Heart Breaking News in Columbus!

22dogs and 24 cats are being rescued at this moment. They are being pulled out of a house in Columbus on the North east side. Most of them are sick and all of them are malnurished. The owner is in the hospital and hasn't been home for 3 days. All those poor animals! They are condemming the house. The owner was living in a car because of all the mess in the house! The news was showing some of the cats. Poor darlings! I'll keep everyone updated as soon as I hear more. Update :The Humane Society has set traps hoping to get the rest of the cats out. The smell was so bad the had to wear gas masks. They animals have not been fed for over a week at least.

Those poor babies! We will keep them in our prayers!

Moving this to the S.O.S. Forum

Oh my gosh. That is so sad. I hope they can get them well. I will be thinking of them.

How terrible, and how sad, all those poor babies, I hope they are all ok and find new loving homes very soon. Keep on with the updates for us please!

This sort of thing happens so often. There was a young woman in her 20's in my area who abandoned 25 cats some years ago. One of them, a beautiful black cat with all white paws, came for an occasional visit and meal. I called him Mittens and so wished he was mine. Eventually, he stopped coming. Months later I discovered that he was one of the lucky ones who happened to be outside. The house was full of dead cats and fleas. How can people be so cruel? I won't soon forget Mittens, who could have been mine. So tragic!

I'm waiting for more updates. I'm sure I'll see it on the news tonight. It is sadly really common in Columbus. We have had a lot of cases of "animal hoarders" here. At least they didn't find dead animals. They got there in the nick of time though. Her neighbors didn't even know she had dogs,they only saw a few cats in the windows, which makes me think that she never let the poor dogs outside. The Capital area Human Society is takeing good care of them and getting them well to be adopted.

17 Dead Animals Taken from Home from the Columbus Dispatch

Stuffed inside the refridgerator were 15 dead cats and dogs. Another dead dog was found on the bed in the master bedroom.

Captital area Humane Society employees donned haz mat suits yesterday to wade through the feces filled rooms, to retrieve 17 dead cats and dogs.

And since Tuesday, 53 live animals, many of them malnurished and covered in animal waste, have been carried from the 914 ft home.

A couple of open bags of food were left on the floor, but the animals had little water except for what seeped in through leaks in the basement.

The feces in Willey's house was 4 ft deep in some places. It is the worst case of animal hoarding the Humane Society Executive Director has witnessed in Franklin County.

"These dogs were coming out of this house still wagging their tails, still wanting to give us love, and a human being was allowing them to slowly die." he said.

Willey,55, had been sleeping in her car. She is hospitalized and neighbors say she is being treated for mental illness.

Neighbors describe her as a quiet and poliet woman who they frequently saw carrying bags and boxes into her backyard.
Those who lived nearby said they didn't know were the smell in the neighborhood was coming from and could not leave their windows open in the summer without catching a pungent whiff.

The live animals that were taken from the house cannot be adopted now because they are to sick and they are evidence in the investigation.

Some will be euthanized: others will be nursed back to health and eventually put up for adoption.

It will cost the humane society $30,000.00 to care for the animals during the next six months, the likely time until the case goes to court.

Nenners, This is heartbreaking. Her mental illness explains things. I am picturing the poor dogs wagging their tails in love, despite the fact that they were slowly starving to death. God bless them all. What a tragedy.

It is just sooo sad, as Jeanie said, a real tragedy
I just don't get though how her neighbours could not tell it was coming from her house?? I mean, if I lived next door to someone who's house was 4 foot deep in animal feces, I think I could tell it was coming from their house....

All the poor babies that have suffered so needlessly... I hope the women gets the help she sooo OBVIOUSLY needs

I don't understand why her neighbors didn't speak up sooner. They suspected there was something going on but no one took responciblity. There was even a Vet tech living in her neighborhood and she wondered how many animals the woman had! I'm sorry but I would have reported it if I was one of her neighbors. The sad thing is people don't want to get involved."It's somebody elses problem." She lived in that neighborhood for 17 yrs! Nobody even knows thier neighbors now a days.

Oh No Oh No Oh No Oh No Oh No Oh No Oh Noooooooo!!!!!!!

This literally made me sick. I actually went and threw up, and tears are now pouring as I write this. How tragic is this? How INCREDIBLE are the surviving animals - and the dogs wagging their tails? God Bless them. They are all in my prayers.

God, that is really awful.

I hope the ones that can be nursed back to health will eventually find a home with all the love they need and deserve.

I can't beleive the neighbours did nothing, surely even if they didn't think she had the animals inside the house they would have seen the woman sleeping in the car and should have reported it? If they had the house may have been visited a lot sooner and those poor animals wouldn't have had to suffer for so long.


Marie

Laurie, The picture in our minds is too terrible for us to consider. What is so upsetting to me is that, regardless of the injustice, whether to animals or people, we are afraid to "get involved." It's so much easier to say nothing, with the excuse that we don't want anyone to get in trouble!

The stench must have been awful. If the neighbors had reported this situation both the woman and her animals could have been treated a long time ago.

I haven't heard anything in the past few days. I'm sure they are going to charge her for animal cruelty. They have not done so yet. I can't help but feel sorry for her because of her mental illness. I think that the neighbors are just as accountable for what happened.

I agree, Nenners. The neighbors are guilty of neglect.

Ther is still no news as of late. I've been reading the newspaper but I haven't found any new info.

I found out tonight that when the landlady of my local pub left, she also left a Yorkshire terrier locked in an upstairs room - the new owners of the pub moved in a week later.... Luckily the poor dog was found alive and has now been adopted by a local family. I can't belive that "sane" people can do this type of thing to another living being. I hope she can be tracked down and made to pay for the suffering she caused to the poor little dog.

I walked past this pub every day that this poor dog was locked in, suffering, but didn't know. I feel like sh*t. (my apologies for my language)

This happened about 17 years ago. The brother of a friend of mine adopted a kitten but couldn't keep her because of a roommate's allergies. My friend's brother found a new home for the kitten with a family living in a rental house.

After a year the family moved away, and when the landlady went into the house to do some cleaning the next day the cat was still there. The landlady feed the cat daily, but didn't like cats and didn't spend any time with it. This went on for about a week. My friend just happened to have some relatives who were looking for a house at that time. When the relatives went to look at this rental house they saw the cat and realized they knew her. The landlady told them she was going to let the cat outside to fend for itself but the relatives interveined(sp?). They took the cat to my friend's house where she lived for another week and then I adopted her.

I'm so grateful, flimflam and Lorie, that both animals were discovered and found homes. Lorie, that cat must have been very special to you! Like you, I don't understand how anyone could abandon an animal in an almost hopeless situation like the ones you mentioned.