It is said that cat hoarding is a form of mental illness. Cat hoarders are not completely in the land of reality. They think they are expressing their love of cats by helping cats. Yet they are impervious to what is staring them in the face: injured and dying cats due to the very poor conditions they are putting them in.
If that isn’t bad enough, this is an example where mental illness goes a substantial step further. It is cat hoarding combined with a Frankestein-esque attempt to create a new cat breed. This Polish woman was not content on creating a new cat breed in the slow time-honored way through breeding. No, that wasn’t good enough. She wanted to replicate what Victor Frankenstein did in Mary Shelley’s famed book: Frankenstein.
This Polish woman, living in Warsaw, wanted to create a dog in the style of Frankenstein’s monster but was eventually banned from keeping dogs. She turned to cats and kept 72 in her home. No doubt some were in the freezer.
Apparently she experimented on living and dead animals. She can’t have read Mary Shelley’s novel because Victor Frankenstein’s attempt to create a beautiful create ended in catastrophe. He created a monster which repulsed him. He rejected it totally and his creation turned on him, killing four people including his childhood friend and his wife.
This woman lost track of reality. As is commonplace for cat hoarders, the smell and noise coming from her home alerted neighbours. The local animal welfare officers raided her home and found the usual horrific mess with a twist: 100 dead animals some of which looked as if they had been experimented on. It appears she had also experimented on living cats.
Well, there it is. The comments attached to the Daily Mail story are interesting as usual. Of course, most express shock and disgust. There is, though, a clear divide, between the decent people and those who find the behavior of this person acceptable.
However, I must make this remark. I believe there is a large body of internet trolls who like to wind-up decent cat loving people. They are almost certainly young men who don’t like cats. They are very negative, destructive-type individuals. Something needs to be done about them. That, though, is another sick story.
Photos:
- Main photo (B&W) by Diego3336
- Dog in Frankenstein costume by http://www.petsadviser.com
- Original story
I completely understand the point you are making. As we get older we become less tolerant in my experience of the “madness” in human society. Also reading about these stories and seeing ghastly images is not good for our health.
I think we should try, where possible, to surround ourselves with a bit of beauty in whatever form it takes. It helps to make life more bearable.
I tell you something!!! With an OMG!! Last night i was watching this hoarder show on Animal Planet, about 2 elderly sisters that cared for, and i use that term care loosely, 144 cats!!! Despictable conditions!! I mean there was no room to walk in the place. Urine and feces had stacked up to where it was 4 to 6 feet above the floor!!!!!!!!!! It had caked up so badly that the cats had started digging tunnels in this horrid mess!!! Cats were littered in the garage as well. In the garage was the more feral ones. They had to set traps for a few days to make sure all cats were out!! The smell was so rancid, the workers had to suit up and use mask to breath!!! Adult Services had to be called and the sisters taken out of the home and placed elsewhere. One was very sick with a terminal illness!! It just made me sick!!!!!! This is something i shall never understand, and i am not sure i want to!!! I put up with a lot, and consider myself a chill individual, but then a callous side comes out where i do not want to face, see, understand or care about others who get caught up in this world of insanity!!! I cannot bring myself to care and understand it! I don’t want to@!!! It angers me more than makes me fill up with compassion!!!! The compassion should be for the cats, not these people that have this deranged thought process that puts themselves and the lives of animals at risk!!! I could hardly get through watching this show. I did!! It put me in a vile mood!!! One worker exclaimed , ‘it won’t surprise me if they condemn this property’!!! That’s how god awful it was!!! I am not cold i hope people understand, but there is a line i can’t cross over!! Never, will i understand how someone feels this kind of living condition for themselves and for cats is desirable, sanitary, and NORMAL!!! Just typing about it makes me want to hit the screen!!! Grrr!!!
It most likely began when cats were first domesticated. The earliest report I have is from the 1790s, but that’s because I haven’t been able to go back further in newspapers right now.
Thanks Sarah for that input. I wonder when cat hoarding actually started.
I also started researching the Countess de la Torre, another 19th century cat hoarder.
http://messybeast.com/1856-cat-hoarder-1.htm
She appears to have been evicted from 2 properties (Kensington, then Fulham) because of stench and squalor. She then lodged at an inn in Gerards Cross before finally ending upsleeping rough (with a herd of goats). I’ve included her biography – she was an over-indulged child and she lived beyond her means as an adult. Like many hoarders, she was unable to see the filthy state of her home and the condition of the animals. She was repeatedly up before the polic court due to “nuisance”.
I got so fascinated by Chantrell’s case that I’m trying to get court case records from the National Archives. I can’t work out if she was scheming (she unduly influenced her husband’s will) or incompetent or a mix of both. I found details her first court appearance for animal hoarding in, of all places, the New Zealand archives!