Hoarding 77 cats, 14 rabbits and at least 65 chickens and ducks Adger, AL (US) Incident Date: Tuesday, Dec 31, 2002 County: Jefferson Local Map: available Disposition: Not Charged Persons of Interest: » Ellen Atchison - Alleged » Sunny Atchison - Alleged

Case ID: 719 Classification: Hoarding Animal: cat, chicken, rabbit (pet), bird (other farmed) View more cases in AL (US) Login to Watch this Case

Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Greg Zeigler said authorities last month alone took eight dogs, 77 cats, 14 rabbits and at least 65 chickens and ducks. In February 2000, 12 dogs and 71 cats were taken. In October 2000, 30 cats, four kittens and four dogs were taken from the Atchison home, Zeigler said.� Sheriff's Deputy Howard Thompson said he also confiscated the bodies of eight cats found in the Atchisons' freezer.

But the Atchisons kept replacing the confiscated animals, mostly by trapping feral cats, collecting strays dropped in the neighborhood, and buying or adopting others.�

Ellen Atchison, 37, said she has obsessive-compulsive disorder, "but it is not as bad as hers," she said, referring to her mother. Ellen takes medication for her OCD, depression and her fear of people.

The Atchison mobile home in Adger is now vacant. Sunny Atchison is in Michigan with Ellen's brother. Ellen has decided not to return there. Ellen is living in her light blue Chevrolet Corsica with her cat, Snowball. She receives an $800 disability check monthly she also has access to her mother's $1,600 monthly check and refuses to go back to a shelter.

The living conditions inside the 1971-model mobile home were worse than inhumane, Zeigler said. Cat feces and urine covered the floor. Ellen said the smell was so strong "it would bring tears to your eyes." Scores of roaches crawled up and down the walls. Garbage littered the place. The trailer had no power.

Ellen said she had to see a doctor to extract a roach that had crawled into her ear while she slept. She then started sleeping with cotton in her ears. Neighbor Steve Echols said he once tried to go inside the trailer to do some work for the Atchisons. "I stayed in there about 30 seconds, and I came out sick," he said. "Ungodly is what it was."

The hoarding tendencies in Sunny started to appear after a near-fatal accident in 1990, and grew worse with the death of her husband five years later. Neighbors said Sunny was a feisty woman who dared cars to hit her as she picked up aluminum cans along roadsides. One day a car did hit her. She was unconscious for a week, according to Ellen.

"It started snowballing then," Ellen said of the collection of animals. "Dad would always put his foot down about how many cats we could have." The mother and daughter went from just cats to chickens, ducks, pot-bellied pigs, goats and dogs. Echols said the neighbors got together and shot the pigs because "they were rooting up everyone's yards."

Ellen at times used traps to catch feral cats because she wanted to take care of them. She said the cats did scratch and bite her. "Some of the cats we took out of there were wild beyond belief," said Terra Cotromano, founder of the nonprofit TEARS, The Emergency Animal Rescue Service.

"I knew we had too many animals, and I wanted to get rid of some of them, but my mother would not let me," Ellen said. "I was not happy there, but it was a roof over my head. I stayed because I promised my father that I would take care of my mother."

Sheriff's deputies picked up Sunny at least twice on involuntary commitment orders, authorities said. Last month, she was placed in HealthSouth Metro West. There was a hearing in Jefferson County Probate Court last month to determine if Sunny should be committed. She was released on condition that she go north to live with her son.

"The day we took the animals (Dec. 13), Ellen was left on the side of the road crying," Cotromano said. "Everything she knew had been taken away and no human agency would help." Cotromano said TEARS has twice put Ellen up in a motel for a week at a time.

Wanda Heard, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Health Department, said the health department had been called to the Atchison home twice in the past five years. "We have gotten complaints about sanitation and about the yard," Heard said. "Someone went out, but didn't see anything wrong. Apparently they had cleaned up."

As far as filth inside the home, Heard said, "The health department can't regulate what goes on inside the home. We just can't go inside someone's house." She also said the health department does not have the authority to condemn housing.

Mike Gipson, spokesman for the state Department of Human Resources, said he could not talk about specific cases such as the Atchisons'. But he did say, "We can't just go in and take action with adults without a court order. Adults have rights."

Probate Judge Alan King said mental illness is a lifelong battle. "It's not like getting the flu. It's not something you cure in a couple of weeks." King presided over Sunny's latest commitment hearing. He said he could not talk specifically about the case.

Cheryl Jackson, director of the anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder program at UAB, said hoarding animals is a type of the disorder.

Animal rescue workers fear that Ellen and Sunny's pattern of hoarding animals will continue. Shortly after leaving the Birmingham shelter in which she was most recently placed, Ellen adopted a fluffy white cat named Snowball from the Bessemer Humane Society.

Society officials, after learning of her troubles, said they want the cat back. "I care more about that cat than I do myself," Ellen said on a recent sunny day as she stood outside her car.

TEARS put Ellen up in a Fairfield motel last week so she would not live in her car during the recent cold weather. Her stay ended Saturday. Ellen boarded her cat while she was in the motel. Dry cat food was on the sidewalk just outside her room. She was trying to befriend strays that hung out there.

She promised that she will not move back into the dirty trailer. She tried that during the recent cold snap and found that it was "colder in the trailer than it was outside." She says she visits every couple of days to leave food for cats still inside.

Ellen's shirt is covered with cat hair. She has plates of cat food in the back seat of her car. She says she will live in her car until she can get an apartment.

Ellen said she does not plan to stockpile more cats. "They told me that if I got more than four animals, I would go to jail," she said. "I plan on having no more than two cats and maybe a dog."

Neighborhood Map

For more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.

Back to Top

Add this case to:

Del.icio.us

|

Digg

|

Furl

|

References

The Birmingham News

« AL State Animal Cruelty Map

Not sure what these icons mean? Click here.

Note: Classifications and other fields should not be used to determine what specific charges the suspect is facing or was convicted of - they are for research and statistical purposes only. The case report and subsequent updates outline the specific charges. Charges referenced in the original case report may be modified throughout the course of the investigation or trial, so case updates, when available, should always be considered the most accurate reflection of charges.

For more information regarding classifications and usage of this database, please visit the database notes and disclaimer.