Animal Abuse: Hoarding - 93 cats seized - Chester, NJ | Pet-Abuse.Com Animal Cruelty Database

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Case ID: 15376

Classification: Hoarding

Animal: cat

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Attorneys/Judges

Defense(s):	Larry Fox
Judge(s):	John E. Mulhern

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Hoarding - 93 cats seized
Chester, NJ (US)

Incident Date: Thursday, Mar 26, 2009
County: Morris

Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Wanda Oughton

Case Updates: 2 update(s) available

Animal authorities today said they found nearly 80 cats living inside a Chester Township home, worth close to $1 million, that was so toxic it might have to be condemned because of mounting animal urine and feces that have destroyed the interior.

Armed with a warrant, officials from the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, along with the Morris County Sheriffs Office and the Chester Township police department, responded at 4:45 p.m. to the residence of Wanda Oughton, who they say failed to provide an adequate living area for the cats and one dog.

SPCA Superintendent Frank Rizzo said Oughton, who refused to leave the home, is expected to be charged Friday with 80 counts of animal cruelty.

"There was feces everywhere, and the smell was horrific," Rizzo said. "This is not a place you can live in. I don't know how anyone could survive in that."

Each count is punishable with a maximum fine of $1,000. Rizzo said authorities are not seeking jail time, though it remains a possibility.

Officials visited the same house about two years ago to inspect a similar situation involving 12 cats, he said.

Twenty cats and two kittens were rushed in animal carriers to a Ledgewood veterinarian for evaluation tonight. The remaining cats will stay in the house with the owner until SPCA officials find alternate living arrangements for them, Rizzo said.

All 12 rooms of the two-story house on Farm Road were laden with feces and urine, authorities said. In some areas, piles of excrement reached as high as 2 feet. In one of the bathtubs, a mound of feces measuring 8 inches thick coated the bottom, authorities said.

The local fire department was called to ventilate the home, and investigators had to don breathing masks before entering the residence.

Anonymous complaints about the cats began filtering in to SPCA offices last week, following summonses issued by the township health department and zoning board for two abandoned cars in the driveway, as well as garbage left on the side of the house.

Rizzo said people sometimes become so accustomed to living in such conditions that they become immune to it.

Case Updates

The woman whose feces-strewn home was overrun with 93 cats pleaded not guilty to 186 counts of animal cruelty, authorities said today.

Wanda Oughton entered a not-guilty plea to the 93 criminal and 93 civil complaints accusing her of failing to provide proper shelter for each of her cats. The letter, which township officials received today, waives Oughton's preliminary hearing, which had been scheduled for Thursday evening.

Oughton entered the plea through her attorney, Larry Fox, who did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Police on March 26 removed 22 of the 93 cats, which were found in rooms covered with feces throughout the million-dollar home at 22 Farm Road. Pictures provided by the SPCA depicted floors, couches and tables littered with waste, while microwave and conventional ovens were crammed with garbage.

Chester Township officials previously said Oughton had begun an extensive cleaning project in her home. Oughton, two adult children and 71 cats are still living there.

It is unclear whether municipal court Judge John E. Mulhern will respond Thursday to a separate complaint filed by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to remove the remaining cats.

Source: Daily Record - April 8, 2009
Update posted on Apr 8, 2009 - 3:28PM

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Officials are preparing to file 186 civil and criminal animal cruelty complaints as early as today against a Chester Township woman whose fecal-covered home was found to be overrun with 93 cats that had virtually destroyed the interior of the structure.

Agents of the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said they will file charges in municipal court, two counts per cat, while a health official assesses what action, if any, to take regarding the million-dollar, two-story brick house owned by Wanda Oughton.

"It was horrible to go in there," said SPCA spokesman Matt Stanton, referring to his agency's Thursday afternoon entry, via search warrant, into Oughton's home. "Our people had to fill their nostrils with Vick's VapoRub and wear masks. They could only go in for five minutes at a time and had to come out to get fresh air again."

Furniture was ripped up and trash was lying all over the "toxic home," he said. The 12-room house was filled with feline urine and fecal matter, and at least half of the cats were feral and breeding. They ruled the home at the end of a cul-de-sac in an upscale Chester Township neighborhood in western Morris County.

Piles of excrement reached two-feet high, the bottom of one bathtub had a mound of feces eight-inches, said authorities.

Oughton, however, has refused to leave, remaining there with her 20-year-old daughter and refusing to talk to reporters yesterday who approached the house, where horrid odors seeped from the closed doors and windows

"Go away. Go away. We have a call into the police," two women yelled through the front door.

Oughton has lived in Chester Township since 2005, according to property records, but neighbors did not know her. She told authorities her husband had died and a son was away from home, in college. Court documents show the house was up for sheriff's sale last year, but Oughton sub-divided the property, sold a parcel and paid back taxes in late January.

Animal authorities said they found nearly 80 cats living inside the Chester Township home, worth close to $1 million, that was so toxic it might have to be condemned because of mounting animal urine and feces that have destroyed the interior.

SPCA officers, accompanied by police, have removed 22 cats and said they hope to take out more in the next several days. The cats were taken to the Golub Animal Hospital in Roxbury, and the SPCA hopes to find shelters for others.

"On April 9, when this case goes to court, we will ask for an order to let rescue people take the other cats. We also will ask for Ms. Oughton to under go a mental health assessment," said SPCA Lt. Rick Yocum. "The state's shelters are already overloaded, and if we took the rest of those cats now, they would likely end up being euthanized and that's not what we are about."

Chester Township Health Officer Diane Trocchio said she does not have authority to condemn the house unless there is a public health issue. But she intends to reach out to the family and see what can be done to help them clean it up.

"There is a balance between a person's privacy and personal choices and the public's right to get involved," said Trocchio. "This is a relatively recent situation and I am trying to unravel it."

Limits on the number of animals a person may keep vary from town to town, and some have no restrictions, but the NJSPCA steps in when conditions become substandard for the animals.

"You can have as many cats as you can properly care for, if you have enough water, shelter, food, veterinary care and clean living space," said Yocum, adding that "hoarding" animals usually ends in disaster.

"There are a wide range of reasons people do it. Some have something traumatic in their lives, and compensate by doing this. Others start out trying to help care for animals, and it gets way out of control. In this case, this was obviously something going on for a while," he added.

The Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University contends " hoarding" remains poorly understood, but is associated with a wide variety of psychological disorders. It crosses all socio-economic boundaries, but is more frequent among older, isolated, socio-economically disadvantaged women.

New Jersey regularly encounters the problem. In 2007, Bergen County authorities had to dig cats out of the walls of a feces-filled Saddle River mansion where they found 62 live cats, about two dozen dead ones and the wood floors buckling from urine. In 2005, 48 live cats and more than 200 dead ones were found at an East Orange home owned by the operator of a Manhattan rescue organization.

But it's not always cats and dogs. In 2006, the NJSPCA removed more than 135 colorful budgerigars or budgies, a type of parakeet, freely fluttering and defecating in the East Orange apartment of a retired woman.

Source: The Star Ledger - March 27, 2009
Update posted on Mar 30, 2009 - 5:02AM

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Hoarding - 93 cats seizedChester, NJ (US)

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Hoarding - 93 cats seized
Chester, NJ (US)