Behind closed doors
“Hi there, my neighbour has been harbouring stray cats over the winter and now that it’s warm out, I guess he just set them loose? I’ve counted at least six cats in the yard at once, several intact males and at least two pregnant females. How can I help get these cats rounded up and taken to a safe place?”
June 2020. That message was the catalyst for the worst rescue situation I’ve ever experienced.
a concerned resident
There had always been homeless cats on this block of Garfield, but never this many in such a short time frame. It was alarming for the entire area. The resident who messaged WLCA described the home, where the cats had come from, as a “junk yard” and for some reason they started coming to their place, next door. They contacted the Winnipeg Humane Society (WHS) to report a welfare concern and although animal protection came out, the only animal they took with them was a dog in need of care. I spoke to them to find out what had happened and why they hadn’t dealt with the cats. With the pandemic in full-swing, they didn’t have the resources to deal with the numbers.
Had no one stepped up, this block would have seen hundreds of cats by the end of the year. No one had an accurate count of the number of cats that came from the home, but there were a lot. A neighbor managed to scoop up a pregnant female who had four kittens in her home. She kept the mother and one kitten, and found good homes for the other three, with friends. It took teamwork to get this situation under control. While I did much of the rescue work, several residents helped me with various aspects of the job. The real estate agent allowed for the longest time frame possible to do the work and WHS scheduled every cat, and kitten, in for surgery or foster placement.
A real estate agent
I contacted the real estate agent in charge of selling this nightmare. He indicated his client had moved and put the cats, and a box of kittens, in an open shed in the back yard. I got in my car and drove out to see if I could find the kittens. The yard was full of discarded belongings and debris. It looked like the house had just been tipped over and dumped out. There was trash everywhere and an inoperable car in the back yard that was doubling for a cat shelter. I could see no sign of the wee kittens from the shed. This was going to be a challenge. While I was rummaging around the yard, I managed to find two older kittens who were quite friendly. I scooped them up and took them to WHS.
The agent met me at the home and let me in through the front door into the living room – the only room in the home where I didn’t need full personal protection equipment (PPE). Although the windows were open, there was an indescribable stench emanating from the home. I wasn’t sure how anyone could have been living in this environment or how he was going to sell this place. On the living room floor were pillows, blankets and a few food and water dishes for the cats – no one to refill them – but they got one last meal. In the open HVAC vents were packages of rodent bait. This was going to be bad.
From the living room, I could see the bathroom. It would be hard to describe without an accompanying photo. I had hoped to be able to wash my hands while I was there, but there was no way I was going to step into that room for any reason unless there was a cat stuck in there.
Someone lived here. How could anyone live in this environment? As I walked into the kitchen, it just got worse. There were photos of happy people, and pets, on the fridge door. The sink and counters were piled high with filthy dishes from who knows when? An abundance of flies and other insects were crawling over them and all over the floor. I couldn’t even imagine the cats being healthy, let alone, the kittens. The amount of feces everywhere was overwhelming.
I knew I had to dive in, get the job done and get out, for my safety, health and sanity.
No pain, no gain
I was able to get a key from the agent so I could come, and go, as I needed – I had my work cut out for me – my deadline was mid-August. First task was to find the kittens who had been in the shed. There were two females in the living room who were not eager to come and interact. I waited around to see if they would lead me to the kittens, but they left the home instead. A short time later, I started hearing cries. They were coming from the kitchen – the most disgusting environment I’d ever seen.
The rusted and moldy appliances were clean in comparison to the floor. There were rodent droppings and larder beetles everywhere and those kittens were under the stove, behind the drawer. I pulled my hood up to keep my hair from touching anything.
Thankfully, I had brought cardboard, a sheet and a carrier with me. I was already in full PPE but didn’t want to have to discard my jumpsuit so soon. Carefully, I pulled the oven drawer out and set it aside. Mounded up under the stove, at the wall, were nine, three to four-week-old kittens. One-by-one they went into a carrier with a clean blanket. I felt so bad for these wee ones, but they were plump and didn’t have any visible signs of illness. Once they were all accounted for, we were off to WHS.
After an exam, WHS sent the kittens to foster homes. I knew they were in good hands and hoped they would all make it. With the environment so filthy, and full of mold, I thought they might have lung problems. At first, a few weren’t eating well and I was told it didn’t look good for them. I had a meltdown outside over that. I just couldn’t think about them not making it after all they’d been through. But in the end, with extra help, they all made it to adoptions.
My next order of business was to search for more kittens, so I went back to the home and scoured every room. In a closet, I found another litter of five kittens with their mother. She was shy, but docile, so I picked her up, put her in a carrier and placed the kittens in with her. Back to WHS I went with the little family. They went to a foster home who worked with them until they were all ready for adoption. All those kittens did very well, and so did mom. A nice gentleman adopted mom as an indoor cat.
I returned to the home and put out my trail camera at my feeding station, so I could get an accurate count of the number of adults that needed help. While I was going back and forth from the yard, I noticed an older-looking cat who had dirty ears. He was going to be my first adult as the others weren’t as friendly and would take more work. WHS was going to take two cats per week until they were all taken care of.
I arrived the next day and the older cat came wandering out from under the back stairs, so I picked him up and took him to WHS. He was the only one for the day. Kingsley had a tattoo that traced back to the person who abandoned him. He was suffering from an ear infection, was overweight and needed his teeth cleaned. They gave him a weight-loss diet and a month later, he was able to go up for adoption. It wasn’t long before he had a new home.
I continued trying to trap the dozen, or so, adults who were frequenting the home. There was no indication if they had all been from that home, or if some of them lived elsewhere and were visiting. A black cat, who decided the activity at the home was too much for him, stopped showing up. One of the cats liked sleeping in the broken down car. It was cleaner than any of the rooms in the home. Up to this point, I hadn’t been down in the basement of the home, but I wanted to board up the broken window so the cats could only enter, and exit, through the kitchen window. That way, they would have to walk by my camera in order to eat.
Slowly, I was able to get a few of them while they were in the home. The others weren’t as easy as they spent most of their time outside and ate at different feeding stations throughout the community. But perseverance is my middle name. Anyone who knows me, knows I don’t give up easily.
The Bowels of hell
One day, I received a frantic phone call from the real estate agent who was hearing faint kitten cries coming from the basement and thought they were in the walls. He could hear them loudest in a basement bedroom but couldn’t pinpoint their location. Up until now, I hadn’t heard any more kittens, so I was concerned about where they might be. My first experience with the basement wasn’t a good one. It was early in the process and I had a peek down the stairs. The stench was toxic. It literally made my eyes burn. How could kittens even be alive down there?
I drove out to the home and put on my rubber boots, spray suit and full-face respirator. It was the one place I really didn’t want to go. At least the lights were functional down there. I could see the black, sopping wet cardboard, on the floor, from the top of the stairs. So thankful I had my own respirator.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the squishing sounds coming from my feet almost made me sick. Surely, I wasn’t going to take those boots back home after this. There was a room to my right that I didn’t want to go into, but I did anyway – the room where the cats had been getting in, and out of, through that broken window I boarded up. It was the saddest, scariest room in the whole house. There were three wire kennels in there with dog dishes and other items. I couldn’t help but think about how many dogs, or cats, may have been in there over the years.
Again, there were layers, upon layers of cardboard and feces, mold and water. It was a scene from a horror show. WHS had removed a dog from the home, who was in dire need of care. Sadly, the dog had cancer and didn’t make it. Who knows how many days, weeks or months she spent in one of those kennels? I was having a really hard time with this place.
The realtor heard the kittens in the last room on the right. To my surprise, it was fairly clean and free of obvious mold, and the carpet was dry. I hoped those kittens weren’t in the walls because I didn’t want to start knocking holes in them to find out what else was in there. After a few minutes in the room, I heard tiny, faint meows. I looked in the closet among the cardboard, paper and abandoned clothing. Nothing. I listened some more and on the floor was an old, yellow, nylon laundry hamper on its side. It was full of stuffed toys. Carefully, I started removing them and at the back, huddled against a teddy bear, were three, two week-old kittens. They were so tiny. I didn’t want to take them from their mother, but that place was a death trap.
While I was gathering them, their mother showed up. She was barely a year old herself, fully feral and wanted no part of what I was about. Back up the stairs she ran. With those wee ones contained, I made my way to WHS again, to drop them off for foster. They, too, went to an amazing foster home and although they were so young, also made it to adoptions. Adopted last, Skittles went to an amazing home who had previously adopted a WLCA scaredy cat.
A few more scars
With the help of a resident, and WLCA supporter, we managed to trap the remaining cats into August. Two of them, a male and a female, went to a rural home to be barn cats. It was the Taj Mahal of barns, complete with riding arena stables and a couple of cats who could show them the ropes. I returned one cat to his community, as he was very fond of the area, while another female became a WHS barn buddy.
The cat in this photo was the only one who didn’t make it. He was feral, and very stressed in shelter, but so serene outside. It really wasn’t fair. I didn’t have a barn home for him, no open fosters, the community couldn’t handle an extra cat and WHS was out of options. They didn’t want to keep a terrified cat, in captivity, for an extended period when they weren’t at staffing capacity. The pandemic threw a wrench into many things. Along with the victories, there’s plenty of heartache in this line of “work.” I always try to save them all. We all do.
epilogue
I don’t regret taking on this situation, however, I will never do another one like it. It took me months to decompress from the stress of the whole thing and longer to feel healthy again. Every cat I saved was worth the effort, but I’m sad one cat eventually lost his life because of bad timing. Hoarding takes the lives of animals, the mental health of rescuers and the sanity of communities. I was happy to finally be able to walk away from that place and never look back. Twenty-eight kittens and 8 cats found places to call home, in two months, during a pandemic. Amazing.
I am not an expert in hoarding, but in my literature review, it is clear that science still doesn’t agree on whether or not animal hoarding is a separate psychiatric illness, or a subset of the hoarding of material items. It is included in the DSM-5 as a subset, however, there are arguments to be made for a separate classification. Animal hoarding studies are extremely limited and those available are often the result of seizures by authorities and not subject to specific guidelines on information collection, and processing. If you are interested in the subject, and are willing to read a retrospective study, “Animal Hoarding: A Systematic Review” is interesting and illustrates just how little, usable, information there is on this subject. If you would like more information in “easy read” format, the ASPCA has some concise, relevant, hoarding information for the public.
Oh, and the house? With the amount of mold on the walls, on the floor, the feces everywhere, the insects, rodents and the embedded filth – I was certain it would have been torn down. But no. It was sold for $150K and renovated. But that’s another conversation.