BOWMANSTOWN, Pa. — Screech is one of more than 50cats removed from a hoarder's home in Bowmanstown near Palmerton. The cats were discovered when the borough received a tip about a hoarding situation.
The borough then called the Palmerton Cat Project to help.
"I was walking into the home, the smell was pretty bad, it was really hard to navigate the area because there was a lot of stuff just piled up everywhere," Palmerton Cat Project volunteer Stacy Frable said.
She shares that the house was so overwhelming they had to ask other rescue partners like Fireline Furr-Ever Friends Rescue for backup.
This week, volunteers have been combing through the property every day. Using trail cameras and traps to catch the felines.
And just when they think they've found them all, another one pops up.
"Once you have that many cats in a house, male, female, they're not like people who understand that you can't breed with your siblings. And they just start recreating and recreating," Cheyenne Andrew, Fireline Furr-Ever Friends founder, explained.
Among the 50 removed, 20 cats were found dead. The surviving ones are receiving medical treatment.
"Once you start with one with upper respiratory, herpes viruses, and stuff like that, it's just going to start spreading going to the other ones, and they're going to start getting sick," added Andrew.
"That's probably our biggest expense is getting them all several hundred dollars for each cat to get them up to date on what they need to have. Spayed, neuter, combo testing, worming," Barbara Greenzweig, Palmerton Cat Project president, said.
Volunteers believe the tip the borough received saved many of these cats' lives.
"We have seven females in this room right now that we pulled from that house, six months these little ones right here, they would have been doing the same thing, they would have been having babies, and they would keep on multiplying and multiplying," said Andrew.
When the cats were discovered, the owner wasn't home.
The owner's family members have since stepped in to assist the cat rescues.
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