# Why do crazy ladies often have cats?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 27, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449 "2006-05-27T14:44:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/21 "2006-05-27T19:48:34Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> I bet you can’t throw a cat over the house, though.
Wow…you really _can_ throw a cat over the house!
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/22 "2006-05-28T16:52:10Z")
How do these people (cat horders) fall into such an incredibly filthy lifestyle? I have read accounst of houses full of cat faeces, with the walls and floors soaked in urin-and many of these pathetic people are flea-bitten and filthy. Yet somehow they manage to live this way. Does your sense of smell diminish when you are living like this?
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/23 "2006-05-28T17:10:04Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> How do these people (cat horders) fall into such an incredibly filthy lifestyle? I have read accounst of houses full of cat faeces, with the walls and floors soaked in urin-and many of these pathetic people are flea-bitten and filthy. Yet somehow they manage to live this way. Does your sense of smell diminish when you are living like this?
A bit-they’re used to it, so they become immune to it. That and they’re mentally ill.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/24 "2006-05-28T17:23:23Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> I have read accounst of houses full of cat faeces, with the walls and floors soaked in urin-and many of these pathetic people are flea-bitten and filthy. Yet somehow they manage to live this way.
That could be downright luxurious compared to the lifestyle of a 17th-century peasant.
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/25 "2006-05-28T17:34:15Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> That could be downright luxurious compared to the lifestyle of a 17th-century peasant.
I kind of doubt that . . .
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/26 "2006-05-28T21:29:17Z")
[How many cats is the tipping point from cat lover to crazy cat collector?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=305724)
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/27 "2006-05-29T02:29:01Z")
You have cause and effect reversed - cats send you crazy.
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2006, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/28 "2006-05-29T08:15:50Z")
My guess is that animal hoarders don’t decide to live with so many animals that their houses end up filthy. The way they live is probably the result of many small bad decisions about individual animals. They may be incapable of seeing the big picture - taking on one more cat always seems like an incremental change, and they may see themselves as kind people who would never refuse shelter to a helpless animal.
There are many things like this, where a difference in degree is a difference in kind, and part of mental health is knowing where the limits are. Having one alcoholic drink a week isn’t a problem, but one an hour is. Eating a slice of pie once in a while is OK, but eating a whole pie every day isn’t. Adopting a kitten is fine, but adopting a kitten every month isn’t. For some reason, animal hoarders don’t have the mental trigger that says that, beyond some point, adopting another animal makes things worse, not better.
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### Author:  [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/29 "2006-05-29T14:01:49Z")
> [@Askance](#):
>
> You have cause and effect reversed - cats send you crazy.
You may think you’re joking, but that may just be it: welcome to the psychological effects of [_Toxoplasma gondii_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Possible_effects_on_human_behavior).
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-crazy-ladies-often-have-cats/358449/30 "2006-05-29T16:11:50Z")
> [@Excalibre](#):
>
> I kind of doubt that . . .
I won’t argue the point to avoid hijacking the thread, but I recommend you catch a British TV series called _The Worst Jobs in History_, starring Tony (“Baldrick”) Robinson and compare the life of a crazy cat lady who might be living in her own house with light and heat and access to clean water with that of a [Tudor woad-dyer.](http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/W/worstjobs/tudor1.html#4)
Anyway, amplifying Jinx’s earlier comment, the cat hoarder may perceive that the animals love and depend on her, while contact with other humans has become impossible through isolation and deepening mental illness.
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