Animal Hoarding

[wolf]

Every now and again you hear a story on the news about an animal hoarder. Yesterday 46 cats and 16 dogs were removed from a home in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia. Many of the animals were sick, covered in urine and feces, some had difficulty walking. I've heard anywhere between $43,000 and $93,000 worth of fines for animal cruelty and the the cost of the clean up of the residence.

The homeowner was also apparently hoarding a feces-covered mentally ill woman in her basement.

Strangely, I didn't know the mentally ill woman.

But I did know the hoarder.

She's a former coworker.

Stench Leads Rescusers to House with 62 Pets, Feces Coated Woman

PERHAPS HER OWN early life as an unwanted orphan prompted Jerri Diane Sueck to take hordes of cats and dogs into her Northeast rowhouse, where animal-welfare agents seized them yesterday.

But officials of the Pennsylvania SPCA said Sueck, 51 - a schoolteacher known to be into animal rescue "big time," according to someone who knows her - carried it too far.

They said she was housing 46 cats and 16 dogs in conditions so bad that welfare workers gagged at the stench.

The smell was so bad a mental-health worker and one of the neighbors feared there might be a dead body inside the house.

[monster]

I'm glad you said former. sounds like she's become a Cat Orker now.

[Cloud]

I watch Animal Planet cops a lot, and they always show hoarders.

For most people, I'm sure it's inconceivable; and yet I'm scared to say I understand those people. I know -- know--how things can slide so out of control.

Those animals (and people) are living in horrible, cruel, conditions, and yet the hoarders invariably cry and fight anyone who wants to take even one of their animals.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by wolf

But I did know the hoarder.

She's a former coworker.

So, were you surprised to hear the news?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

So, were you surprised to hear the news?

Yeah, anything tip you off, Wolf? They couldn't have had a pleasant odor about them, that's for sure.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

So, were you surprised to hear the news?

Somewhat. The condition is what's surprising, not the numbers.

I think it's been at least four years since she's worked for the nuthouse. She used to be just a mildly goofy catlady ... usually had between 5 and 10 in the house that she took excellent care of, and placed into good homes. She even had a deal with a vet that would do physicals, shots, spayings or neuterings at just the cost of the meds. Someone in my office still has one of her cats, and I know that there were quite a few others.

We also didn't expect her tendency to take in strays would extend to people.

She had a rough childhood. Most people mean they were sent to bed without dinner a couple times. This lady's life is like something from a Lifetime movie.

[HungLikeJesus]

It seems that when ever I hear about an animal horder, it's always a woman. Men hoard cool stuff.

That reminds me of a joke:

A little girl walks in to a bank with a big jar of nickels that she wants to deposit.

The teller says, "My, little girl, did you hoard all of those nickels yourself?"

And the little girl says,

"No."





My sister whored half of them."

[JuancoRocks]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

It seems that when ever I hear about an animal horder, it's always a woman. Men hoard cool stuff.

That reminds me of a joke:

A little girl walks in to a bank with a big jar of nickels that she wants to deposit.

The teller says, "My, little girl, did you hoard all of those nickels yourself?"

And the little girl says,

"No."





My sister whored half of them."

[monster]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

Men hoard cool stuff.

Like dead bodies?

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by monster

Like dead bodies?

How did you know about the dead bodies?


This would have been more effective in a PM.

[monster]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

How did you know about the dead bodies?


This would have been more effective in a PM.

The evidence and demand is in the PM

[SamIam]

I once had a friend who cared for around 20 cats. She wouldn't let them inside, though. They lived in a big shed outside her house. Her catfood bill must have been alarming. She finally rounded them all up - not sure how - and got them all spayed or neutered. Happy ever after.

I think, among other obvious problems, hoarders have no boundaries. They just can't say "no" to yet another animal. It puzzles me that these people think they're doing the creatures any favor by keeping them under such conditions. Part of the pathology, I suppose.

[10MHz]

Originally Posted by monster

Like dead bodies?

Or just select parts.


From The Charlotte Observer

Human leg found in smoker
Amputee: 'I didn’t have anything else to secure it in'

CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR. and MARCIE YOUNG
cwootson@charlotteobserver.com | myoung@charlotteobserver.com
John Wood is trying to get from South Carolina to Catawba County today to retrieve his leg.

On Tuesday, a Maiden man found the lost appendage in a barbecue smoker he’d bought from a storage facility.

The man took the smoker home, looked inside, and saw something wrapped in paper. Inside, said Maiden Police Chief Troy Church, was Wood’s leg - the foot and most of the calf. Police are keeping it for Wood.

Doctors amputated Wood’s leg after a 2004 plane crash in Wilkes County that killed Wood’s father and injured two other family members, Wood said.

“When it was amputated, he told (the hospital) that he wanted that leg saved,” said his sister, Marin Wood-Lytle. “He wanted to keep the bone because he wanted to be buried as a full man.” But instead of a bone, a funeral home delivered the whole leg.

Wood put it in his freezer, his sister said. It became something of a joke when she came over. “I wouldn’t even get a Pepsi out of his refrigerator.”

But it stopped being funny when Wood got behind on his power bill and his electricity was shut off, the sister said.

Despite his family’s protests, Wood-Lytle said, her brother took the screen off his front porch, wrapped the leg inside and “tied it to two posts to let it dry. He was going to mummify it.”

Wood-Lytle said her brother was homeless for a while, living in his van, which he eventually lost.

Their mother put his belongings in a storage facility in Maiden, about 45 miles northwest of Charlotte, Wood-Lytle said, and paid for the first few months.

Reached Tuesday, Wood declined to answer most questions. He did say he put the leg in the smoker because “I didn’t have anything else to secure it in. There were no macabre intentions.”

Maiden Police talked with the storage facility’s owner, who was auctioning off items in the units of people who were behind on their payments. Wood said he asked the owner of the storage facility not to open his belongings and is trying to get from Greenville County, S.C. to get his things.

On Tuesday his sister was watching TV and saw the man who found her brother’s leg and thought “it just seems to never go away.”

She said that on Tuesday, an officer came by and said they had her brother’s leg.

“John had told them ‘how about just dropping it off at

[Cloud]

Not always a woman. Plenty of men hoarders on Animal Planet too.

(Cloud: trying to prevent the slide into crazy cat lady)

[TheMercenary]

Cat people are strange. No not you 1-3 owners, those 25+ owners of cats.