While living in my sorority house in college, I had a roommate with gerbils. She was a horrible gerbil owner - never around, didn't feed them, etc. One of the many nights she was away, the gerbils were hungry and decided to chew on the plastic boot in their glass cage. Half asleep, I decided the cage could go out in the hallway. I woke up to one of the residents cat's yowling. When I opened the door, the biggest, blackest, furriest cat you can imagine had draped herself right over the top of the cage. The poor gerbils were almost in a fear coma. Not long after, the gerbils went to live with my roommate's parents.