This really got to me. I watched “Animal Cops” last night and the officers were working on a case in which a man with a severe mental illness was “collecting” cats in his home. An officer did an inital check in the home and determined that there were several cats there. He estimated maybe 50. He came back with a team of workers from the Humane Society to remove the cats from the home.
They had to put on masks, high boots and coveralls. The house was absolutely unbelievably filthy. There was cat crap at least 6 inches deep in some places. It was 90 degrees and the windows were all shut, so you can imagine how bad the stench was.
And the cats, oh my God, those poor cats. They were everywhere. It looked as if there was not one spot in the entire house that didn’t have a cat hiding in it, under it, or behind it. And they were all wild.
After a full day of work, they removed 130 cats, I think, just from the upstairs. Then they went into the basement. It was unreal. There were so many cats down there that they were just sitting on each other in piles. I have never seen anything like it.
It was horrific.
It took 2 full days and they removed a total of 247 cats from the house. All those cats were put down because they were feral. What kind of life did those poor cats have? They never even had a chance.
The man who owned them was not charged because of his mental illness.
Now, this man lived in a well-populated suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Detroit. It wasn’t as if he was living isolated out in the country somewhere. My question is–why on earth did this problem get so out of hand?? He had neighbors on either side–surely they noticed something! And what about the mailman? The meter reader? Did this man not have any family to check up on him from time to time?
How did this man manage to “collect” 247 cats without anyone noticing?
This sort of thing drives me nuts. And it happens all the time! Why don’t people report this kind of thing before it reaches that point?
Ugh.
You might want to visit this earlier thread which deals with the same subject.
…which makes the following even more bizarre: I know a woman who has mummified (yes, you read correctly) her deceased cat in hopes of being able to clone him one day (!). I know for a fact that this is no joke, and she is dead-serious about it. She supposedly keeps him in some tomb-like thing in her house.
So many unwanted cats in the world, and then you have crazy shit like that! The mind boggles.
Gaaah! Thanks for the link, Jeff Olsen. I had no idea this exact same thing had already been posted.:smack:
I’m locking this thread, it’s bad enough to have ONE discussion about it.