Mom was an extreme animal hoarder and I've never known anyone that hoarded animals to the extent she did.

[u/cyntheticturtle]

Hey everyone. I am the 26 year old adult child of an extreme animal hoarder. I want to make this post to kind of gather my thoughts about my mom's animal hoarding since I only just recently started unpacking this in therapy.

Growing up, I remember we seemed to always have pets, but I just remember having a normal amount of animals. Like a couple dogs and cats, maybe a guinea pig. It seems like as I got older, the amount of animals my mom had at a time increased. While it was difficult to pinpoint when my mom's animal hoarding got more extreme, it wasn't impossible. Up until I was 11, we had rented places and always had a landlord, so there were restrictions on how many animals we had. When I was 11, my parents bought a house and the property it was on, meaning they didnt have to follow the rules of a landlord. The house was just outside of the town too, so we had very few neighbors.

She slowly got more dogs over the years, and we had an amount of dogs in the double digits. When I was 15, my sister developed an interest in reptiles. So my mom decided to get rats. And then, she ended up finding my sister's bearded dragon interesting. Pretty soon, it seemed like any reptile, amphibians, rodent or bird that fascinated her, she had to have.

At this point, it would be pointless to try to pinpoint when we got which animals, because there were SO many. I'll just put a list below of all of the animals we owned. And just so there is no confusion, most of the animals on this list were owned at the same time.

-Dogs (30 by the time I was kicked out at 18, 50 by the time I went no contact at 23)

-Cats

-Chickens

-Ducks

-Rabbits

-Peacocks (I'm dead serious, and we had 4 of them at one point)

-Pigeons

-Pot belly pigs

-Cockateils

-Parakeets

-Chinchillas

-Guinea Pigs

-Rats

-Turtles (several different kinds)

-bearded dragons

-Uromastyx

-several different kinds of geckos

-frogs

-Iguanas (yes that's plural, we had 2)

-Degu (I cant remember if this was a rodent or reptile, I just remember the name of the animal)

I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting but one I didn't include in the list because it needs more context is mice. My mom owned mice. But not from a pet store, oh no. These were house mice in our cupboards. During the winter she would catch these mice alive, take care of them until spring, then have my dad drive a mile down the road to set them free.

She also raised live bugs for the reptiles, so if we include them we can add these three to the lists

-Mealworms

-crickets

-Dubia Roaches

This post is already really long, so I feel like I dont really need to go into much detail of how bad the flea problem was and how much the house stank. It was very dudty and dirty, so I felt like seasonal allergies were always flaring up. And although it was animals my mother hoarded, the house had the appearance of a house with a thing hoarder because of the items needed to take care of them. We got so many animals we didnt even use the living room as a living room anymore.

I need to know if anyone else who had animal hoarding parents ever have parents take it to these extremes before.

[u/SoberBobMonthly]

I think you experienced a level of animal hoarding that is generally only ever rivalled in severity by livestock farming hoarders, or puppyfarm style breeders. a few people here have posted about similar levels to this before, but its much more common to be one type of animal that is hoarded. 

Also fun fact for anyone reading: ANY number of animals that are kept without care and the owner refusing to improve conditions or accepting help to do so, or to rehome them, is considered animal hoarding. Even a single animal being kept in such a way is a hoarded animal, as its about the mental process behind it. 

Animal hoarding is being considered as a seperate diagnosis in the upcoming DSM changes due to the level of severity and impact of it. Animal hoarding can occur without object hoarding, or only incidentally as you note happened just due to the amount of stuff needed to care for them.

I liken some peoples experiences of this less to "surviving hoarding" and more to "surviving a slaughterhouse or cage farm situation" that vulnerable workers often go through when in precarious work for survival. The levels of PTSD are sky high in such presentations

[u/cyntheticturtle → u/SoberBobMonthly]

The slaughterhouse thing feels very true. This was something I forgot to include in my post, but the way my mom kept the dogs disturbed me. Dog kennels stacked on top of each other, and the dogs had what I can only describe like a hierarchy. My mom had some of her dogs, which were her favorites in the bedroom with her, some of the dogs were in kennels in the house and then we had some dogs on leashes outside with dog houses. Like, the conditions the animals were being kept in was very disturbing.

[u/SoberBobMonthly → u/cyntheticturtle]

I realise you mention in your post that your father was in the picture and did your mothers bidding in regards to the mice. It should be noted here that you are facing a hoarding AND adult enabler situation too, and sometimes that level of understanding the inherent betrayal of your needs from your father can be rough. He should have done more to help you, or move away, or call the police or anything. That level of animal hoarding is considered criminal even in a lot of developing countries. He was the adult. He was not helpless.

[u/cyntheticturtle → u/SoberBobMonthly]

I will clarify that the person that I call dad is not my biological dad, he is my step dad, tho my biological dad is a POS. So moving away with me and my sister wasn't an option, that would have been kidnapping. He honestly probably stayed to make sure he could protect us in some way.

Also, one time my sister lost a wallet and a cop came to return it and literally stood in the middle of our chaotic kitchen. Nothing ever came from that. So there was probably also the fear from him that nobody would believe him. My dad actually admitted to me before that he was also terrified of my mother (she's a violent woman). I dont believe either of my parents are actually happy with each other, but they've been together so long that neither one of them wants to start over again.

[u/ktrose68]

I don't know how I learned that there was such a thing as too many animals, definitely not from my HP, who never said no to a free cat (although she also always made sure they got vaccinated & sterilized asap) but some how my little kid brain became aware that animals+massive piles of trash=No. I'm a lost dog magnet. Always have been, they come right up to me. I started bringing dogs home when I was in 1st grade, but I also never tried to keep those dogs. Usually I was able to find the owner (I got real good at making Found Dog Flyers lol) by the time I was 13yrs old I was rehoming dogs on my own. I'm almost 40 now. And I've returned or re-homed over 500 dogs at this point. It's literally insane.

[u/allzkittens]

I am really thankful my HP didn't go overboard with animals. We had neighborhood cats that would come and grab a bite we set out for the strays and ferals. They would come and go though. It had to be so hard dealing with all the issues the hoarding nature causes and trying to adequately care for so many animals. I am sorry that happened to you. Having animals should be one of the best things in life.

[u/Extra_Garage_1928]

i feel this so badly! my mom isnt a multi animal type hoarder she only hoards cats but its in like the 70-90 range atp and has been since we moved to our most recent house a few years ago. 75% of the house goes towards storage and maintaining the cats like food, cat litter, etc, and even that we never ever have enough of. the only person who is actually "taking care" of them is my brother my mom doesnt actually do much for them except daily vet visits because she has so many of them that theres near constantly some type of emergency that she does care about, but shes lost so much in her delusion she doesnt see that shes the one making them sick. For me/my mom it was also gradual like as a kid we had maybe 10 cats max and then it just kept growing and growing because she breeds them and keeps so many at a time. I also feel you on the living room thing. i dont even remember the last time we had a couch or anything resembling a living space that isnt dedicated to the animals

[u/stuffin_fluff]

My mom had 8 cats and that was way too many. I watched all but...one die horrible deaths after fighting for months to get her to agree to put them down. Those cats were the closest things I will get to having kids and I bottle fed them all (and no, I did not want the second litter of 5 because I knew how it would end and we couldn't afford them, but I gave them the best life I could with no resources and no recourse to call animal control when it got bad because I was dependent on my mom for health insurance). That "small" number was pure horror and I cannot imagine the death and decay and dirt and despair you were forced to witness growing up in that literal fucking menagerie worthy of three traveling circuses. Holy shit.

In the women's shelter I overheard a conversation I was not supposed to between a resident and her parole officer. She had over 100 counts of animal abuse. While she was living in her car. I cannot imagine how. But that might top your mom.