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Walk into any animal shelter, and it’s hard not to be overcome with the desire to give every single pair of pleading eyes a home.

Pair that with the commercials about homeless pets suffering on the streets or animals in shelters in danger of being euthanized and what may have started as one person’s good intentions could turn into something that negatively affects an entire community.

This is often how animal hoarding begins — with the desire to help or save as many animals as possible. Things may start with just one or two animals, and before too long, there can be dozens, even hundreds, of animals living in one home or property.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA, defines animal hoarding as “an inability to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter and veterinary care — often resulting in over breeding of animals, animal starvation, illness and even death.”

In many animal-hoarding cases, the person or people in possession of the animals believe they are helping the animals and deny any instances of abuse or mistreatment.

“You would probably never know these people were hoarders. It’s something usually very secretive. Very often family members don’t know until the person ends up in the hospital or the family has to go in and get something for them — and that’s when they discover the problem at that time,” said Dr. Fugen Neziroglu, executive director of the Bio-Behavioral Institute in New York. “There’s a lot of shame. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear that someone will take their stuff away, and it is a violation to them.”

Hoarders typically have an unusually strong attachment to the animals or belongings, often referring to the animals as “their only friends or family.”

Hoarding tendencies are seen in a variety of different mental health illnesses, including attention deficit disorder, obsessive/compulsive personality disorder and schizophrenia.

“Hoarding can also be a consequence of depression because it takes an effort to organize, and you just can’t concentrate or prioritize or make decisions,” Neziroglu said. “You say, ‘I’ll get to it later. I’ll get to it later,’ and before you know it, there’s an accumulation of stuff.”

However, hoarding can also be its own condition, which is the most difficult to treat, Neziroglu added.

Having multiple animals alone doesn’t make someone a hoarder.

There are several signs that people may exhibit that would classify them as animal hoarders, including:

As with many other mental health issues, there are treatments available, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, teaching executive functioning skills and medication.

“Often there is this feeling of attachment to the objects, so you need to have the individual perceive the objects and possessions in a different light,” Neziroglu said.

Neziroglu suggests family members and friends of animal hoarders seek professional help to deal with the situation.

“It’s very destructive to go in and yank things out or to organize things. I’ve seen cases to where people even become suicidal because family members decided they were going to dump everything out and organize it,” Neziroglu said. “It’s with good intentions, but it’s not helpful.”

The physical, mental and financial costs of cleaning up an animal hoarder’s house and property are extensive.

It takes more than your local cleaning company going in to mop a few floors, pick up a few garbage bags and clean some windows.

Often, the property is overrun with bio-hazardous materials like urine, feces, vomit, blood and dander, as well as pests like mice, roaches, rats and other vermin.

“You have your OSHA PPE for protection and special chemicals that you use. Most hoarding houses, even if they don’t have pets, have rodents and trash,” said Vicky Thurlow, owner and lead technician of Bio-One Western Slope. “Generally in all hoarding homes, you have trash, the animals are just one more piece to it.”

Thurlow’s company specializes in the cleanup of animal hoarding cases as well as other sensitive cases like suicides, crime scenes and meth labs. The company has three offices — Bio-One Western Slope, Bio-One Denver and Bio-One Colorado Springs — and provides cleanup services throughout the state.

“It’s usually family that calls us on behalf of their relative that is living in the situation,” Thurlow said. “It’s rare that the person living in the situation makes the phone call.”

Because hoarding cleanup companies often deal with materials like mold, meth lab chemicals, decomposing bodies and tear gas, they have to attend specialized training.

“There’s lots of different things you need to be trained in,” Thurlow said. “You can’t just go in and start cleaning for the fact that it is a biohazard and needs to be treated correctly. There are special ways biohazard materials need to be handled for safety of our crew and the community.”

Due to the specialized training and disposal needed for cases like animal hoarding, cleaning services aren’t cheap.

“Cleaning costs for hoarding environments can range from 75 cents to $2 per square foot, depending on the amount and severity of cleaning,” reports Rocky Mountain Bio Hazard. “The lower threat to an individual’s safety, the lower the cost of the job.”

The costs of renting containers, dumpsters or hiring junk haulers adds to the expenses.

In many cases, the hoarder wants to examine every item before it is removed or disposed of, slowing the process and raising costs.

While Thurlow requires all animals to be removed before the cleaning crew arrives, some animals, like cats, are trickier to remove.

“Cats have a tendency to hide, so you don’t know if they are still in there, but cats don’t tend to attack you like dogs would,” she said. “Pets are usually gone, and the challenge then is dealing with the person that lives in the situation.”

As a certified hypnotherapist and energy psychologist, Thurlow can also tackle animal hoarding on an emotional level.

“This is something not a lot of people can do, but I can handle it. My husband and handle it, and we have an incredible crew,” she said. “We see the worst of the worst.”

Emotions can run high due to hoarders’ extreme connection to their animals and possessions, so having strangers come in and going through their stuff can be overwhelming and trigger an emotional episode.

Cleanup crews have to be trained on how to deal with such emotions and how to effectively handle those situations without themselves getting overwhelmed or caught up in it.

“It is important in this line of work to stay grounded and not get too caught up in what happened, but in why we are doing what we are doing,” Thurlow said. “And it all comes back to we are here to help the family.”

While Thurlow can’t say if she’s seen a specific rise in animal hoarding cases, shows like A&E’s  “Hoarders” have brought the issue to the forefront and are helping educate people about animal hoarding.

“I think it’s talked about a little bit more, but I think the realistic part of it is that it is prevalent, and I think it is just a matter of family members finding people like us who can take it on and do it,” she said.

In May, the Humane Society of Weld County received a hoarding case of 16 cats and kittens. The felines were found in a trailer after their owner died.

“We have a mom with kittens that are about 2 weeks old and some smaller kittens about 4-5 months old, but most are cats,” said Sam Morrill, director of marketing and development for the shelter. “This is the first case of this size that we’ve gotten this year. Of course, we’ve had smaller cases come in, but this is the first big hoarding case coming in all at once.”

In 2021, the shelter received four “very large” hoarding cases, one with more than 30 cats housed in a one-bedroom apartment, Morrill said. Four of those cats are still waiting to be adopted.

The animals came in dehydrated, with ear mites and nasal discharge. They either tested positive for ringworm or were exposed to the fungal infection.

“Ringworm is essentially cat athlete’s foot. It’s not lethal, but it’s contagious to all other animals and people and very uncomfortable,” Morrill said. “So it’s a big inconvenience in a big shelter environment like this. Many other places would euthanize because it is a huge drain on staff time. Ringworm is a patience game.”

Due to the felines’ conditions, every cat and kitten had to undergo a sulfur bath every three days and remain in isolation for about seven weeks. If they didn’t respond to treatment, many of the kittens may have had to have their eyes removed.

“The good thing is that they are very friendly. This would be a very difficult case if they weren’t friendly, and we have all this ringworm,” Morrill said. “Bathing feral cats is nearly impossible, so we are lucky that whoever did have them, clearly gave them a lot of attention and love — even if they couldn’t afford the medical care.”

Taking in the case not only cost the shelter space and time, with daily treatments taking up to six hours to complete, but also racked up about $21,500 in treatment and care costs.

With many shelters around the U.S. experiencing space issues and often struggling financially just to care for lost, surrendered or animals removed from the street, hoarding cases add to the pressure.

“When you get a massive amount of animals like this, there’s usually very little warning. We don’t get months to prepare. We usually only have 24-48 hours,” Morrill said. “Because they are often ill and in bad condition, they have to be separated from all the other animals. So areas that we use as flex spaces are now turning into isolation rooms for these hoarding cases.”

Since many animals who were hoarded need extensive health care and socialization, they take up space in which immediately adoptable animals could be housed, affecting the shelter’s income.

“Often in hoarding cases, we have to wait for the case to close before we can think about adopting the animals out, so they take a lot of space, but also a lot of time,” Morrill said. “But sometimes these animals do come in where it is more humane to euthanize them.”

Shelters dealing with hoarding cases have found that animals rescued from hoarding can be harder to train, show negative behaviors like using the bathroom inside the house when left alone, can be more aggressive toward other animals and people, and can experience more health issues due to their lack of nutrition and being stuck in cages or crates.

The ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center is the first and only permanent facility dedicated to the study and behavioral rehabilitation of severely fearful dogs, often victims of cruelty and neglect situations like hoarding.

“Experts implement specialized behavior modification protocols to improve the dogs’ quality of life and more time to recover, increasing the likelihood of adoption,” the organization said via email. “Treatment plans focus on helping dogs become comfortable with unfamiliar people household objects and sounds, and real-life situations, to prepare them for life as a pet.”

Though shelters will work to socialize and train animals, not all of their work is successful. Sometimes, the animals must be euthanized.

“We have a good amount of times where we think that an animal is extremely feral, they’re probably best for our barn cat program or a trap-and-release situation, TNR, but with the hoarding situations, we usually can’t do TNR or barn cat programs because they have never been outside,” Morrill said. “Most of them have been kept indoors in a secluded indoor space.”

The Humane Society of Weld County tries to work with animals from hoarding cases to help them get on the road to recovery and be able to be adopted out safely to families.

“Our Once A Paws a Time where kids come in and read to cats has been a game-changing factor for a hoarding case,” Morrill said. “These cats are in the community cat room, and kids come in and read to them every single day. Now, they are very comfortable around people.”

Seizure of the animals and a jail sentence for the owner might seem like a logical step to resolve animal hoarding.

But the legal side of things is much more complicated.

“There are a lot of things that come into play with these cases in particular, and it starts at the investigation level. They are hard to discover and investigate because they tend to happen behind closed doors,” said Emily Lewis, managing attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. “It can be hard to really figure out what is going on and get the probable cause needed to further an investigation.”

The Animal Legal Defense Fund provides free legal assistance and training to prosecutors in the fight against animal cruelty, supports animal protection legislation and provides resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the field of animal law. The nonprofit also aids and supports law enforcement and animal control agencies on animal hoarding cases.

The mental health component can make proving a case difficult.

“It’s a compulsion, so that adds another layer of complexity to these cases that really comes in at the investigation part of these cases,” Lewis said.

Once a case is proven to be legitimate, then there is the need for resources to collect the animals, process the crime scene and collect evidence, which takes time, help and finances.

“The complexity of these cases combined with the sheer number of animals involved can make it difficult to get a case to court,” Lewis said.

The ASPCA also recognizes the importance of making sure law enforcement has sufficient resources to handle animal cruelty cases.

“Though there are a variety of ways to address this issue, one that is taking hold in some jurisdictions – including our own program in New York City in partnership with the New York Police Department — is the diversion of appropriate cases to ‘safety net’ programs – so that pet owners who merely need some assistance to keep their pets safe and healthy at home can do so, while enforcement resources are reserved for the truly heinous acts of cruelty that require criminal intervention,” the ASPCA said. “To help pets and pet owners stay safely together, we also recognize the need for broader access to affordable vet care, and we have initiatives aiming at that objective as well.”

Since animals are considered “property,” law enforcement and animal control officers’ hands are often tied, Lewis explained, and they can’t legally remove the animals without the owner’s permission or without collecting sufficient evidence to prove neglect, abuse or cruelty.

With many cases linked to mental health issues, sentencing people to jail may not be the best, or healthiest, solution for the person affected with the disease.

“There has to be a public awareness and recognition of what hoarding disorder is and how much these individuals really suffer,” Neziroglu said. “You just can’t go in and either organize or move them from one location to another or go in and take all of the animals. They are not trying to be cruel. They are not trying to be destructive at all. They really need treatment, and jail time isn’t going to help.”

Some states in the U.S. have begun to incorporate new laws and regulations that would bring in mental health and other support services to help hoarders and assist law enforcement and animal control officers in dealing with hoarding cases.

“There are some states like Illinois that do include counseling as part of mandatory sentencing when there’s a conviction involving hoarding,” Lewis said. “That is something the Animal Legal Defense Fund encourages, to look at what’s the root cause of why this is happening and fix that so it doesn’t happen again.”

Sadly, some people use animal hoarding as a way to make money and profit off of the compassion of animal lovers.

“In recent years, we have found a lot of self-proclaimed rescues that are hoarders who are doing it for profit, not because of mental illness,” said Teresa Lynn Chagrin, animal control and cares manager for PETA. “They are collecting animals and neglecting them literally to death, starving them, shooting them in the head, leaving them to die from disease or horrific injuries. And they are posting photos on Facebook pages calling themselves rescues and saying they need money for vet care and food.”

The National Association of District Attorneys has posted warnings to community members about the growing number of faux-rescues and not to fall into their trap and send them money, Chagrin said.

“It used to be the crazy cat lady but now we have this whole new industry of self-professed rescues and so-called rescues who are just raking in the bucks and abusing and neglecting animals in her care,” Chagrin said.

Chagrin cited a recent case involving an organization called Dogs Rock out of Georgia. When law enforcement and animal control officers raided the property, they found more than 200 animals, alive and dead.

“They found a pit of dog bodies that appear to have been shot with a .22 caliber weapon and burned,” Chagrin said. “She had just recently gotten 40 to 50 dogs from a public municipality animal shelter.”

With the pressure on animal shelters not to euthanize animals and increase their “live release rates,” some shelters are adopting animals out to anyone who walks through the door.

“They are giving animals to just anyone who will take them, and these people are just evil and mal-intended,” Chagrin said. “This is a classic case, and we see it all of the time. We get almost a report every week of these types of ‘rescues.’”

While animal rights and support organizations would love for every shelter animal to find a forever home, the reality is that with the current overpopulation of dogs, cats and other pets, other options need to be looked at, specifically euthanasia.

“Animal shelters are full, and they are turning people away, turning animals away because they don’t want to euthanize, and there is no place for these animals to go,” Chagrin said. “Every time they turn an animal away, either that animal is abandoned on the street or just given away on Craigslist or dumped at the local hoarder’s house.”

Euthanasia is a “humane and kind way” to help animals transition from life and help relieve overcrowding and overpopulation, Chagrin said.

“Shelters never used to get to capacity because they euthanized animals. Euthanasia is a painless, instant, dignified way to leave this world versus starving in a cage in a filthy, hoarded house,” Chagrin said. “It is far more humane to euthanize an animal, to give them an instant, dignified, kind, gentle way to leave this world.”

Years ago, euthanasia was a common procedure in shelters, however, with the rise of “anti-euthanasia mania” sweeping across the country, Chagrin said, animals are suffering.

“We can prevent animals from becoming homeless. We can prevent all these animals from needing to be rescued. We can prevent all this animal suffering by spaying and neutering and euthanizing the overpopulation,” Chagrin said. “But instead, everyone is attacking shelters that euthanize and screaming about the live-release rates and statistics and ignoring all of this suffering.”

The fear of euthanizing pets is causing more animals on the streets, breeding and falling into hoarding situations, Chagrin added.

“People need to understand that and start supporting open admission shelters, including those that euthanize animals, in order to prevent them from going to hoarders or unscreened people,” Chagrin said. “PETA is so trying to educate people that these ‘no-kill’ policies are killing more animals than euthanasia ever did.”

If you suspect someone is an animal hoarder, contact your local humane society, police department or animal control department. The National Link Coalition, nationallinkcoalition.org, can also direct you to where to report possible animal hoarding.

“A phone call may be the first step to getting everyone the help they need. Many communities now have hoarding task forces with representatives from code enforcement, mental health, social services and animal care and control experienced in working collaboratively to respond to hoarding situations,” the ASPCA said. “If your area does not have such a group, call your local humane law enforcement department, police department, animal welfare organization or veterinarian to initiate the process.”

People reporting hoarding cases should also alert the Animal Legal Defense Fund, so they can track the case and offer professional assistance to local officials.

To learn more about animal hoarding, go to aldf.org, aspca.org, animalhumanesocieity.org or peta.org.

When interacting with a friend, family member or neighbor who has been identified as an animal hoarder, the ASPCA suggests:

For mental health issues associated with animal hoarding, contact North Range Behavioral Health at www.northrange.org.

If your local shelter has recently taken in animals from a hoarding case, volunteer your time. Volunteer to help clean cages, socialize animals, walk dogs and perform other such necessary duties at a shelter or rescue near you.

For more information on how you can help the Humane Society of Weld County, go to www.weldcountyhumane.org.

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