A Repo, A Dead Pigeon and a Whole Bunch of Questions

Cleveland, OH – December 4, 2025 – By now, we’ve all seen the occasional story about cars repossessed with a sleeping child in the back. This story is eerily similar, but at the same time, kind of odd. While it turned out poorly, it could have turned out worse. But it leaves me with a whole bunch of questions.

WXIX news reported a story about a woman whose car was repossessed just last Sunday at an undisclosed hour in Cleveland. According to the borrower, Stephanie Tomczewski, she was getting ready to go somewhere with her child and her pet pigeon Martha, in a crate, when she suddenly had to go back inside the house to change the child’s diaper.

Unfortunately, when she came back outside, her car was gone, repossessed. A repossession she does not dispute in her interview and concedes that she was late in payments.

Being a Sunday, she had difficulty reaching anyone to find out where her car was, and worse, her beloved bird. Stephanie was unable to retrieve her property or her [et bird Martha until the next day.

But with snow on the ground and temperatures dropping to just above freezing, her beloved family pet Martha had died, presumably of exposure while in the backseat of the car in the lot over those hours.

But right out of the gates in the interview, she reports that her gate had been opened to access the car to conduct the repossession. An apparent allegation of a breach of peace.

Also in the interview, she mentions that she had a second pet pigeon who was left at home and safe.

Ms. Tomczewski reportedly filed a complaint with the police and the reporting station claims to have made several attempts to reach the repossessing agency to no avail at the time of reporting.

My Questions

Now, I don’t mean to be insensitive to the borrower’s loss, but I’m left wondering where she was taking her pet pigeon on a frigid cold Sunday? An emergency vet visit? The store? I’m also wondering why she didn’t bring both birds? It’s just kind of odd.

The borrower wonders why the agent wouldn’t notice the bird in the back?

While it seems like a reasonable question, even a well-trained agent who would look in the back to make sure the vehicle was unoccupied by a sleeping child could have easily mistook the bird carrier for something else.

The make and model of the car repossessed isn’t mentioned but like a lot of cars these days, breaking in isn’t the easiest thing to do and leaving it locked on the lot overnight does not seem unreasonable to me.

Once again, I do not mean to be insensitive to the borrower’s loss, but technically, a pet bird is “personal property” just like everything else in the car and I seriously doubt the agent would have been so cold and callous as to have let this knowingly happen.

On the flip side, had that been a child left in that car overnight, this story would have made national news and the tragedy insurmountable.

As sad as this is for the Tomczewski family, there are too many little things about the bird’s presence in the car that make no sense to me.

Regardless, I think that this should serve as an important reminder to all agents to make every effort possible to assure that there are no sleeping children in vehicles being repossessed at any time, especially in the winter.

Kevin Armstrong

Publisher