I need some advice on how to approach my mother in law about her cat hoarding. I've tried over the past several years to open her eyes to her situation but she either is in denial or refuses to believe that it IS a problem. I worry that she is going to end up like one of those 'crazy cat people' you see on TV with dozens and dozens of uncared for cats in her home with a camera crew and the SPCA rescuing all of her cats.
She's always had a few cats which is awesome. I love cats myself, I don't think there will ever be a time in which I don't own a cat or two. But I take very good care of my cat. He goes to the vet regularly, no fleas or parasites, he eats only holistic foods, his litterbox is cleaned out by my husband who is like a bloodhound with the thing. He checks it about 15 times a day. Anyhow enough about my cat, he isn't the issue.
My husband and I live with his mother since his father passed away and left his house to my husband. Shes unable to work or support herself so we are here taking care of her, most likely forever now. When she moved into this house about 7 years ago she brought 3 cats with her. Her husband brought his 3 cats. So they had 6 cats in the house. After about 2 months in the new house they found a litter of kittens in the backyard with no mommy cat. They waited an entire day and when no mommy cat ever came around they gathered up the 4 kittens and took them inside. The kittens were left inside of a cardboard box for WEEKS. My in-laws insisted that they were just babies and needed as much dark and quiet time as possible. Now I'm not really one to argue with my elders, let alone my inlaws! So inside the cardboard box they remained. There was also a large towel over the top of the box so no light would go in and they could 'rest'. After they were about 5 weeks old I told them "look, these kittens need to be socialized if you want to re-home them when they are old enough, they are scared of everything right now".
Well that landed them out of the cardboard box and into a toddlers playpen, again with a large peice of wood over the top so they couldn't 'escape' and get lost in the house. At least they could see now, but they were still terrified of -everything-. Then by the time they were about 10 weeks old they were finally allowed out of the playpen and to have some 'free roam' of the house, which was confinded to the kitchen. The decision was made to keep all 4 kittens because 1. they didn't want to seperate the babies and 2. the previous 6 cats were somewhat old and they wanted 'replacements' for them. So 10 cats it is.
Then the ferals started to show up. My in-laws were very very insistant on saving these feral cats. There were two that just would not leave, most likely because there is food and water outside in the front yard for the cats, so every stray in the neighborhood comes here. So they finally caught and brought the ferals in. Now the ferals were loose in the house and hiding, going to the bathroom everywhere, spraying, etc. Oh yeah the 10 previous cats were not neutered yet so you can imaging the spray mania that went on for WEEKS. One of the ferals was extremely ILL. I begged my in-laws to get rid of it or take it to a vet for proper care. The animal was suffering. They finally did take the one to the vet after it suffered in the house for about 3 months. The vet decided to put it down immediately because of the extremely bad condition of the animal. It didn't have any skin left on it's back legs, it had been attacked by a dog and had wounds that were never treated and abcessed horribly.
Well after a while another 2 cats showed up, which were eventually trapped and brought into the house of cat doom. The neighbor was angry, too many cats. He started to trap the cats to take them to the shelter. He even went as far as to tell my in-laws "don't worry about your cats, we're going to find good homes for all of them" which just infuriated my in-laws.
So fast forward a few years. They were up to 16 cats. Now lets talk about the condition of these animals. They are fed twice a day, fed as in cans of wet food are mixed with dry and left out for 12 hours to get nasty and fly covered, then it's done all over again. There are 4 litter boxes for 16 cats and they are only dumped out once a week and new litter put in. I cannot describe the SMELL of this house, it's incredible. The cats use the entire house as their bathroom and my in-laws were OK with that. (???????)
When you walk into the house it's like playing twister to avoid stepping in cat vomit or feces, you can't get around the urine, it is literally everywhere. I had to stop sitting down in my in-laws house. I kept telling them "if the health dept. comes in here your house will be condemned!!" but they insisted "why, we are just rescuing poor helpless cats".
Then my father in law started STEALING cats and bringing them home. What?? He would bring home a new cat every few weeks and it would have some story that was along the lines of "well I saw this guy kicking it around and decided to give it a better home so I waited for him to go inside and I caught the cat and saved it". Oh so you stole it? He would never admit to that, just that he 'saved' it from a bad life. And brought it to the house of cat doom.
Ok so fast foreward again to current times. My father in law passed away and left his son his cat ruined house that his mother still lives in. Things are getting bad. There is no money, the house is in foreclosure, we're all moving to a trailer soon and there are still 9 cats (that pee and poop everywhere). She doesn't clean the litterboxes expect maybe once a week still, and she still does the 12 hour feeding shifts with canned food left out to rot. I can't even begin to deal with the FLYS and MAGGOTS all over the kitchen due to nasty filth everywhere. I am BEGGING her to let me re-home her cats! She can't even entertain the idea. She insists that her cats are all she has left and she will not part with a single one of them. It's unhealthy! I even told her that I refuse to have a child in this household no matter where it moves because it is disgusting. My husband and I are trying to have a child but I've put it on hold because I will not bring another life, human or animal, into this house of doom! She doesn't understand this. Shes like "oh, that's sad!! I want grandkids". Well if we didn't live with her we'd have kids already. Other than the filthy house, overpopulation of cats and lack of room here, shes a chain smoker that goes through several packs a day! I've all but begged her to at least smoke in her bathroom or her bedroom with the door shut as I do not smoke and the smoke makes me sick and irritates allergies. No winning there, I think she'd get rid of her cats before she stopped smoking or at least took other around her into consideration.
So anyway, I'm leaving this as is, it's a long long story and I think that pretty much summed it up. So here is my question:
How on Earth do I get her to give up some of her cats? Should I? What should I do?? Arg, I love her and I love her cats but this has got to stop.
And the animal control has been contacted, they've come out and given her notices that say "you can only have 3 animals of any given species on your property". She does a remarkable job of hiding her cats so that when they come back around to check they are all inside and shes just the sweetest lady that the animal control people love. They have never been inside the house, though I'm starting to wish they did.
Should I report my own mother in law? Would that put MY pets into danger? I have a cat and dog that are well cared for and don't go into her house at all (we live in an attached house on the exsisting home) and they are extremely well cared for.
Any advice would be helpful, I'm at my wits end.
She's always had a few cats which is awesome. I love cats myself, I don't think there will ever be a time in which I don't own a cat or two. But I take very good care of my cat. He goes to the vet regularly, no fleas or parasites, he eats only holistic foods, his litterbox is cleaned out by my husband who is like a bloodhound with the thing. He checks it about 15 times a day. Anyhow enough about my cat, he isn't the issue.
My husband and I live with his mother since his father passed away and left his house to my husband. Shes unable to work or support herself so we are here taking care of her, most likely forever now. When she moved into this house about 7 years ago she brought 3 cats with her. Her husband brought his 3 cats. So they had 6 cats in the house. After about 2 months in the new house they found a litter of kittens in the backyard with no mommy cat. They waited an entire day and when no mommy cat ever came around they gathered up the 4 kittens and took them inside. The kittens were left inside of a cardboard box for WEEKS. My in-laws insisted that they were just babies and needed as much dark and quiet time as possible. Now I'm not really one to argue with my elders, let alone my inlaws! So inside the cardboard box they remained. There was also a large towel over the top of the box so no light would go in and they could 'rest'. After they were about 5 weeks old I told them "look, these kittens need to be socialized if you want to re-home them when they are old enough, they are scared of everything right now".
Well that landed them out of the cardboard box and into a toddlers playpen, again with a large peice of wood over the top so they couldn't 'escape' and get lost in the house. At least they could see now, but they were still terrified of -everything-. Then by the time they were about 10 weeks old they were finally allowed out of the playpen and to have some 'free roam' of the house, which was confinded to the kitchen. The decision was made to keep all 4 kittens because 1. they didn't want to seperate the babies and 2. the previous 6 cats were somewhat old and they wanted 'replacements' for them. So 10 cats it is.
Then the ferals started to show up. My in-laws were very very insistant on saving these feral cats. There were two that just would not leave, most likely because there is food and water outside in the front yard for the cats, so every stray in the neighborhood comes here. So they finally caught and brought the ferals in. Now the ferals were loose in the house and hiding, going to the bathroom everywhere, spraying, etc. Oh yeah the 10 previous cats were not neutered yet so you can imaging the spray mania that went on for WEEKS. One of the ferals was extremely ILL. I begged my in-laws to get rid of it or take it to a vet for proper care. The animal was suffering. They finally did take the one to the vet after it suffered in the house for about 3 months. The vet decided to put it down immediately because of the extremely bad condition of the animal. It didn't have any skin left on it's back legs, it had been attacked by a dog and had wounds that were never treated and abcessed horribly.
Well after a while another 2 cats showed up, which were eventually trapped and brought into the house of cat doom. The neighbor was angry, too many cats. He started to trap the cats to take them to the shelter. He even went as far as to tell my in-laws "don't worry about your cats, we're going to find good homes for all of them" which just infuriated my in-laws.
So fast forward a few years. They were up to 16 cats. Now lets talk about the condition of these animals. They are fed twice a day, fed as in cans of wet food are mixed with dry and left out for 12 hours to get nasty and fly covered, then it's done all over again. There are 4 litter boxes for 16 cats and they are only dumped out once a week and new litter put in. I cannot describe the SMELL of this house, it's incredible. The cats use the entire house as their bathroom and my in-laws were OK with that. (???????)
When you walk into the house it's like playing twister to avoid stepping in cat vomit or feces, you can't get around the urine, it is literally everywhere. I had to stop sitting down in my in-laws house. I kept telling them "if the health dept. comes in here your house will be condemned!!" but they insisted "why, we are just rescuing poor helpless cats".
Then my father in law started STEALING cats and bringing them home. What?? He would bring home a new cat every few weeks and it would have some story that was along the lines of "well I saw this guy kicking it around and decided to give it a better home so I waited for him to go inside and I caught the cat and saved it". Oh so you stole it? He would never admit to that, just that he 'saved' it from a bad life. And brought it to the house of cat doom.
Ok so fast foreward again to current times. My father in law passed away and left his son his cat ruined house that his mother still lives in. Things are getting bad. There is no money, the house is in foreclosure, we're all moving to a trailer soon and there are still 9 cats (that pee and poop everywhere). She doesn't clean the litterboxes expect maybe once a week still, and she still does the 12 hour feeding shifts with canned food left out to rot. I can't even begin to deal with the FLYS and MAGGOTS all over the kitchen due to nasty filth everywhere. I am BEGGING her to let me re-home her cats! She can't even entertain the idea. She insists that her cats are all she has left and she will not part with a single one of them. It's unhealthy! I even told her that I refuse to have a child in this household no matter where it moves because it is disgusting. My husband and I are trying to have a child but I've put it on hold because I will not bring another life, human or animal, into this house of doom! She doesn't understand this. Shes like "oh, that's sad!! I want grandkids". Well if we didn't live with her we'd have kids already. Other than the filthy house, overpopulation of cats and lack of room here, shes a chain smoker that goes through several packs a day! I've all but begged her to at least smoke in her bathroom or her bedroom with the door shut as I do not smoke and the smoke makes me sick and irritates allergies. No winning there, I think she'd get rid of her cats before she stopped smoking or at least took other around her into consideration.
So anyway, I'm leaving this as is, it's a long long story and I think that pretty much summed it up. So here is my question:
How on Earth do I get her to give up some of her cats? Should I? What should I do?? Arg, I love her and I love her cats but this has got to stop.
And the animal control has been contacted, they've come out and given her notices that say "you can only have 3 animals of any given species on your property". She does a remarkable job of hiding her cats so that when they come back around to check they are all inside and shes just the sweetest lady that the animal control people love. They have never been inside the house, though I'm starting to wish they did.
Should I report my own mother in law? Would that put MY pets into danger? I have a cat and dog that are well cared for and don't go into her house at all (we live in an attached house on the exsisting home) and they are extremely well cared for.
Any advice would be helpful, I'm at my wits end.