Couple Kept 25 Dead Cats in Freezer, SPCA Says

Twenty-five dead cats and about 25 more sick ones were removed from a home on Easton Avenue in the city last week, according to the Pennsylvania SPCA, which is pursuing animal cruelty charges against the residents, a spokeswoman said.

Still, between 50 and 60 cats remain inside of the home, said Wendy Marano, the spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The agency is unlikely to remove more of the animals from the house until the criminal case against the animal owners proceeds through the courts, Marano said.

The SPCA is not identifying the home and cats owners until after criminal charges are officially filed, Marano said.

The 25 dead cats were wrapped and stored in a freezer, Marano said. The 25 living cats that were removed were in need of veterinary care. Most of the health issues were minor, but two of the felines required surgery, Marano said.

The owners cooperated with SPCA officials in identifying the animals that needed care, Marano said. In many of those cases, the custody of the animals was signed over to the SPCA, which means the agency can adopt them out once their health issues have been resolved, Marano said.

Cats that were not signed over must remain in protective custody until after the case has been adjudicated, Marano said.

The agency, which has law enforcement powers in 17 Pennsylvania counties—including Northampton and Lehigh—served a search warrant at the home on Thursday, Aug. 1.

The SPCA is not looking to be punitive with the owners—an elderly couple, Marano said. Mostly, they will aim to get a court order that limits the number of cats they can keep.

In Bethlehem, it is illegal to keep more than six cats in a home without a permit, said Kristen Wenrich, the director of the city’s Health Bureau. Wenrich said the city is working with the SPCA and is allowing that agency to take the lead in this case.

On Wednesday, several of the animals were visible in a yard adjacent to the home, which is across the street from St. Anne’s Catholic School on the 1500 block of Easton Avenue. A couple appeared to be drinking water out of a kiddy pool, while others wandered or lay close to a fence along the sidewalk.

“Hoarding cases are very tragic,” Marano said. “Very often, they don’t realize the harm they are doing to the animals and themselves.”

Such cases can also become neighborhood health problems, as an overconcentration of cats can lead to rats and pestilence, Marano said.

In most cases, hoarders are not deliberately harming the animals, but there still may be underlying mental health issues that require attention, Marano said. Intervention by the SPCA can often be a catalyst for getting human services help to animal hoarders, Marano said.

In this particular case, it appears that the owners never intended to have close to 100 cats, Marano said. But the cats they owned had not been neutered and a female adult cat is capable of delivering three litters of kittens in one year—which can lead to exponential growth in your cat population, Marano said.

“It just goes downhill really quickly,” Marano said.

Most of the cats inside of the Easton Avenue home were young, Marano said.