WICU12

     Neighbors on O'Dell St. say they are in disbelief over charges of animal cruelty stemming from right next door. CLICK FOR VIDEO

    "When I go up to get my kids in the morning or put them to bed, I'll walk downstairs and see them in the windows and there's a different cat there every time and I'm like 'who's that?'  I knew I'd seen 10 or 20 different cats in the window per day, but it's too much to count," next-door neighbor Shanen Muddiman says.

    Earlier today, animal cruelty officers removed 25 sick and dying cats.  Dozens more dead cats were carried out in black plastic bags. 

     "We found live cats and we found dead cats wrapped up in two different freezers," Humane Society of Northwest Pennsylvania Chief Cruelty Investigator Merle Wolfgang says.

     The homeowner, who's name is not being released by officials, awaits charges of animal cruelty.  This latest incident is her second brush with the law.  She was investigated for animal hoarding in 2003.

     Meanwhile, neighbors say the smell wafting from the house was so foul, they would not open their windows, even during the summer.

     "It just smelled like a meth lab.  She's had so many cats -- that's what it smelled like.   If you walked by right now, I bet you could smell it.  She's offered me to come in her house a couple times and I can't do it," Muddiman says.

     "It's hard to imagine how many animals have gone through this, at the hands of this individual," Wolfgang says.

Lisa Weismann