THUNDER BAY – More than a month after animal welfare agents raided a Secord Street home and seized some 60 cats, the smell of ammonia still hangs over half the block.
Workers in masks filled a third load into a flatbed dumpster that was parked in the house’s back yard on Monday afternoon. They said it would carry away the last of the cat feces, enough to fill 400 garbage bags.
In among the bags of feces festering in the hot sun throughout the weekend was the body of a decapitated cat that a cleaner had discovered underneath a couch.
Kurtis Gagne moved into his home around the same time as hoarders began renting the house two doors down.
He’s among neighbours who expected the cleanup to take time after the June 29 raid but even he’s beginning to feel he’s waited long enough.
“I’m willing to go through a little bit of discomfort with the smell and the odour but this is taking a really long time and the way they’ve been doing it is not professional at all,” he said.
“What’s going on in the yard is beginning to affect me. I can’t even describe the smell. It’s completely foul.”
He called the police, the health unit and the city bylaw office, but received no satisfaction.
The house’s renters disappeared by the time the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals broke in and took dozens of their cats to the local humane society.
But more cats are still trying to come home. Gagne and his neighbour have set live traps every night that have caught an additional 18 cats over the last two weeks.
Neighbour Melissa Langois’ feels the city hasn’t done enough in encouraging the landlord to hurry the process along. She has been uncomfortable taking her two-year-old child out in her yard for fear of health concerns, discomfort, or worse.
“You can’t have the windows open in your house if you’re cooking on a hot day because the stench just comes in,” she said.
“I have a two-year-old. I don’t want her to come here and spend an afternoon and find cat parts laying around. No one would want that for their child.”
Thunder Bay District Health Unit senior public health inspector Abby Mackie visited the home on Monday to encourage cleaners to place blankets over the trash bags.
He said the homeowner is being cooperative considering the size of the job, adding the neighbours are not in a situation that could compromise their health.
“It all boils down to risk. Once we placard the rental unit and the tenants are out, there’s really no risk. But once we start moving what’s inside to outside, we want to see it progress fairly quickly so neighbours don’t have to deal with odour issues or fly issues.”
The homeowner was unwilling to be formally interviewed but said she had already spent $3,000 on the cleanup and has a lot left to do before she can put the house back on the rental market.
