Growing up, the lady down the street had about 10 cats. She was manic depressive.
In college I knew a girl with 5 cats. Suffered from anxiety and depression.
My aunt has 3 or 4 cats. Reclusive and depressed.
Admittedly my sample size is statistically insignificant. But might there be a correlation between a woman owning more than 2 cats and being mentally ill?
I haven’t met a woman with ONE cat who I thought was emotionally stable.
ahhh… the cat lady… we all have one huh???
In my expiriances… yes… women with my than 3 cats have some issues…
take my ex gf for example… she had 3 cats…and was a loon…
I only have two. 
I have a friend who have has about 4 (she takes in strays who comes her way). She and her husband are definitely eccentric, but that’s about the extent of it. She’s very intelligent, works at a very demanding job, does volunteer work, has lots of friends. I don’t think she’s updated her wardrobe since 1977, though - does that count as mentally ill? 
We have 4 cats… and a dog and a hamster.
We’ve stopped adopting animals as we’ve been concentrating on breeding ourselves as of late. One toddler and one on the way.
Are we crazy? maybe. But our house is happy and full of life 
People who collect more than 2-3 cats as pets are often lonely and the cats are their friends and companions/children. So yes, once you start getting past 3 cats the chances are pretty good there are other issues on the table. Once you get to the 4 plus indoor cat stage there is generally a little weirdness happening
(and a mighty smelly house in most cases).
I would make an caveat for those who are breeding or showing cats professionally as a lot of cats would be necessary for business.
Hell, I’ve only got two cats, and I’m crazier than an outhouse rat . . .
but Eve, the outhouse rat counts for several cats… particularly when it’s as big as a Shetland pony, and only you can see it…
The current term for this condition is “animal hoarding”; there seems to be a relation between this condition and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium defines the condition here, lists intervention resources, and has an online bibliography.
Their definition
There’s also a lengthy article from April 2000 at Psychiatric Times.
I dunno. My mom’s got four cats, and she’s pretty stable. She just likes animals.
I have three dogs…and three kids. Each kid has a pet. So maybe it depends onthe situation. I could just as easily have gotten all three cats instead of dogs.
Actually I think I am crazier to have the kids than the pets. They definitely are more high maintenance. Then again, I live in the state of Dementia so that could have something to do with it.
Well all our kitties (and all the other kritters in the house) get food and water and love. They also get proper veterinary care and are current on all of their shots. Hell we just spent $1000 to figure out that one of our cats has irritable bowel syndrome. Yay that our vet allows payment plans!
We have 4 indoor only kitties (along with everything else as I stated above) Indoor is much safer for them as when I was a kid the outdoor cats my parents had always seemed to become road pizza.
I understand the “cat lady” syndrome and some people do have serious problems but based on Papermache Prince’s article I don’t think sheer number of kitties alone is criteria enough to say there is a problem.
Oh and all the litter boxes are in the basement so our house is not all smelly!
Frances “Aunt Bee” Bavier became a recluse after “Mayberry,” and she had a bunch of cats. Supposedly, her home had an overpowering aroma of, um, “cat by-products.”
Currently dating a girl with nine cats and two dogs. She’s an animal rights activist type, and occassionally gets too attached to the animals she rescues to let them go. Three litter boxes in the garage, house is neat as a pin.
I’m allergic to cats, too.
Wow, my aunt must really be nuts. At last count, she had over 40 cats. She and my uncle work two jobs, just to get by (aunt insists that all the kitties get good vets, the best food she can afford for them, kitty litter, etc.).
Always thought she was a bit strange…
My mum has four cats at the minute but has had up to seven at one time. She also believes that her wardrobe beeps at her in morse code at night, and that carrots suffer when she puts them in to boil in the pan - so does that answer your question? 
I have…[counts furry heads]…four cats right now. I love cats, and in a perfect world I’d probably have a couple more. I don’t turn away strays, so it’s only sheer luck and the fact that I don’t live on a busy road that keeps the numbers down for me.
I also have three dogs, a rat, and a bird. And four kids, so it ain’t just me talking to the furry and feathered ones all day long.
I think having a low cut-off criteria isn’t quite reasonable for establishing mental illness: Forty cats is a LOT of cats, unless you are genuinely operating a shelter of some sort. But geez, more than TWO cats as a sign of mental illness? Or three or four? Who decides what’s reasonable?
There’s a difference, I think, between animal hoarding (a legitimate mental health issue) and simply being the steward for a lot of living things.
I’m of two minds on this issue. Firstly, I have more than two cats, and (like most others who’ve posted), don’t think I’m crazy - relatively speaking of course! (-:
I do however, have a friend who definitely has mental health issues - and she also has 6 cats, 2 dogs, and 4 fish tanks. (And a partridge in a pear tree …) However, although I agree with some points in the article that Papermache Prince quoted, I know for a fact that this friend of mine regularly puts her animal’s health and well-being ahead of her own. She’s also had bad luck with cats, and she’s also glad that the vet has a payment plan, as someone already mentioned.
I do agree that one aspect of certain mental health problems can lead to people herding or gathering pets around them, either as company, or as something to take care of. (I swear my cats kept me from having a mental breakdown one year - I had to keep it together to take care of my girls!) But I would ask what came first? Do the cats make you a little crazy, or would you have to be crazy to have that many cats? Which did the OP imply?
As for the question in the OP, I say “No, just having more than two cats doesn’t mean you’re mentally ill.”
I hope. (-:
Heather
I know a man (yes, a man) – big, gruff, retired Saudi oilfield worker type – who (a) breeds Bengal cats and (b) runs a cat rescue off his ten-acre property in northern Florida. He currently has over 180 cats – indoor cats, outdoor cats, feral cats, you name it.
I have to say that I have NEVER in all my born days seen so many happy, healthy, well-adjusted cats. Every one of them is the absolute glowing picture of health (with the understandable exception of some recent rescues that are being nursed back to health). All live in roomy, comfortable housing, including probably 20-30 or so that have the run of his house, which is also sparkling clean and spotless, without a stray cat hair to be seen and certainly no smell. He’s living proof that just because you love cats in large numbers doesn’t mean you or they have a problem. He just loves cats. I wish all multiple cat owners were as conscientious.
OTOH, I dated a guy in high school whose mom had ten cats and had never, at least since he was born, so much as swept the floor of their house, which crunched underfoot. Ewww. Her cats stank, drooled, and were the only cats I’ve ever found actively repulsive. But she had other serious issues, mostly that she’d had six kids and been a housewife and discovered early on that she hated it so spent the next 18 years doing absolutely nothing. Personally, I think she should have gotten a job and hired a cleaning lady, but she never asked my opinion. (She never offered me food, either, knowing I wouldn’t touch anything that came out of that house!) (Her son that I dated had carved himself out a room in the basement that was sparkling clean, I hasten to add.) The cats were just part of her problem.
I don’t think you can generalize. I’ve had three cats at one point in my life, and didn’t think I had problems. Of course, maybe I was just listening to the Voices too much.