Confined in the dark among excrement and carcasses:83 cats recovered in Brescia

Found by Enpa volunteers in an apartment owned by a serial hoarder "with a well-kept and elegant appearance"

BRESCIA – One hundred square meters of apartment entirely covered in urine and excrement, with cat carcasses on the floor and another 83 crammed in to live there, for who knows how long, in the dark.It is the terrifying sight witnessed by the Enpa volunteers, arrived in an apartment of Brescia together with Ats And Local police, after the report received from some citizens alarmed by the coming and going of numerous cats from the window of an apartment.Today, exactly one week after the first inspection, the exhausting recovery operation carried out by ENPA volunteers in Brescia of all the 83 cats. They were detained in conditions defined as "incompatible" by a serial hoarder inside an apartment in the Viale Venezia area.

THE HORROR DESCRIBED BY A VOLUNTEER

“From the outside - says Pierangela, a volunteer from Brescia's Animal Protection - we absolutely couldn't imagine the horror we then found.Cats could be seen going in and out of a window.When we first entered it was a real shock!On the ground we couldn't even understand what we were stepping on.The cats were moving everywhere.A smell, even for us who are used to extreme situations, that we had never smelled before.The doors and windows were so covered in excrement that we could not open them.There were also carcasses of dead cats.A real hell."

THE SERIAL ACCUMULATOR “WITH A NICE AND ELEGANT APPEARANCE”

After various investigations by the Local Police, it emerged that the apartment belonged to a 58-year-old lady, who is described as having a "very well-groomed and elegant appearance" and "convinced of taking proper care of these animals".But “not realizing the reality in which they live and in which they make animals live.they explain from Enpa - it is a common characteristic of serial accumulators".The lady, cooperative, reached an agreement with the institutions, letting the Animal Protection volunteers come in for the recovery.At this point the rescue operation of the felines began:the first cat recovered was not even a month old, they explain, and was very debilitated.Then there were also several adult specimens, very weak due to infections.While the rest of the cats were very shy, having lived in that dark house for a long time, without ever being able to go out, forced to live among their own excrement.“Someone opened the window, it is not yet clear who it was, it only happened a week ago,” they continue.

WHERE ARE THE RECOVERED CATS NOW

The budget at the conclusion of the intervention is: 83 cats recovered, 11 are now hospitalized in private veterinary facilities and 72 are currently hosted at the health kennel.The recovery work saw ENPA volunteers from Brescia employed for five days, working in truly difficult conditions, day and night, to support a health and social emergency.But "the work is not finished - continue the volunteers - now that the emergency recovery is over, the longest and most demanding phase begins, 83 cats will have to be stabilised, identified, sterilised, tested and relocated.It will be weeks, probably months, before these cats finally all have their place in the world."

HOW TO HELP

To support veterinary and maintenance expenses, a project has been started official fundraiser on PayPal which in two days managed to obtain around 1750 euros in donations:“They will be of great help - reports the Enpa Brescia Facebook page - to pay the vets' bills, and start the FIV FELV tests on all the cats”.To support the association in this emergency we therefore ask you to participate in the collection with a free donation via PayPal account https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/sostienicienpabs or to IBAN IT47W0306909606100000178104 with reason Maxi Recovery August.But dry and wet cat food is also very welcome:it is possible to bring it to the Enpa headquarters in Brescia during opening hours."Unfortunately we still have no idea what the final costs will be - they write from Enpa Brescia - but any deficit in the expenses incurred will then be divided among the structures that will gradually welcome the specimens".