I know this is long, but please bear with me.  I am hoping maybe someone
recognizes this behavior.  I have changed names in this story for privacy.

One of the higher-ups at our shelter has been trying to help her friend,
Carrie with a kitten she has that has biting issues and is destructive.  The
kitten, Rusty, is 5 months old, not yet neutered (her vet wouldn't do it
yet), they have had him since he was 8 weeks old.  He is an only kitten.
Rusty bites hands and ankles, not just during play but he will do it out of
the blue.  They have tried squirting water, time-outs, saying "no" loudly.
He is also very destructive and wrecks the house when no one is home,
although oddly, he doesn't claw furniture which is good.  I should add he is
indoor-only.  Lately, Carrie has had to put Rusty in a bathroom when no one
is home because of this.  We felt this was probably just making the problem
worse.

So, the shelter agreed to take Rusty in and try to work with him.  One of
our volunteers, Joan, who is a feral trapper and tamer, extremely
experienced in all kinds of behavior, took him home to foster.  We thought
her house would be a good place for this since she has a few kittens his age
she's fostering.  We thought that Rusty is probably bored and needs a
playmate.  A few of us met Rusty when Carrie brought him in.  I held him for
some time, and he was sweet and purring.  Joan took Rusty home, and said the
minute she walked through the door, he started growling in the carrier.  She
put him in a spare room, away from the other cats and left him be.  When she
came to check on him, he was very agitated, growling.  By the next morning,
this kitten was attacking her and then started hyperventalating.  She felt
her home was not a good environment for Rusty so she brought him to the
shelter.  Rusty is now in a cage in our vetting suite (only two other cats
housed in that room, not a big typical shelter room).  Joan felt awful
bringing him in, but didn't know what else to do.  When someone checked on
Rusty yesterday, they said he was friendly and asked for petting.

The obvious thing is the cat needs to be neutered.  Maybe he is getting
wacky from hormones.  That will be done next week.  Has anyone else
experienced such unpredictability in a kitten?  We know leaving him in a
cage is not the right answer, but all of us volunteers have multi-cat
households, so he would probably flip at anyone else's house, too.