News of the Weird

Wow!! That is really strange! Those poor, poor animals - it baffles me how anyone could even THINK of doing that. Sorry to hear that this inconsiderate person trashed your once-lovely home. I can completey understand how that would make you sad.

Maybe the guy knew he wouldn't be able to give them a good life if he was evicted with no place to go and thought they'd have better chances for a happy life if the authorities took them in.  That's what the note implies...IMO anyway.  Granted, that is certainly not something I would do in that scenario, but even still, at least he showed concern for the animals, which is better than you can say for a lot of people.  I also don't think that sounds like an outrageous amount of animals...heck I have two dogs, three cats and assorted small animals.  Sounds like a good chunk of that number was turtles in his case, and we don't know how big they were...could have been a bunch of small turtles living in one enclosure.  I know plenty of people who have that many animals, or more (one of them being my vet), and who are wonderful pet owners.  This guy did, of course, do wrong, but maybe we shouldn't be so quick to jump at his throat.  Just my two cents.  

"Janice Freeman of Animal Adoption & Rescue Foundation called it the "worst case of animal neglect" that she has seen."
 
 
Eh, I dunno....he couldn't have cared too much, note or not. Just my opinion though. I feel pretty strongly about those kinds of stories. I'm thinking that if someone who works in rescue and adoption said that, it had to be pretty darned bad.

I'm really sorry to hear what happened to the home you used to live in 8 years ago.  That would have upset me, too.  You think the guy would at least find a phone and make a call to a animal rescue facility.  What was the guy thinking? 

ORIGINAL: MissMandy

"Janice Freeman of Animal Adoption & Rescue Foundation called it the "worst case of animal neglect" that she has seen."


Eh, I dunno....he couldn't have cared too much, note or not. Just my opinion though. I feel pretty strongly about those kinds of stories. I'm thinking that if someone who works in rescue and adoption said that, it had to be pretty darned bad.

That's very true, I overlooked that in my commenting...I was mainly going on the bases that that dog in the picture, which I presume is one of the two the guy had, looks pretty well kept and cared for.  But even so, it's always a good idea to approach stuff like this with an open mind because you never really know unless you've been there first hand to see it.

But even so, it's always a good idea to approach stuff like this with an open mind because you never really know unless you've been there first hand to see it.

 
True!

I dunno about him trashing the house either.  From what was shown on the video, it looked like what would ensue if my dogs were left alone in the house for more than a few hours together.  And obviously it would stink,  the animals all have to eliminate somewhere.  The couldn't very well let themselves out. 

I also agree with it not being an obscene # of animals.  I know lots of people that have that many and it doesn't seem like many. 

I do understand how you feel about the house though.  I still drive by the house I grew up in and wonder what it looks like inside now.  And I remember being really offended when I found out the new owners had undone all the hard work my parents had put into it.

ETA:  Has anyone been attacked by fleas before?  Do you think maybe it was fruit flies or something  a little more visible?  Sorry I just can't picture a bunch of fleas lining up at the door and jumping on intruders, yelling FRESH MEAT!!!

Well for one thing that is so sad that those animals had to live like that, I wonder how long he lived there with all of those animals?
I still drive by my old houses, we have 3 houses all which are about 20 minutes from eachother and one of the houses has become overgrown and the new renters/owners totally let it go. I think it's sad because i remember my parents remodeling the home and always taking good care of it and now someone ruined it!

Huskymom-

I just wanted to say, YES!, you can be 'attacked' by fleas. It's no fun, lol! I walked into a house that hadn't been lived in for months. As soon as I stepped foot into the house, I had fleas tearing apart my ankles. So many, that I could see them. I later learned in an entomology class that fleas go dormant in a no-food environment and will hatch out within seconds upon feeling vibrations, warmth and carbon dioxide that comes from new inhabitants. ICK!!

omg! something like that happened to me too!

the house i grew up in, and lived in for like 20 years was new when we bought it, (we recently sold it about 5 years ago) so we were the only ones who lived there...

last month we read in the paper that the guy we sold it to, was found STRANGLED in his basement!!  pictures of that basement kept flashing back in my head!

disturbing!

Honestly, the few shots I got of the floors, etc, were enough to show that the state was worse than what a few hours alone would create. When I say pristine I really mean it. We had dove grey carpeting in half the house and I saw brownish carpet. You could see your reflection in the dining room floor, which I hand-buffed between every rescue (it is a tiny room - the whole house is 800 square feet). There didn't appear to be much finish left. It makes me really sad.

Apparently the lady next door (in an earlier interview which wasn't accessible on the web site) said she hadn't seen him or his animals in several days and had actually knocked on the back door. This was easily done because we installed a gate between the two backyards so Maggie and our English setter mix and puppy Ben could play with her terrier mix and Basset hound.

More oddness is the fact that up to just a few weeks ago, my mom attended the church that owns the place now (the properties are all contiguous). We did not rent from the church - we rented from the original homesteading family of the place - the whole property used to be a family farm and there was still a farmish quality to it in spite of its being smack in the middle of the more densely populated metro area. When the wife/mother retired to a nursing home, the children were not interested in being landlords and allowed the church next door to buy the little houses.

What makes it sad is that there are so few nice little places like that, that are still pet friendly. Something like this is why that is true. It only takes one horror story to make landlords tighten up their pet policies or elminate them altogether. We are renting again and I am so glad we have a lenient landlord in this regard.