Hoarders Keeping Cats In Hotel Rooms

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Hoarders Keeping Cats In Hotel Rooms

by Elisa Black-Taylor
(USA)

Good morning readers. As all of you know, I do rescue from the Greenville County Animal Care Services shelter in Greenville, SC. They have brought it to my attention that 32 cats found in a hoarding abuse case in a hotel room are now under their care at GCAC. I’ll write more on hoarders keeping cats in hotel rooms as soon as I address this urgent situation.

GCAC Services is in desperate need of people to sponsor the cats so rescues can take them out at no charge. The fee, which is usually $50, covers spay/neuter, inoculations and FIV/FeLV test and micro-chipping.

I spoke with Andrea by email a few minutes ago to find out what was going on. She didn’t know anything except they now have 32 new cats, along with the local people throwing their pets away.

This has hit me hard personally because it meant the cats coming to the top of the euthanasia list were put to sleep today. This included Sheela and Shirley’s brother and sister (Cooper and Shea) whom I couldn’t take. I’ve been hoping and praying someone would have rescued the two remaining kittens.

I have a total of 15 cats now. Unlike the hoarders out there, I know my limit and 15 is it. I don’t feel I can rescue any more until I get a few of the ones I have placed. And the only cat I have now who isn’t happy is Lily. I have several friends on the lookout for her to find a single pet family.

The information for the GCAC shelter to rescue a cat (and out of state rescue is welcome) is email them at animalcareservices@greenvillecounty.org. Make sure in the subject heading to type in “Attention Andrea RESCUE and the ID number and name of the cat.” It may be Monday before your email is returned and Andrea operates strictly through email.The phone number to sponsor a cat is (864) 467-3950. To see the cats, please go here.

Now back to hoarders keeping cats in hotel rooms. There is a case from Columbia, Missouri where Susan Kohler was charged last summer with keeping too many cats within the city limits. She had 32 cats in a room at a Motel 6. Four of the cats were dead.

Many of the cats, mostly oriental shorthairs, were ill when taken into custody by animal control. They are all well now. Kohler has been paying for the cats to be housed at the shelter and also for any vet bills. She has paid over $19000 so far and if it takes awhile for this to go to trial the amount is expected to rise to over $40000.

She pleaded innocent to animal abuse charges. I haven’t been able to locate a final decision on her case. I did find she went to trial in August 2010 with the intention of clearing her name and getting back her cats.

Read on for another case of hotel cat hoarding.

Prevention is the best medicine for your pet's health.In a report I found online dated March 30, 2009, Ron Teague of Plano, Texas was charged with hoarding 21 cats in a hotel room. He had lived there with the cats for at least two months and many of the cats were in bad health.

Ron had made the news for hoarding 70 cats in his home in 2007.

In both of Teague’s cases the animals were living in filthy conditions.

Is hotel cat hoarding becoming more widespread? I think it is. Especially in the extended stay motels where the guest gets a mini kitchen andI also found a case where several dozen rabbits were seized from a hoarder.

I chose to write this story with intention to help the shelter I work through. I’ve been educated in the process of writing this article and now know how far hoarders will go to feed their addiction. Have any of the readers at pictures-of-cats.org ever heard of hotel hoarding? I’m just curious.

Elisa

Related pages:

Cat Hoarding 1

Cat Hoarding 2

Source:

http://www.columbiamissourian.com

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Hoarders Keeping Cats In Hotel Rooms

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Mar 22, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar		 Mine all run free
by: Elisa

My cat stay busy chasing each other all over the house. It’s been really funny watching Casper learn to play. Mandy and Jasper chased him to the point he finally learned to chase them back. Casper was so funny the first few times he hissed at them and learned that didn’t slow them down at all. The only confined cats are the ones who come in sick and they are confined to the bathroom just so the others don’t make them play.

I take a lot of candid photos of my babies. They’re on Facebook under Furby the Feral in the Halfway House albums.

My house is cluttered but not dirty. My daughter changes litterboxes daily and they also go thru 15-20 lbs of cat food a week.

I wish I had a bigger house and more money because I want to rescue more. I’ve already talked my friend Debra into doing a rescue from Greenville. Maybe my experience will convince a few more people that one more cat in the house isn’t as hard as you might imagine

Mar 21, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar		 hotel hoarders
by: Kathy W

There was a similar case in the area where I live at. Two women kept cats in a hotel room but they also had a lot of dogs that lived in a van. It was summer time and they lived in there with no air. Its one thing to hoard pets but its another thing not to take care of them. I had 12 cats at one time but they were all fed, watered and had litter boxes. I also was not in my right mind back then. I have always loved animals and even though I thought I was providing them with proper care, I had too many. Some of the males had to be kept seperate and I kept them in cages. Some of them probaly were too small. I did fin d homes for some of them and some went to live on a farm. It was cruel for them to be kept in those cages. And Ill never forgive myself for that. I see my cats today living as part of our family. They will never be caged. Unless of course they have kittens and we have a breeding pair and they are having their first litter. We have 5 cats and thats our limit. Two were rescued from the outside. Once they came inside they were ours. Im lucky my boyfriend is a cat lover and we often get jealouse between the two of us if one cat is paying more attention to one of us than to the other. Actually 3 cats are his and 2 are mine. 3 like him better and the other 2 are my babies. Lia and our Savannah female Aurora are my babies. Lia has turned into somewhat of a bully and the cat psyhic told me to pay more attention to him and I really dont have no choice because he guards me like a guard dog. I love all 5 and thats our limit, until a bigger plaqce to live of course.

Mar 20, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar		 Surprise
by: Michael

Hi Elisa, I am surprised that hotel owners allow this to happen. How can it happen?

I guess these are hotel rooms that are more like apartments, where the occupiers are left alone.

Even then I would have thought that the hotel owners would check the rooms from time to time as they might become liable themselves under health regulations governing hotels and potential liability for common law nuisance.

I don’t think cat hoarders are bad people – just misguided and perhaps psychologically slightly unbalanced.

Michael Avatar

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