A French couple, who lived in their apartment with nearly 160 cats and seven dogs, were given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a lifelong ban on having pets.
The Nice Criminal Court decided that the man and woman “were responsible for the crime of abandonment, considering the extremely poor health” of the animals.
They were also ordered to pay over 150,000 euros to animal welfare organizations as damages.
AFP reported on Wednesday that the couple resided with a total of 159 cats and seven dogs in an 80-square-metre apartment in Nice.
In 2023, police officers responding to a neighborhood dispute discovered numerous dehydrated, malnourished animals covered in parasites and lesions in every room of the couple’s home.
In a bathroom, investigators also found the bodies of at least two cats and two puppies.
At the end of the trial, the owner of the animals, a 68-year-old woman, said she had no intention of “giving up”.
“Who wouldn’t challenge an injustice like this?” she said.
“It’s like telling a woman she won’t have any more children,” she added.
“They were the loves of my life but things have gone off track,” the owner said.
She insisted that the apartment’s state of disrepair and the condition of her animals were temporary.
She said she was looking for solutions but had found herself helpless because of an infection that affected the cats and the heatwave that had made her ill.
A psychiatric assessment revealed a mental condition known as the “Noah syndrome”, or animal hoarding, characterized by an urge to keep a higher-than-usual number of animals without the ability to properly look after them.
The woman and her 52-year-old partner were facing eviction proceedings and an 8,000-euro ($8,665) rental debt.
In 2014, the couple had already been the subject of an investigation when they lived with 13 cats and a dog in an 18-square-metre studio.
Several years later the woman took in about 30 cats found in an abandoned building, believing that they were at risk of being poisoned. Then the animals reproduced.
AFP
