San Jose woman was hoarding 108 cats

[n2doc]

By Linda Goldston [email protected]
Posted: 05/07/2010 05:39:01 PM PDT
Updated: 05/07/2010 06:05:44 PM PDT

The distressed woman stood in the middle of a tiny yard in a mobile home park in South San Jose, surrounded by cages of cats, 17 to 22 cats to a cage — some were fighting, some were panting and some were standing on top of each other in the cramped cages.

"I am not a hoarder," the woman vehemently told Staycee Dains, shelter operations supervisor for San Jose Animal Care and Services, earlier this week.
By the time animal control officers left the woman's home, they had packed up 108 cats in varying stages of health, causing a major population jump at San Jose's animal shelter on Monterey Road.

"We had 407 animals in our facility," Dains said. "Two hundred and twenty of them are cats and 108 of those are hers."

Dains declined to release the woman's name because the investigation is still under way, but the case is one of the most difficult animal shelters face.
Once called collectors, animal hoarders accumulate large numbers of animals, usually cats or dogs, convinced, experts say, that only they can save and protect these animals, that others might kill them. As the numbers rise, the hoarders become unable to care for the animals and living conditions for both the humans and the animals deteriorate rapidly.

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http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_15041813

[marmar]

1. crazy cat lady

[Fridays Child]

3. It's a psychological disorder.

[left coaster]

2. This is a terrible tragedy.. for the animals, naturally, and for that woman...

..who obviously has some serious mental issues.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

4. I wonder how many dead cats/skeletons hey found?

I saw this episode of hoarders with some lady that had like 40 some cats (as well as an unlivable house full of worthless crap)... they also found dead and remains/skeletons of like 20 some cats too. It was a wild episode. And these people just sit there and act like they're not fucked-up in the head... like keeping and feeding all these cats is normal. :crazy:

[izquierdista]

5. ...just sit there...

I've known tobacco addicts that will admit that they have an addiction and can't put the cigarettes down. I've known alcoholics that will admit that they can't put the bottle down. But you will never, ever, find someone with an obsessive/compulsive disorder to collect (could be cats, parakeets, guns, newspapers, you name it) who will admit that they might be going a little overboard with the object of their attention.

[Lorien]

12. That's sadly true. My mom lives next door to a compulsive hoarder

he hoards anything he deems "useful"-paper, tools, broken furniture, bottles, you name it. He lives near OSU campus so every year when students move back home he trolls the dumpsters for more stuff. His home is filled literally TO THE CEILING with junk. It's been emptied three times by his brother and social services after the home was condemned three times, but NOTHING seems to be able to stop the unfortunate man's hoarding behavior. He's on various medications for it, but nothing helps. It really is pretty sad.

[izquierdista]

15. It's in our genes

Those who hoarded when times were good, had enough to hold them over through the bad times. I've done it myself. I've hoarded paper cups from the fast food restaurants until I had quite a high stack. Then I didn't want to chop out any of the blackberry vines that are steadily overrunning my lot. Finally I came up with a solution to both :think: dig out the blackberry vines, put them in the paper cups, and give them away to my co-workers. Now what to do with all my orange juice cartons? :freak:

[TwilightGardener]

14. Gotta stink to high heaven, too. Imagine the smell of cat piss, cat shit, and

rotting animal corpses. Good God, the whole house knows it when ONE of my two cats takes a dump in the litter box--we pretty much RUN to scoop it, it's so unbearable.

[Merlot]

6. Poor cats. They are better off at the shelter.

A lot of them will probably be put down due to poor health or the inability to be socialized. And that is more humane than keeping them in cages. Cats in particular don't like to be in close confinement with other cats, it causes them immeasurable stress.

How come it took so long for this to be found? didn't the neighbors notice?

[Lorien]

10. How could anyone not notice the SMELL?

There was a cat breeder who had a home not far from where my father lived in Ohio. They had 25-40 cats in there home at any one time and even with their best efforts you could smell cat piss from 300 yards away from the home. It was disgusting. I can't even imagine what the smell would have been like INSIDE that trailer. :puke:

[tularetom]

7. My wife swears the only thing keeping her from being a cat lady

is the fact that I'm here. We have four indoor kitties and a half dozen or so that roam around outside keeping the varmint population in check.

[WinterParkDonkey]

8. This is a very real illness....

unfortunately, I believe that a lot of these animals will be put to sleep.

[Dappleganger]

11. Isn't it great to know...

that one day when you're gone you'll be replaced by a half-dozen kitties?

:evilgrin:

[tularetom]

16. Yeah, but if she goes first...

...the sheep are coming back!

[Dappleganger]

18. .

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[ThatsMyBarack]

9. I hate sad stories about kittehs....

:cry: But it makes me :loveya: my kitteh boyz even more!

[Mr Generic Other]

13. sad story indeed.

this poor woman and her cats (and countless others beings in the same situation in the US) are the end result of our capitalist consumer driven society.
edward bernays, father of modern "public relations" and nephew of freud on both sides of the family, would view this woman as the ultimate consumer society success story.
he was well-paid by both our government and by the business community to develop strategies to get folk to want what was not in their own best interest.
we really should not pity this woman but exalt her and view her as a cat priestess. given her own shrine and enough "collection plate" income this woman and her cats could enhance property values in the neighborhood and encourage a brisk tourist trade.

[Solly Mack]

17. Damn.

Hope animal and human get all the help they need.