Recently the beloved mascot of a student flat was kidnapped, held to ransom and eventually recovered after a daring night-time raid which landed a rescuer in hospital.
A third-year student, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he won Steve in a bet as a first-year and they had become close companions ever since.
“When we were in our second year we turned him into a funnel, which we hung off the front of our flat with 4m of tubing... and plumbed at the bottom.”
If only Steve could talk.
Steve, who was “just one of the flatmates”, was firmly settled into his new flat when things got weird.
Very weird.
“Steve had been chilling outside our house, but when we came home he had disappeared,” one of the flatmates said.
Worried about Steve, they posted a missing person notice on Facebook, and received various titbits of information.
However the flatmates investigation soon escalated after an anonymous post by the alleged kidnappers.
That post showed five masked people in hoodies surrounding a clearly terrified Steve, and the message, “There is a ransom note in your letterbox”.
That ransom note said “Steve will be returned when we get our alcohol”.
Through various sources and tip-offs the flatmates determined that Steve was held against his will at a neighbouring flat.
On Monday night they cased one of the flats only to hear an alleged kidnapper say “maybe we should cut off one of the finger’s and send it to them”.
However Steve’s flatmates immediately posted on Facebook a “finger won’t do”, and the kidnappers suddenly realised they were surrounded.
As the kidnappers came out onto their flat’s balcony, the would-be rescuers tried to save Steve only for one to fall through a garage roof.
One of the rescuers suffered a dislocated shoulder and was taken to Dunedin Hospital.
“We were totally sober after an O-Week of ridiculous consumption,” a flatmate confessed.
Steve was forced to spend another night in captivity, but was returned on Tuesday.
In a weird twist to the story, the kidnappers were invited around for flat drinks on Saturday night.