This was one of those assignments I’ll never, ever forget. Fred and Kitty Neilsen (above) moved to Coos County in 2002 with 14 cats. By 2011, they had more than 100. After Fred had heart bypass surgery and dementia set in for Kitty, managing this army of felines proved impossible. These circumstances mixed with a dose of denial and hoarding tendencies produced a serious health hazard — the Neilsen’s believed the animals received the best care at their home and the animal refuse wasn’t that bad. Animal feces covered every surface in their home. Inhaling too much ammonia from the cat urine scarred Fred’s lungs. After animal advocate groups confiscated most of the cats, the community decided to help the Neilsen’s clean up their life, literally.
The cats were seized a few weeks before we got wind of this story. It was challenging to capture what this couple has been through along with what was going on in the moment.
Dan Simmons-Ritchie did a great job capturing the details of this experience. Here’s what he reported: GLASGOW — At 9 a.m. Saturday, clad in surgical masks and gowns, 20 volunteers stormed the two-story house of Fred and Kitty Neilsen.
Piling garbage into six-foot stacks and furniture into yellow mountains, these men and women tried to erase the urine-soaked legacy of 111 cats.
‘The condition of this house is just horrible,” said AnnaLynne Goorhuis, armed with a mop and five gallons of Pine-Sol.
‘People shouldn’t be living here. Animals shouldn’t be living here. Rats shouldn’t be living here.”
For the past six years, Fred and Kitty Neilsen, both 73, have lived amongst a growing army of cats. Local animal welfare groups believe it might be the county’s worst known case of cat hoarding.
During the past few months, using the threat of animal cruelty laws against the Neilsens, the groups have rehoused nearly all of the animals.
But, on Saturday, with relocation nearly complete, the volunteers faced a new and equally daunting task: Removing six years of accumulated cat urine and feces.
From morning to early evening — with every door and window open — the volunteers sopped and scoured the Neilsens’ 3-bedroom home.
Most of the volunteers wore masks, gowns, and bouffant caps, donated by Lower Umpqua Hospital. Some, like Tamara McCuistion, wore surgical boots.
‘They wear these doing bloody surgery,” laughed McCuistion, president of S/NIPPED, a Coos Bay group that advocates neutering.
McCuistion said the Neilsens meant well — they were rescuing unwanted cats — but as their health weakened, their ability to care for their animals faltered.
Despite years of requests by local animal shelters to take the cats, the couple refused. McCuistion called it a classic case of hoarding behavior.
‘Hoarders have an idea in their mind that their home is the best home,” she said. ‘It doesn’t matter the condition. Their fear is that those animals are not going to be treated in the same way in somebody else’s home.”
McCuistion walked into the couple’s two-car garage, pointing to evidence of another aspect of the couple’s habit.
‘Nothing is garbage to a hoarder,” she said, stepping between towers of tools, dog treats, flower pots, and broken TVs.
‘A hoarder’s frame of mind is, ‘Everything has value to it.’”
Rescuing became hoarding
Ten years ago, Fred and Kitty Neilsen had only 14 cats.
While cleaning, McCuistion found photos of the couple when they moved from California to their Glasgow home.
‘Here’s Spotter, he’s downstairs. Here’s Winks,” McCuistion said, pointing to a photo of the Neilsen’s oldest cats.
She flicked to another: Kitty Neilsen smiling in front of the ivory-white homestead.
‘There’s Kitty before this happened. The place is clean, you know?”
As the volunteers scrubbed the hardwood floors, Kitty wandered the house in a purple knit cap and a loose sweater. She’s a friendly woman who, in the past few years, has developed dementia.
Her husband, Fred, was isolated in the basement study to avoid the waft of bleach. Fred’s lungs have deteriorated after years of breathing in ammonia from cat urine. As he speaks, he occasionally breaks into a hacking cough.
On a blue recliner, Fred lay, wrapped in an old blanket and a yellow rainjacket. A Tom Clancy novel splayed on his lap.
While Kitty has difficulty holding a conversation, Fred is clear-minded. He doesn’t believe he and his wife are hoarding cats — ‘it’s not” — but instead says they have rescued animals with nowhere else to go.
The mess had accumulated only recently, he said, after he had heart bypass surgery.
‘I got sick there and it got out of hand,” Fred said. ‘By the time I recovered it was pretty far gone.”
Fred, formerly a printing broker, and Kitty, formerly a private investigator, first started helping cats in the late ’90s when they lived in Oakdale, a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The retired couple read in the newspaper that the county needed donations of cat food.
‘They had a woman who was hoarding animals,” Fred said.
Their donation triggered a desire to keep helping cats. Later, after applying for a grant, the Neilsens would spay and neuter 600 animals in the San Francisco Bay Area.
When they moved to Glasgow in 2002, the couple opened an animal shelter in Pony Village Mall.
The idea was that people could drop off their unwanted pets in the morning. During the day, the Neilsens would find each animal a new home.
If they couldn’t find one, the original owner would pick up their pet in the afternoon.
But the couple’s plan had a major flaw, said S/NIPPED volunteer Darci Hill.
‘People would drop them off at the mall and not pick them up again — so the Neilsens kept them.”
About four years ago, Hill visited the Neilsens’ home regularly. Back then, the couple lived with 60 cats, but their house was immaculate.
Because there was no need to continue with the visits, Hill stopped. During that time, Hill later discovered, the health of the couple ebbed and flowed, and so did the condition of the house.
‘She has dementia and he has been in denial,” Hill said. ‘He doesn’t really see a problem with it.”
In 2010, when Hill visited to flea-treat the Neilsens’ animals, she counted a total of 111 cats.
‘Taking away your kids’
While the volunteers said the couple were reluctant to give up their cats, Fred Neilsen, at least on Saturday, was in good spirits.
‘I’m deeply appreciative,” said Fred, referring to the clean-up effort. ‘And I’m also a tad embarrassed that I don’t have the endurance to stay on it as much I used to anymore.”
In the basement study, a dozen cats hid beneath mattresses and chairs — the last of the couple’s hoard.
Fred said he was thankful that the animal groups were letting them keep their oldest cats.
‘Some of those cats were born in California,” Fred said. ‘They are like family to us. It would be like somebody taking away your kids.”
With a new bed arriving that day and more furniture this week, the volunteers hope it’s a new start for the Neilsen family.
The groups also hopes that, with routine check-ups and the help of caregivers, the Neilsens can maintain a level of hygiene worthy of humans and felines.
As Fred spoke, Kitty sat down across from him in a wooden chair. Asked why she liked cats, Kitty said she needed a moment to think about the question.
Fred interjected: ‘Most cats are decent and honest and they demand to be treated with respect, or they are not going to treat you with respect.”
‘Yes,” Kitty added, pensively. ‘I would say that’s the way it is.”
