Marlene Kess, alleged animal neglect/abandonment

The sight of so many decomposing corpses -- and the fetid odor they
produced -- sickened animal-welfare officers and others who responded
to the two-story home on State Street."

"Oh my God, it was awful," said Michael Fowler of the Associated
Humane Societies, the state's largest shelter group. "The smell was
horrible."

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Kess, seen arguing with animal-welfare officials outside the home, declined to comment.

"She was cited for several East Orange health code violations, among
them keeping an unlawful number of animals, harboring dead animals and
creating a potential environmental hazard by keeping the corpses on her
property, city sanitary inspector Frank Habegger said last night."

"In addition, the SPCA charged her with 38 counts of failing to
properly shelter cats. The counts stem from the cats being locked
together in a front room. Some of the cats were healthy, while others
were ill. Under state regulations, anyone keeping large numbers of
animals must separate the sick from the healthy."

"Kess was allowed to keep the 48 living cats in her home because she
said she would separate the sick and healthy animals, Bierman said.
SPCA officers were planning to return to the home to ensure she does,
he said."

Examples of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations,
allowing a collar to grow into an animal’s skin, inadequate shelter in
extreme weather conditions, and failure to seek veterinary care when an
animal needs medical attention.

In many cases of neglect where an investigator feels that the cruelty
occurred as a result of ignorance, they may attempt to educate the pet
owner and then revisit the situation to check for improvements. In more
severe cases however, exigent circumstances may require that the animal
is removed from the site immediately and taken in for urgent medical
care.

Animal hoarding, sometimes referred to as "collecting", continues to
struggle with public misconceptions. Members of the community and even
law enforcement often view hoarders to be "someone who meant well but
the situation got out of hand," conjuring images of the sweet cat lady
down the street.

While their intentions may indeed have been good, the reality of
hoarding is far from sweet, and is often quite horrific. Hoarders often
have hundreds of animals in their home, living in filth and without
veterinary care. It is not uncommon to discover several hundred animals
in various states of neglect at one location. It is also very common to
find vast collections of other junk and garbage on the premises, as
well as many layers of feces throughout the home.

In the majority of hoarding cases, the hoarder firmly believes not
only that they have done nothing wrong, but that the animals cannot
survive without their "care". In many instances, hoarders will even be
reluctant to relinquish the decomposing corpses of animals that died.
Dead animals are frequently found in the freezer or refrigerator, or
even laying around the house, embedded in the carpeting, etc. At times,
dead animals have been left in the home so long that they have become
mummified.

Despite a correlation to the psychological condition of Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder (OCD), there is no clinical diagnosis at this
point. More research is needed. Gary Patronek, director of the Center
for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University, states "We'd like to
study it more," he says. "Is it a syndrome in and of itself? Probably
not. But [one day] we might like it to be included as a warning sign
[in psychological evaluation]."

We petition that Kess undergo psychological testing and counseling and that she not be able to keep 48 cats in her home until the investigation has been complete.