Animal Hoarders Out Of Control, Need Intervention And Treatment (VIDEO)

ABC News brings us a bizarre video story about "animal hoarders"--people with addictive personalities who collect dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of pets. Reporting from Pennsylvania and Maryland, ABC's Yunji De Nies shows us pet addicts who "spare no expense" for their beloved pets.

Some of the "animal hoarders" were former drug addicts, and many have to make such sacrifices for their animals that they live in squalid conditions as a result. Animal control workers in one hoarder's home found "dangerously high levels of ammonia" from all the urine on the floor.

WATCH:

Comments

[Uproar]

04:50 PM on 07/22/2010

I put this on the same level as animal abuse. And, can everyone who abuses a child, or neglects them, say they have an illness? No. They go to jail, and the kids are taken away. Same should happen here. They should go to jail and the animals taken away. Please stop excusing every horrible thing people do as not their fault, a chemical imbalance, a mental disease or whatnot. You know not to abuse a child, even if you were abused yourself. It's still a conscious decision. So is animal abuse. And tha'ts what this is.

[emmasdolly]

10:45 AM on 07/22/2010

Isn't it sad that people have so much love to give and no worthier recipients than cats and dogs? What would keep this from happening is for people to realize that a cat is a $900 a year expense, on average, if you are giving them medical care and immunizations etc. And a dog is an $1,100 a year expense. These figures are a couple years old, so it's probably more now. I love animals, too. But I can afford one cat, which I have. And I foster one more cat, which the shelter I volunteer at pays for their medical care until a permanent home is found. It's not really "love" if you are skimping on their care so you can take care of more than you can really afford. Animal waste and filth from having too many animals in a small area isn't good for the animals, or for people. It attracts bacteria and bugs.

[MyVesta]

12:21 PM on 07/22/2010

Animal hoarders are selfish and disgusting. If you watched this programme, the huge dog hoarder claimed that her dogs always were fed, even if she went without. This woman weighed probably 300lbs and was NOT going without. Yet her dogs received no veterinary care. It's revolting and all about the Hoarder's "feelings".

[Uproar]

04:51 PM on 07/22/2010

Yep.

[Jen1025]

01:59 AM on 07/22/2010

Hoarding is a mental disorder that is not very well understood.
Recognition of this as a mental disorder and subsequent study is still in the primary stages, and answers and support within local communities is often difficult to come by. Not every state has the capability to deal with hoarders from a psychological standpoint and not just a health and fire safety stand point. Some states are better than others; but even then it may be difficult to get that support at the local level.
I'm glad that research is finally starting to be done and awareness is rising; however we are a long way from truly understanding and being able to help all hoarders, pets and relatives living with this issue.
The biggest roadblock to helping hoarders is their inability to see they have a problem, in many ways just like addicts. I hope we have more answers within the next decade.

[Nina Carter]

07:42 PM on 07/21/2010

If these people had ridiculous amounts of children they would be considered heroes and have a fkn show on TLC. Seriously. We champion people who have "18 kids and counting" but people who rescue multiple animals at their own expense are considered mentally ill "hoarders". These people obviously care about animals more than having a clean and fresh-smelling home, yet society feels the need to force them to cart all their animals to a shelter where they will probably be put down. Disgusting.

[MyVesta]

12:18 PM on 07/22/2010

Most of those animals - esp. the cats - were NOT spayed/neutered and had health issues. They are inbreeding. Hoarding is about NOT providing a good home for multiple animals. It's ALL about the Hoarder and how the HOARdER feels. They don't really care that the animals are suffering physically and mentally (not being allowed proper exercise or, indeed, one-on-one attention/love).

BTW, I totally agree with your comment about "18 kids and counting".

[Uproar]

04:53 PM on 07/22/2010

Well, ironically, these folks now have their own show too. But it's sad that you think people with 50 unfed, unclean, cats who have never seen a vet are actually cared for by these folks. These animals must be taken away asap, to find homes with people who will actually take them to the vet when they get sick, and feed them regularly.

[ReverendMilo]

04:57 PM on 07/21/2010

Typically the hoarders are mentally ill and just need help.

[BikeFreak]

05:11 PM on 07/21/2010

Yes, but it is so difficult to engage them in treatment.

[ShambalaMountain]

04:46 PM on 07/21/2010

Eeewwwwwwwww !!!!

[MyVesta]

04:26 PM on 07/21/2010

Hoarders are some of the most disgusting, selfish people in the world. They care not a whit about the animals' best interests ... what animal would CHOOSE to live in squalor and a tiny cage, never receiving medical care or even one-on-one, consistent attention/love?

If I had my way, these hoarders would be placed in prison for at least a year and BANNED from owning animals for life.

[oaktone]

05:34 PM on 07/21/2010

g o y

[MyVesta]

06:55 PM on 07/21/2010

Y a w n

[chonus]

04:23 PM on 07/21/2010

Free the animals!

[ragtag]

05:47 PM on 07/21/2010

Bless the beasts and the children!

[TheSparkPlug]

03:45 PM on 07/21/2010

It's very difficult to help people like this. IMO, Help the animals by getting them out.

[scooder]

03:25 PM on 07/21/2010

My sis has this tendency. She had 18 or 19 cats at one time, house a pig pen, her cats getting better care than she did for herslef. Pretty sickening.

[CynicalDog]

04:38 PM on 07/27/2010

If your sister was getting proper care for her cats, then she really doesn't qualify as a hoarder. Hoarders typically are abusing the animals by *not* caring for their physical and emotional needs -- it sounds like any cat owned by your sister was a lucky cat, as long as it was being fed, loved, and vetted. As for her house being a "pig pen", was it truly unhealthy for her and the cats, or just not clean by your standards? My MIL thinks our house is "filthy" because she knows the cats walk on the kitchen counter occasionally (without a door on the kitchen, it's impossible to stop them... I disinfect the surface with bleach before I cook). However, we freely have adopters and vet clinic staff over on a regular basis and they always rave about how they can't tell we have any cats, let alone the number we have. We have a dozen massive litterboxes that we clean multiple times each day so the house doesn't stink. We've received lots of praise for how we run our residential rescue from people who are in this business, and our critics are invariably family members who don't really like animals and who are annoyed that if they visit, they get cat hair on their black pants.

Long story short, not every person with multiple pets is a hoarder. There aren't many people who could successfully own 18 or 19 cats in a healthy & happy environment, but it's not

[Astrazoic]

03:23 PM on 07/21/2010

If your going to hoard animals, at least make it interesting for us readers. For instance, it would be so much more fascinating if we saw a photo of several dozen koalas wandering about in an apartment. Or maybe 15 tigers in a living room. Or fifty pygmy marmosets. Something like that.

[ragtag]

05:50 PM on 07/21/2010

New reality show idea:

6 liberal and 6 conservatives living under the same roof with an alligator, a donkey and an elephant.

The potential is mind numbing - which animal(s) will survive!

[novo organon]

03:12 PM on 07/21/2010

Animals hoarding animals; funny isn't it.

[bubbuh]

02:41 PM on 07/21/2010

Hmmmm....Is GuffPost counting those bedbugs they seem so concerned about as pets? How about Jennifer Aniston or Brangelina?

[Quwhellyicquid]

02:39 PM on 07/21/2010

This animal hoarder story is always good for a bit of shock value. There have been a lot of them.
I understand the mental illness part of it. That's the gist of it. This video seemed to focus on the addiction/mental illness aspect faithfully. However, spouting the numbers of pets each hoarder kept seemed to be a bit sensational and probably unnecessary. I say that because of my own experiences with addiction.

My experiences are attached to chemicals and alcohol. I am reminded of some the meetings I've attended where some speaker gets up and starts to quantify the drugs and alcohol they'd used. As if somehow this quantification validates or legitimatizes their addiction. As often times is the case: people minimize their kinds, amounts and frequencies before recovery and inversely seem to almost exaggerate the same when in recovery.
What can we expect from the media? We can expect a bit of exaggeration. The story wouldn't be very interesting if we looked at animal addicts that only have 15 cats. Just like alcoholics that only have 4 beers every night isn't going to raise any eyebrows - yet the same disease is there and at work producing (eventually) the same results as the folks that finally make it over the top.

Friends, neighbors and relatives probably all said "it wasn't that bad" until the smell got to them. Yes it was that bad right from the start. Amazing what some people will put up with.

[Daws]

02:32 PM on 07/21/2010

That's gross. I can't imagine what their homes smelled like.

[jl4141]

04:32 PM on 07/21/2010

You need not imagine. Just stick your face in a cat's litter box after it hasn't been cleaned for a few days and take a good, deep sniff. That's what it smells like.

[ragtag]

05:52 PM on 07/21/2010

Sure you can.

Eat pickled eggs, black beans and drink a couple of beers.

Let brew in your large colon approximately 2 hours and try to outrun the oncoming storm!