The odor
permeating from the two-family home at 133 Marlborough Street
was noticeable from the street. Inside, heaps of debris, trash
and refuge lined the dark, cold hallways. In what should have
been the kitchen pantry, four feet of cat feces was piled
high. And around every corner and peering through the
floorboards above were dozens of sets of eyes belonging to the
near 40 cats that had been abandoned inside this decrepit
home. When Arlene Cavanaugh received a call near Christmas
from a Florida man asking for assistance in giving a few
abandoned cats in Chelsea a home, she had no idea that this
was the scene waiting for her when she agreed to help.
Eventually, she and her volunteer organization, Cat Action
Team of Everett, would rescue about 40 cats from inside the
home of a couple evicted from the property by the bank for not
paying their mortgage. It is not known what has happened to
the former property owners, listed as Jacqueline and Edward
Cooper in the Chelsea Assessor’s database. Those who helped in
the cats’ rescue said they thought the couple had mental
problems, but the couple is now believed to be living in an
apartment outside the city. How they were able to live in
their home on Marlborough Street is beyond the comprehension
of those saw the grim living conditions first hand. “Words
alone can’t describe the filth inside,” said Matthew
Christian, a veterinary assistant at the Revere Pet Clinic,
which helped in the animals’ rescue and treatment. “Hell-hole
is the about the only word.” For years, though, what was
going on behind the doors of 133 Marlborough Street stayed
behind those doors. Calls by the “Chelsea Record” to the
Chelsea Animal Control unit were not returned, and Joe Cooney
of the Inspectional Services Department said the city had
recently boarded the house up when it became evident it had
been abandoned. Cavanaugh and her organization were only
called in after she received a call from Ed Connell, a Florida
mortgage company owner who had been trying on his own to help
the Coopers make mortgage payments when their property had
been on the verge of being put on auction. When it became
clear the couple wouldn’t ever be able to pay their mortgage,
he was forced to foreclose on the property and evict them.
Living in Florida and having never been to Chelsea, he
wasn’t made aware of the condition of the house until the
constable who served the eviction notice told him about the
horrific condition - and about the cats. Connell, an animal
lover who owns several pets, said he called agencies all over
New England asking for help in seeing the cats find safe
homes, but no one would agree to give him assistance. By
chance, he stumbled upon the Cat Action Team by calling the
Everett Pet Smart store, which allows Cavanaugh to use a few
rooms to help treat stray cats given to her group. Where
other, larger organizations had refused to help, Cavanaugh
immediately said yes. “She’s something. She never asked for a
dime,” Connell said. “If it wasn’t for Arlene, I don’t know
what I would have done.” Connell told her he believed about
a dozen cats were living in the house, but Cavanaugh said they
had trapped 37 at the end of last week and believed a few more
were still living there. She said she wasn’t prepared to help
this many cats, and she wasn’t prepared for them to be in such
poor health. At the Revere Pet Clinic, which provided
discounted care for many of the cats, Christian and Dr. Olga
Iglikova found that all the cats had ticks, ear mites, dental
issues and respiratory problems. One or two had feline
leukemia, a terminal and communicable disease, and others had
mental problems. One cat had to have an eye removed, and
another had parts of its ears removed. And all were covered in
dirt and their own waste. “Some of the cats were so filthy
they wouldn’t even wash themselves,” Christian said.
Cavanaugh, whose group is funded by donations and grants
from organizations such as the MSPCA, said that more than
$4,000 has been spent on medical aid for the cats, including
giving them rabies shots, treatment against insects, and
having them spayed or neutered. The Cat Action Team
received help from many area organizations, including the
Charles River Feline Rescue group, Massachusetts Progressive
Animal Welfare Society (MassPAWS), the Animal Rescue League of
Boston, the Melrose Humane Society, Cat Connections, Stray
Pets In Need (SPIN), the North Shore Animal Hospital and Safe
Harbor for Animals. Pet Smart donated food and litter for all
the cats. Connell himself has donated $2,500 so far to help
defer the costs, and Cavanaugh gives him credit for saving
these cats’ lives. “He could have had someone come in and
euthanize all those cats and gotten rid of them, but he
didn’t. And he can sleep at night because he did the right
thing,” she said. Many of the cats will now be given a
second chance at a happy life, but Cavanaugh is saddened by
the fact that many didn’t even have a chance to live.
Volunteers found dozens of cat fetuses around the house the
other cats had miscarried. “It was heartbreaking to see all
the babies frozen to the floor,” Cavanaugh said. With all
that they had been through, though, most of the cats were
receptive to being removed from the home and have responded
very well to rehabilitation. “When they looked at us, they
just looked relieved, like they knew they were safe,”
Cavanaugh said. Beverly Alba of MassPAWS said she too was
amazed at how well most of the cats were recovering. “You
can’t imagine the cats living in those conditions had such
sweet and sunny dispositions,” Alba said. None of the cats
rescued will be euthanized, and most, having been weaned back
to health in volunteer foster care situations, will soon be
able to be adopted into homes of caring people. Alba said no
one was sure how long this situation had been going on inside
the house, but there was an age difference of 10 years between
some of the cats, indicating that this may have been a
long-term problem. If cats are not spayed or neutered, she
said, it is easy for them to quickly multiply. “All you
need is one male and one female, and they breed and then those
cats breed,” Alba said. In fact, according to Cat Action,
two uncontrolled breeding cats could produce 80,399,780
kittens in 10 years of none of the cats were ever spayed or
neutered. Christian said that if anyone finds themselves with
an unexpected litter of kittens, or realizes that he or she
doesn’t have the means to spay or neuter a cat, there is help
available through various organizations like Cat Action.
“There is always help available ... and sooner is better
than later,” he said. And if residents suspect animals are
being mistreated in a neighbor’s house, he said, they
shouldn’t be afraid to call authorities or assume someone
already knows about the problem. “Do not be afraid to pressure
your local animal control officer to take action,” Christian
said. “Every city and municipality has people to manage
problems like this, but they’re not telepathic.” A phone
call a few years ago might have prevented the problems at the
Marlborough Street house, he said. “It’s incredibly ugly what
happened and it could have been so easily avoided,” Christian
said.
The odor
permeating from the two-family home at 133 Marlborough Street
was noticeable from the street. Inside, heaps of debris, trash
and refuge lined the dark, cold hallways. In what should have
been the kitchen pantry, four feet of cat feces was piled
high. And around every corner and peering through the
floorboards above were dozens of sets of eyes belonging to the
near 40 cats that had been abandoned inside this decrepit
home. 