Hoarding - 10 cats seized, 10 more dead
San Antonio, TX (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Nov 1, 2006
County: Bexar
Disposition: Alleged
Abuser names unreleased
Animal Care Services removed 10 cats on Nov 1 from a filthy North Side apartment. Another cat was found cowering in a bush beside the swimming pool at the apartment's complex.
They were the lucky ones.
Seven other cats were found dead, four inside the flea-infested apartment in the 9900 block of Powhatan and three more two stories below an open window.
Investigators were uncertain how the animals had died and were unable to perform autopsies because the cats were too badly decomposed, officials said.
"Maybe the blood was literally sucked out of them (by fleas). We don't know," said Eddie Wright, animal cruelty investigator for the city.
Officials on Wednesday had not located the apartment's occupant, but her name was printed on mail mixed with garbage, clothes and debris that lay at least a half-foot high throughout the fetid apartment.
"It is a classic hoarding case," Wright said.
Possible charges would be determined within a week, he added.
Neighbors said the woman had lived in the apartment for years but recently moved into another home with a boyfriend. She would return occasionally to feed the cats, they said.
On Nov 1, no water was set out for the cats. The air conditioner had been turned off, and animal feces covered the concrete floor and walls, officials said. A rank smell hung in the air outside the apartment.
"She asked me over a year ago what she should do with those kittens," said Jim Biggers, a resident of the complex.
Amid the squalor, officials found a tag that indicated one of the cats had received its vaccinations for rabies in September, said Lisa Norwood, spokeswoman for Animal Care Services.
The surviving cats will be evaluated by city officials and then euthanized or put up for adoption, she said. References« TX State Animal Cruelty Map
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