Classy Cat Hoarder Spends £90,000 a Year On Her Cats

This is classy cat hoarding or perhaps I’m being unkind to call it cat hoarding because it is also large-scale cat rescue at home using both the family’s four-bedroom home and outhouses in the garden where Silvana Valentino-Locke looks after 122 cats. There is a fine line between hoarding and rescue.

British cat hoarder or rescuer

Another amazing fact about this exceptional cat hoarder/rescuer is that her husband accepts it all in good grace. Silvana has been married to Tony for 32 years and he does not mind her cat obsession.

£90,000 a year is about £1,700 per week.  In American dollars this is over $142,000 per year!

Judging by the photographs, Tony really must be incredibly patient. I can’t believe that he does not like cats himself because they are everywhere in the family home.

Silvana says that when a man comes to adopt one of her cats they ask “have you got a husband?” The reason is obvious. They cannot believe that she has a husband who puts up with it. As it happens, Tony works long hours so he is not at home that much!

British cat hoarder or rescuer

She employs two people to help which no doubt increases the costs substantially. This is a genuine cat rescue/hoarding operation being run out of the family home in the suburbs.  They live in a place called Downe in Bromley, Kent. For international visitors this is in the far South East of England. Kent is said to be the best county in England for tourists.

Mrs Valentino-Locke began her cat rescue operation 20 years ago. As long ago as 1998 it was full up! Fifty-four of the cats live inside the four-bedroom home and the remainder live in the outhouses in the garden.  Thirty to forty are currently awaiting new homes.  Does that mean that the rest of them are not awaiting new homes and are therefore going to stay where they are?

Not content with looking after 122 cats at her home, she also looks after about 30 ferals cats who roam free in a nearby field.

Feeding the cats costs £500 per week ($791).  The litter costs £30 per day.  Mrs Valentino-Locke’s helpers who she calls ‘cat nannies’ are paid £250 per week plus food and board.  Veterinary bills amount to £4,500 a month (over $7,000 per month).

British cat hoarder or rescuer

Mrs Valentino-Locke works from 6:30 am in the morning until after midnight on some days looking after her cats.  It’s an extraordinary story but it is successful and she is managing things with the help of a very, very patient husband who provides half of the running costs. The remainder is provided through donations and fundraising together with a charity shop.

The rescue operation is called Romney House Cat Rescue. Is this cat rescue or cat hoarding? What is the dividing line between the two?

18 thoughts on “Classy Cat Hoarder Spends £90,000 a Year On Her Cats”

  1. Unbelievable cat philanthropy.Taking a exchange rate of Indian Rs 100=1 U.K Pound it works up to a phenomenal Rs 90,00,000/Year! Such animal philanthropy by a private individual is unbelievable.It would have been considered “CAT HOARDING” if not for the cleanliness and amount of money spent on ythe personal care of these lucky cats.

  2. I fully take your point. They are points well made. I just think that hoarding does not automatically have to be accompanied by bad behavior and illness. Hoarding is often accompanied by mental illness and neglect and therefore we associate cat hoarding with these characteristics but that does not mean it always has to be the case.

    A genuine collector (of whatever items) who cannot really control the amount of collecting but who nonetheless is organised and the collection is well cared for could be a hoarder in my opinion.

    In this case there are genuinely too many cats in the home. Anyone would probably agree that. That indicates a lack of control which indicates a hoarding but as mentioned this is not a black and white situation. I agree she is marvellous but I think she could do just as well with less cats.

  3. Romney House has been around for a long time and has a very good reputation. Westberry was a hoarder who also was a thief, stole the money donated to provide care for the cats she fostered/adopted, in fact got the cats to fund her lifestyle and living expenses but did not care for them, locked them in filthy conditions and starved them, if I ccorrectly recall what I read, including abandoning quite a lot of cats as well. This is not the same thing at all. You simply cannot use the same nomenclature for these two women and how they treat/treated cats in their care. On the subject of hoarding in general, I have a question, is a genuine collector who takes care of their belongings, the same as someone who allows their house to become a filthy rubbish strewn tip? Hoarding, including animal hoarding, is a mental illness, collecting and taking care of animals or belongings properly and decently is not.

  4. Hoarding is an accumulation of like items and the inability to relinquish.
    That Silvana adopts out disqualifies her as a hoarder.

  5. hoarding in the strictest sense, means that someone has so many cats to care for that they aren’t, adequately, able to do it.

    Dee, are you sure that is correct? Are we saying that all cat hoarding results in the cats being inadequately cared for? The word ‘hoarding’ means to accumulate as much of something as one can. It does not automatically means neglect of the ‘hoarded items’ by the hoarder.

    If I had ten or more cats I’d cope but I would not want to cope.

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