ASPCA in the News: The Conquering Hoard - Sniffing Out Animal Lovers Who Care Too Much

The Village Voice
by Kristen Lombardi

By the time Steven, a 16-year Washington Heights resident and former Wall Street broker, had climbed the stairs to his apartment—4D—the smell had grown so strong it consumed the hallway. Jingling his keys, Steven, 62, paused and said, as if giving fair warning, "The cats have really torn up the place."

He opened the door, and a hot, stifling stench came crashing through the corridor.

And that sickly smell—or more aptly, the anonymous complaints about it—is what brought an animal-hoarding interventionist here in the first place. Allison Cardona, the chief hoarding investigator at the Manhattan-based ASPCA, has conducted these types of rescue missions all over New York City lately. In 2005 the ASPCA, as part of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, helped the city get thousands of dollars in grant money to launch an anti-hoarding program. Administered by the city's Department of Health, the pilot project pairs Cardona with a social worker who hooks up troubled hoarders with medical care, food stamps, and other services. Cardona, meanwhile, deals with the animals—first, spaying and neutering them; and then, trying to place them in adopted homes.

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