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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Charles
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 10:44 PM
To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List'
Subject: [Sndbox] 130 cats removed from south side house130 cats removed from south side house
Felines rove in walls as bugs root through filth; building condemned
By REID J. EPSTEIN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]Last Updated: Sept. 19, 2003
Wearing a white moon suit, an air filter and duct tape covering his shoes, Donn Jacobson marched into his own private war zone Friday.
Jacobson, 35, has been trudging into a south side house twice a day for a week, carrying out cats that have crawled into the walls, ducts and ceilings of the house in the 2300 block of W. Barnard Ave. So far, he's brought out 130 of them.
"I haven't seen any mice," said Jacobson, an animal control officer for the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission.
He's also brought out one dog, a beagle. Jacobson said the dog looked well-fed.
Last week, neighbors complained about smells coming from the three-bedroom house, which is assessed for tax purposes at $144,800. When city officials checked out the house Sept. 11, they found "unbelievable squalor and filth," said Martin Collins, the head of the Department of Neighborhood Services.
Collins said he believed the number of cats to be a city record, smashing the old mark of 82, set in the late 1980s.
When inspectors and animal control officers first went into the house, cats were everywhere. They had overrun the furniture, destroyed the two cars in the garage and used the whole house as their litter box. It wasn't pretty, and still isn't.
"I go home at night and my clothes still smell, even though I have this suit over them," he said.
The smell. Oh, the smell.
Without his air filter, Jacobson can't stand in the doorway without flinching. Neither can anyone else, for that matter.
"The health department told me to close as many windows as I could to give the neighbors a break," Jacobson said.
But because of the piles of trash and cat feces, which are 2 to 3 feet deep at some points in the house, he's not been able to close them all. The brown muck that covers the floors is topped with an endless stream of ants and other bugs. The yellowed walls are stained with urine.
As bad as the scene is, it's better than it was when Jacobson first started. In 45 minutes Friday, he brought out nine black, gray and white cats, which he baited into metal cages with canned tuna.
"It's going kinda slow now," he said.
The house has been condemned by the city. Because the cats have infested the walls of the house, the building may have to be razed, Collins said.
"Once the cats breed inside the walls, its economically impossible to clean it up," he said. "You can imagine what's inside those walls, and what the house is going to smell like forever."
The house's listed owner is Irene Kustra, but she died in 1997. Collins said her adult son, Marvin Kustra, returned regularly to feed the animals. When inspectors first arrived, they found the sinks and bathtubs filled with cat food. The cats had also ripped open a 50-pound bag of dog food and "did a pretty good job" eating it, Jacobson said.
They drank water from the house's three toilets and a leaky basement pipe, he added.
The cats, and the dog, all appear to be healthy and have been transported to animal control's W. Burnham St. headquarters until authorities can figure out what to do with them, said John McDowell, a field commander for the agency.
As for Jacobson, he'll return to the house Monday morning with his traps, and surely will come out with another batch of felines.
"I'm hoping it will end soon," he said. "I'm sick of coming down here."
From the Sept. 20, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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