Animal hoarding in Florida: addressing the ongoing animal, human, and public health crisis.

• Author: Morton, Gregg Riley
• Position: Animal Law

Animal hoarding is a quiet epidemic in Florida. It is a misunderstood and under-recognized problem that has serious negative consequences for animal and human welfare, creates significant property damage, and causes a substantial economic burden on government, mental health and animal organizations, and ultimately taxpayers. (1)

The most obvious victims in animal hoarding cases are the animals themselves. Unlike animal cruelty and abuse cases in which a single animal is injured or killed in an act of violence, the suffering from the neglect found in animal hoarding can be exponentially worse. Hoarded animals are kept in inhumane and squalid conditions for long periods of time with inadequate food, water, and medical care. However, in more recent years, professionals have started to recognize the significant human suffering that occurs in animal hoarding cases. Animal hoarding is often associated with self-neglect by the hoarders themselves and places other family members, such as minor children, elderly relatives, and dependent or disabled adults, at serious risk as well. (2)

Because of the nature of hoarding, the living spaces where it occurs are often seriously compromised, and basic sanitation has been rendered impossible. (3) Usually, the inside of a hoarder's home is covered with animal waste, trash, and sometimes even rotting animal carcasses. (4) From a neighborhood perspective, other items kept by the hoarder can pose a fire risk. Rodent and insect infestations, as well as odors and ammonia levels, cause the problem to become a nuisance for entire communities. (5)

Having said this, it is difficult to estimate the scope of the problem. While there are incidents involving hoarding in almost every community around the state, no dedicated statewide tracking of the number of cases or outcomes presently exists. While firm statistics are not readily available, some surveys at the national level suggest that at least 3,000 cases of animal hoarding occur annually in the United States and that these cases involve a quarter-million animals. (6) Extrapolating these figures to Florida would mean that there are hundreds of cases involving thousands of animals every year.

Although animal hoarding is still not well understood, the criteria of what constitutes animal hoarding is generally agreed on. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), a group that frequently becomes involved in hoarding cases, uses the following criteria developed by the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium (HARC) at Tufts University to describe animal hoarding: (7)

* An individual possesses more than the typical number of companion animals.

* The individual is unable to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter, and veterinary care, with this neglect often resulting in starvation, illness, and death.

* The individual is in denial of the inability to provide this minimum care and the impact of that failure on the animals, the household, and human occupants of the dwelling.

Although dogs and cats are the most common animals in hoarding cases, almost any type of animal can be a victim. Domestic animals other than dogs and cats, farm animals, and wildlife are all potential targets of hoarding. (8)

Costs Associated with Hoarding Cases

The financial costs associated with hoarding are also difficult to quantify, but they are substantial and frequently are recurring and ongoing. Because the rate of recidivism among untreated animal hoarders approaches 100 percent, it is not atypical for hoarders to have a string of involvements with authorities that go on for years. Local animal control and animal shelters have limited budgets and are ill equipped to investigate these cases. When the problem becomes large enough that some type of intervention becomes necessary, animal control officers and other nonprofit animal organizations struggle with housing and feeding the large numbers of animals that are seized.

Hoarding cases are also a considerable burden on finite judicial resources. In one well-documented case that began in Broward County, an individual named Vikki Kittles was initially charged with animal cruelty in 1985. (9) In 1994, after having moved from Florida to Mississippi, Colorado, and Washington, Kittles was finally brought to trial in Oregon. (10) During the trial, which lasted five weeks at a cost to the county of $150,000, Kittles fired seven court-appointed attorneys, eventually representing herself, filed hundreds of legal motions, and had four different judges remove themselves from the case. (11) Ultimately, she was convicted of 42 counts of first-degree animal neglect and sentenced to four months in jail with an additional 71 days for contempt. (12) Although she was not allowed to possess animals under the terms of her probation, she was not required to remain in the state and officials had no way to monitor her activities; and she has continued to obtain animals and have run-ins with authorities in different states related to animals in her possession. (13) While the Kittles case is an extreme example, all hoarding cases have the potential for these issues to occur because the court system and current law are ill-suited to deal with the mental health and other issues associated with hoarding.

The Psychology of Hoarding

Part of the problem that courts, government agencies, attorneys, and organizations face in dealing with animal hoarding is that there is a lack of awareness about what causes the behavior and how best to treat it. The science behind what motivates hoarders is a relatively new area of study for mental...