If the house stinks of cats, then the humane society should be made
aware of the fact.

I once heard of a woman who had over a hundred cats, but she had given
shots and speuters to ALL of them.  Yes, she spent most of her income
on their care, and most of her free time tending them, but each and
every one of those cats was healthy and friendly and getting daily
attention.

As long as you are not overexerting yourself, you should be allowed as
many as you can provide for I think.

Tweed it seems your woman cannot provide for them all plus herself if
her house stinks.

We had some folks in Kingston Ontario who had over 200, but they were
not speutered, and the family lived on mac and cheese in order to
afford cat food (which isn't good for humans, to not be able to buy
veggies or meat).

I am glad the woman on Oprah realized that she was in over her head and
did something about it BEFORE the situation degenerated into neglect.

--Fil

<snip>

IMO, there is no way one person can adequately care for 60 cats.  You
just cannot have enough time to observe them all for signs of health
problems.  Yes, they all get fed and yes, they all get *some*
attention, yarly check ups, whatever, but I can't think they have a
quality of life befitting a cat, IYKWIM.

-L.

Um. This is a tricky situation. Having been a CPL fosterer for some time
and seen various examples of how these things happen, it is hard to know
what to do. In all probability, she is someone who has 'collector'
tendencies, but has volunteered as a foster mum. In every group there
will be one or two people who have the circumstances (big house,
tolerant or no partner) that allow them to take in the rescue cats that
are very hard or impossible to rehome, and of course, the CPL group
treasures this as it means the cats are not left on the streets, killed
or put to sleep unnecessarily. Sometimes, if the group has the
resources, they can contribute wholly or partially towards vet fees and
food bills. Sometimes, the fosterer can stay on top of things, and care
for the cats adequately, or sometimes it gradually becomes too much for
them, but for each new rescue case they hear about from the group, they
feel that if they don't take the cat or kitten in, it will die or suffer
a fate worse than death, and they have to take it under their wing to
know it will be alright. It is an *extremely* easy thing to feel, as
anyone who has fostered will know. Very hard to say no, when you hear a
desperate story. So another one comes into the home.

It's possible that she doesn't get visited by others in the group very
often - maybe she speaks on the phone, sounds OK. So they have a vague
idea of how many cats she must have, but are not aware of the
conditions. Maybe they are even *rescuing* cats from similar conditions
without being aware of their own problem. But as she is 'in the group'
and performs a very valuable service, they don't rock the boat as it
would leave them with a huge problem which they could not deal with.

Most CPL branches are quite small, entirely voluntary, entirely
self-supporting, and largely female. Often running on a tiny budget,
raised from coffee mornings, small jumble sales, occasional donations
etc. A few, mostly urban groups like my group in Croydon and Jeanette's
group in Preston, are larger and very successful. Even so, we have had
cases like this in the past. It happens.

It may be worth telling your local group that the lady's house did not
seem to be at all sanitary, and you were concerned for the health of her
and the cats. They may not be fully aware of how bad things are - rat
droppings, awful stench, etc. I wonder if all the cats were tested for
FIV or FeLV before she got them? She could have endemic FeLV without
even knowing. It concerns me that they are all indoors. Why is this?
Sounds like either over-protection, or trying to conceal them. The worst
case is if someone reports her to the council, and they come with the
RSPCA and clear out the house, and they will put most of the cats to
sleep. Doesn't matter if it is a privately-owned house - Environmental
Health will be concerned, and also you need a licence to run a 'cattery'
if you have over 12 cats in your home. There are ways the branch could
deal with the situation, and they should get the help of Head Office and
their huge new National Cat Centre, who will step in with situations
like this to help groups that have problems too big to deal with
themselves.

Here is the story of one of my former foster cats Wonky, who came from a
house exactly like hers, by the sound of it, except we were rescuing
*from* the house:

http://www.zoobotanica.com/cats.html
(scroll down the page to 'And then there were 50...')

Deb.