Reading, Pennsylvania, USA: This is a sad and rather strange story. It comes from the Animal Rescue League of Berks County in the USA on their Facebook page. A woman, who you could describe as a cat hoarder, passed away outside her home while inside, upstairs apparently, there were 40 cats. They had not been spayed or neutered. The number is now 44 as one of the cats was pregnant and has since given birth to 4 kittens.
Sadly, the cats were only discovered nine days after her passing. This may have been because the woman had not been discovered for nine days or nobody had entered the house for nine days having discovered the woman outside the home. Either way, the cats were locked in the home without proper sustenance.
The reports are that they had no access to food or water. I suspect that there was some sort of access to food and water at least for a while. Animal Rescue League of Berks County say that most of the cats are:
“…going through marital distress since been removed from their home. Almost all of these cats are scared and will need time at the shelter to give them a chance to relax and a chance to trust our staff as we hope to learn more about their true personalities.
But the majority of the 40 cats are still hiding in crates and paper bags and/or hissing. We’re minimizing their exposure to staff. We’ve kept the area around the room where they’re being kenneled quiet. We expect that some of them will become candidates for adoption as house pets. Others will be candidates for our working cat program.
This is a very fluid process. We can get to know their personalities as they learn to relax and trust us. We plan to give them about a month before we make any final determinations as to which path is best for their placement.”
I like the way that they are giving themselves time to assess the cats’ personalities rather than jumping in and making mistaken judgements because these cats are scared as they say and therefore it’s impossible to assess personality until they’ve calmed down and got used to their surroundings.
Some of them have health concerns such as respiratory and eye infections. The shelter is asking for donations because they believe that the cost of dealing with these cats will be at an average of $500 per cat. Their Facebook page indicates over $4000 has been raised thus far. By all means visit their page by clicking on this link.
Comment:
The story does throw up some interesting issues. It is the first time that I have read a story about a cat hoarder dying and the cats being trapped inside her home undiscovered. I suppose one could argue that if a person is living alone with a large number of cats they should, in an ideal world, have at least one person with whom they are in regular contact and who, therefore, can take urgent steps to investigate if that contact is broken. Only this way can the cats be protected for certain.
These cats were lucky in a way because they were discovered albeit late. If they had not been discovered for over a month it is likely that they’d all have died of starvation and lack of water.
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I agree with that!
If many people who live alone die most likely no one would check right away. They would just assume the person is busy or out of town no matter how many friends they have. Unless you have a friend or family member you talk to on a schedule daily, weekly a few days can pass.
It is imperative that single people of all ages have daily contact with someone who will check on them. If people could find a way to share housing that is even better. It’s scary when you don’t hear from someone yet no one else is concerned.