PEPI the cat used up one of her nine lives after becoming a prisoner in her own home.

Owner Bridget Hodges had put out a call for help from villagers when her pet Pepi disappeared - then heard the missing moggy miaowing under her own house.

Mrs Hodges traced the miaowing to the gap below her new bathroom floor, laid four days before when she had builders in at her Buckland Newton home.

The 13-year-old tortoiseshell was finally released from her hiding place after neighbours John and Nick Baker knocked out an airbrick to create an escape route. Pepi emerged when Mrs Hodges tempted her out with a tuna treat.

The reunion marked the end of a frantic search by Mrs Hodges who looked in all of Pepi's favourite haunts and then alerted her neighbours with letters and posters.

But while they were checking their sheds and garages Pepi was stuck under the bathroom floor where workmen had re-routed pipes and put down smart new stone tiling.

Mrs Hodges said: "I just want to a say a big to everyone who helped look for Pepi and the superheroes John and Nick. I'm so glad to have Pepi back - she's none the worse for her adventure."

Friend and neighbour Felicity Lewis said: "It was all very worrying at the time but luckily it's a happy ending.

"The funny thing was that Bridget told me she thought she could hear Pepi calling and must be imagining it - but it really must have been Pepi."