Nurse Doolittle's Animal House

A couple townships over a woman's home is raided with officials finding hundreds of dead an alive animals in and around the residence. We hear about these incidents often, it's usually "somewhere else", like all other crimes seemingly. In this case my biggest question is how some things like this go on so undetected or reported until it's so filthy and unruly it requires a major police effort and a 5 ton garbage truck to swoop in to investigate and clean up

Even withstanding the smell, imagine the noise generated by hundreds of animals in a small home like this.

The article quotes a psychologist who refers to this syndrome like this:

Gary Patronek, an assistant professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, said the case sounds like a classic example of animal hoarding, a pathological condition he has studied for 10 years. Hoarding pets is rooted more in building comfort than providing care, he said.

In addition to a large number of animals, classic signs include poor care for the pets and denial that the treatment is inadequate, he said. Dead animals are often saved and ignored.

Pretty nuts I would have to say.

One of 160 cats seized from this house, (more pictures here)

300 live animals seized; owner pleads not guilty to cruelty charges

chicagotribune.com: "ROCHELLE, Ill. - As authorities braved an acrid stench to pore over Barbara Munroe's lonely ranch-style house, the surprises kept coming. Thirty cats living in a darkened basement hadn't been fed in ages. A maze of rusty cages housed 20 dogs in a bedroom.

And inside the plastic storage bin on which Munroe slept on the front porch? Dead cats, with hundreds more inside the home—in the refrigerator, the freezer, spread across floors and stuffed into barrels. Though the figures keep changing, authorities estimated Monday that Munroe, 65, harbored about 300 living animals—160 cats, 105 dogs and 35 birds—plus another 200 or so dead cats and two dead dogs in her home that sits amid the endless cornfields west of DeKalb." more

This is how they were finally discovered, in the last paragraph of the article:

Authorities found the animals Thursday when animal control officers visited the home because Munroe had not taken 35 of her dogs in for their latest rabies vaccinations, officials said. She was arrested Friday.

Gee, ya think the vets or officers coulda' checked out this situation before, like maybe when the last 45 dogs came in for their vaccinations, as it does indicate that they were there previously. Not exactly an everyday occurrence I wouldn't think.

A little warning sign of something strange I would say.

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