Hoarding - animals seized from old bus
Dartmouth, NS (CA)Incident Date: Wednesday, Sep 3, 2003
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged:
» Rhonda Rowsell
» Steven Kent
Rhonda Rowsell and her husband, Steven Kent, packed their four children, 18 cats, a Vietnamese potbellied pig, an iguana, a black Labrador retriever, a rabbit, and an Abyssinian guinea pig into a converted old school bus for a 10,000-kilometre road trip.
They were getting all the proper paperwork for their converted school bus/camper when the Halifax Regional Police got a call on Wednesday from a Crystal Drive resident complaining about the bus that had been left on the street since Tuesday. The person who called complaining was "concerned about the well being of the animals."
The family was visiting with friends who live on Crystal Drive. Children's Aid was called to the scene to check the children of Roswell (Nikita, 10; Stephen, 7; Tanika, 4; and Mikhail, 1). The children were all found to be in good health, no signs of abuse.
When animal control officers checked all the animals in the converted bus, they seized the animals and took them to Carnegy Animal Hospital for assessment.
SPCA President Judith Gass said, "They were basically all flea infested. The living conditions were unacceptable. Some of the cats had upper respiratory infections that were so bad their eyes were 'crusted shut.' When one animal got that, that would just spread like the fires in B.C. through that cat population."
Some of the animals were loose and some were in cages. There were two litter boxes for 18 cats.
Rowsell had been trying to give away their 14 kittens.
Gass from the SPCA said the decision hadn't been made whether they would get their animals back.
Rowsell said they would go on their cross Canada trip whether they got their animals back or not. References
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