Naumburg. When the staff of the veterinary office entered the apartment in Naumburg, their breath stopped. In a stinking chaos, a lonely man, as it turned out later, lived for three years without water and electricity, but now with 18 cats.
And it was precisely these animals that had to be taken out of the home and put into the care of a shelter, so that they could be brought into a proper position.
The Department of Veterinary Medicine and Consumer Protection of the Kassel District had received the attention of the police. The officials in the house had to deal with several housing units in another thing, already sensed in the stairwell that in one of the apartments a non-animal welfare could exist and informed the Wolfhager office. "And we were there," says Dr. Sabine Kneißl
"It was only problematic, because we did not come into the house," Kneissl's colleague Dr. Anke Reisse reports. The fact that the resident lived without electricity and therefore the bell did not work, was not yet known. So they kept trying to get in touch with each other and in different ways, also through the landlord who did not live in the village. They left the paper at the entrance and finally succeeded. "After a few days, it came into contact. The man has acknowledged that he needs help, "says Anke Reisse.
How necessary the help was actually, however, emerged only when one was allowed into the apartment. "It quickly became clear that this is not a one-man action." There was a garbage in the rooms, pans full of human and animal excrements were all around, the air was full of flies and barely breathing.
Fishing trials between garbage
Between all this: the man, a mid-forties, whose life had obviously slipped away, and a lot of cats, who had escaped the attempts to catch the visitors unknown to them in the protective manning and with the respiratory masks on their faces and dived in the mountains of rubbish.
He had started with a pair of cats, the tenant told the volunteers, says veterinarian Reisse. Over the months and years came the cattle re-growth. The animals always stayed in the apartment.
One needed support. For the man, the social psychology service of the circle was drawn up, and for the cats, help was obtained, which had already proven itself in previous cases: staff of the Arche KaNaum from Bad Arolsen, which also, unlike the Veterinäramt, feature.
Thus three staff members of the Office and three employees of the animal welfare on this briskly hot August day of the past year managed to catch eight cats. With the consent of the tenant, live cases were made and checked twice a day. In November, the Office and the Ark were sure to have caught all the cats. In total, there were 18 animals - infected with worms, fleas and mites, undernourished and dried up. They were gently cuddled in the Arolser Ark and transferred to good hands. Lastly, Kater Carlo was given a new home in Cologne a few days ago.
The case, says veterinarian director Kneißl, has now been completed, so you can also be informed about this one of many cases that her office has to deal with. "Often enough, there are still legal disputes in such cases." Why the other householders did not react to the stench for a long time did not have an answer. Not whether the foul was now removed from the apartment. Kneissl: "Our part is not that."
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