-----Original Message-----
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 house
130
cats removed from south side house
Felines
rove in walls as bugs root through filth; building condemned
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
