Minor-League Cat-Hoarding in Pawtucket

Oh, Bostonist does love cat-hoarding. OK, not really - we think it's cruel and repellent, but the fact that it is a pathology that actually exists amuses us in a sick way (as does the fact that people in New York are managing to take their pet dogs on airplanes by claiming they are "emotional support dogs" and the owners would bug out if they had to be dogless for even a few hours; but we'll have to get back to that story later).

The latest regional news of cats-in-squalor comes from Pawtucket, where last Wednesday some 65 live cats and seven dead ones were discovered in a woman's home. (The next day, animal control went back and found many more.) Oddly, last week happened to be the time when the Rhode Island legislature approved a bill to require that cats be spayed or neutered.

You may recall Boston's major-league cat lady, Heidi Erickson, who for a time was conducting daily protests outside the Supreme Judicial Court in an effort to have her cats returned to her (the living ones, anyway). So far, the name of Pawtucket's AAA cat lady has not made it into the papers and she has declined to take to the streets or don a haz-mat suit. Of course, Erickson ultimately lost her case, so maybe the woman in Pawtucket is exploring other options. Or maybe she's just waiting for the rain to let up.