While looking into what happens at the intersection of pets and foreclosure (see this entry from last week) I met a man named Tony Pietrzyk.

Pietrzyk is as an appraiser of sorts; he provides broker priced opinions or ‘BPOs’ of foreclosed properties on Chicago’s Southside.

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Inside one of those homes, a boarded up two-flat on Chicago’s Southside, Pietrzyk discovered more than he had bargained for.  Sprawled across the floor, hanging out of a box, lay a gray cat.

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When Pietrzyk approached her, he realized not only was she tame, she wasn’t alone.

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Pietrzyk says he felt bad, but he already had cats of his own.  Besides, he had work to do, so he left them food and water and went home.  But he says something kept tugging at him, so he kept dropping by to feed the animals.  And when a cleaning crew came to gut the house, Pietrzyk says he knew what he had to do.

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He cared for the animals for a month and half and found homes for the kittens.  As for the mother cat, he named her Sarah and took her to the Tree House Humane Society shelter.  That’s also where Pietrzyk found a new passion and purpose as a volunteer.

On most Sunday afternoons, you’ll find Pietrzyk at the shelter.  Walking in and out of the various rooms, he knows the cats by name and by story.  “This guy up here Lucas, he’s really mean,” Pietrzyk says of a grumpy old fellow who hisses as we approach.

Then there’s Pickles, a long-haired black and white cat who immediately wins my heart.  “Pickles… He was abandoned in a church,” Pietrzyk explains.

As he tells me about his volunteer work with a “trap and return” program for feral cats and explains various feline ailments, I can’t help but notice the smile that never seems to leave Pietrzyk’s face.  This is a man who has clearly found a calling.

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He still sees Sarah; she’s still at Tree House.  Long gone is that abandoned two-flat; she’s now lounging in the “chubby cat” room.   When Pietrzyk calls for her, she crawls right into his arms.

Since the shelter already had a cat named Sarah, she is now Seraphina.  The name is a derivation of Seraphim, which in Christianity is the highest order of angels.

Pietrzyk says the meaning isn’t lost on him.

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