Mobile home overrun by 20-30 cats in Avoca

Joe Mason
·2 min read
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AVOCA, N.Y. (WETM) – If you’re passing through Avoca, you probably wouldn’t think anything out of the ordinary about a mobile home. But, one home on Big Creek Road was overrun by 20-30 cats. Most of them ran and hid when I walked through the door. One room is entirely covered in cat feces. The smell was unbearable. The landlord gave me a gas mask to lessen the stench.

“Firstly, I couldn’t even walk in. The smell is appalling. There’s feces all over the floor. There’s no carpet, so the feces and urine has just absorbed into the particle board. It’s unfortunate that someone would take advantage like that and destroy your property in such a malevolent way,” said Landlord Halen Allison.

We tried to reach out to the former tenant, but got an automated message.

“It’s clearly animal cruelty and neglect to leave that many cats to fend for themselves or hope that the landlord will take care of them until someone can take them off his hands,” said Allison.

“Can’t believe you did it to me man. After all the stuff I let you get away with. I can’t believe you left me with this,” said Allison to the former tenant.

So, what is considered animal cruelty in New York State?

“Aggravated animal cruelty would be when a person intentionally kills an animal. It kinda gets tricky with certain types of animals. Any animal does need shelter, food and water obviously,” said Public Information Officer and State Trooper Lynnea Crane.

New York State Animal Cruelty Laws say that as long as the landlord is notified animals are in the residence and the animals are being fed and given water, no charges can be pressed. Though it depends case by case.

The laws deal with mostly dogs, horses and rabbits. Little to nothing about cats. These laws haven’t been updated since January of 2013.

What can breathing in a home like this do to your health?

“With cats a lot of the time, there’s concerns specifically with the cat feces. There is a particular organism that’s found that people can get sick from called Toxoplasmosis and it is common where they tell pregnant women not to change the kitty litter box because of the concerns of this infection,” said Dr. Justin Nistico, infectious disease specialist at Arnot Health.

Allison is working with a local SPCA to take a few cats in at a time.

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