Cheektowaga woman charged in animal hoarding
Stench of animal waste coming from a Cheektowaga home led to complaints and an arrest of a woman with almost a decade-long record of animal hoarding.
On Tuesday evening, police found Linda Roehre, 48, with 19 cats, one dog, a fish and three children. The children were taken to an aunt's house, said Lt. Jim Speyer of the Cheektowaga Police.
Roehre was charged with child endangerment and animal cruelty, both misdemeanors.
Her house on Royal Palm Drive, with holes in the wall, floors warped by urine and littered with cat feces, was condemned and she cannot live there, Speyer said. Her parenting case was referred to the state Office of Child and Family Services, he said. Three of four teenagers in the family were found watching TV. The house was dark, there was no furnace and little food.
"Our concern is for the kids," said Speyer. "We want to make sure the kids have a decent place to live."
The animals were taken in by the SPCA, which has records showing that 37 pets have been confiscated from Roehre since 2001. Most of the animals found Tuesday were young and in good physical condition. While the dog is still being examined, the cats will be available for adoption at the Walden Galleria and the Tonawanda SPCA office at 205 Ensminger Road.
"In this situation, we were able to get in in time, before these animals were suffering," said Gina Browning, director of SPCA public relations.
Both Speyer and Browning said local reports of animal hoarding seem to be increasing.
"The more that we're learning about this as mental illness … as opposed to just a "crazy cat lady … the more we're able to address it to help not just the animals who are victims, but to help those people," she said.
According to one analyst of animal hoarding, collecting pets in large numbers is effort to take control of something.
"It is totally not about "how much I love animals,'‚" said Celeste Killeen. "It is all about power and control."
When animals are taken away from people with this compulsion, they often collect again. "This is the most insidious kind of animal abuse and neglect because it goes on for months and years," said Killeen, the co-author of "Inside Animal Hoarding" who is in the midst of doctoral psychology study. "And that's what's really sad about this."
Killeen, a social worker for a family-service agency in Boise, Idaho, wrote about a woman in a small Oregon town who had 552 dogs.
In an effort to prevent more hoarding after her arrest, the woman was allowed to care for two dogs that were neutered and microchiped. When her five years of probation recently ended, Killeen visited. "She's back at it again," Killeen said of the woman.
While Killeen could see five well-cared for dogs, she could hear many more making noise from a back room.
"You could tell there had to be 20 dogs at least," Killeen said. "It does repeat itself over and over again for a lot of people. Hoarding is really complex."
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