspect her first family hurt her, as we discovered her busted pelvis a day or so later. She was found by a dumpster diver who apparently has wings and a halo.”

Milo is now one and a half years old and, as the photos in the original post show, is “thriving.”

“He is my best friend,” the rescuer wrote. “My sun and moon, my soul cat.”

Newsweek reached out to u/samantha_maya for comment via Reddit.