‘What we have going on here is irresponsible, unsanitary and illegal. This is pet cruelty and normalizing neglect of animals.’: Father tries to save his children and pets from their neglectful, hoarding mother and their unsafe living environment

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Sep 22, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

At what point do you admit to yourself that you have too many animals living in your home? This is the question that sits at the center of our story today as we gingerly step into the home of a woman who has ever so slightly lost her grip on reality and created a rather dangerous and hazardous living situation for her hooman and animal family to live in. told from the perspective of her hard done by husband who could not manage to help her gain some perspective, this story tells the tale of what happens when a love for animals goes too far.

So far in fact that it begins to hurt the animals rather than help. We can only wonder how things got this bad, but regardless of how things got to be the way they were, the question in life is always what can you do to fix it, especially when animal lives are at stake.
 

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  • 01
    It's 6 AM and the roosters have been crowing non stop for the last two hours in our sunroom adjacent to our bedroom. I'm now sitting in the basement as flies swarm around me and I've given up
    via notanimalperson
  • 02
    swatting them because there's too many to bother. The basement is the area of the house with the least amount of flies. On top of the rooster noise is the cackle of male quail that reside in our living
    via notanimalperson
  • 03
    room. They live in the base of 3 cages that are filled with budgies and cockatiel. When I wake up I remember to put on my slippers and I hope I get to them before stepping in dog u e or fresh
    via notanimalperson
  • 04
    dogs. Our carpet in our master bedroom is saturated in dog une with many spots that haven't dried out yet. Yesterday, my wife bought our daughter a new tortoise and a frog.
    via notanimalperson

  • We did not think that it would be possible to vomit from reading about something disgusting but we are very close to that actually happening after reading this. How on earth has someone let this become their life? No matter how much you might like animals, this just seems way too over the top.

  • 05
    The tortoise will be added to the aquarium with our bearded dragon. The bearded dragon which is often is free to roam the house because my wife feels it will be happier. It is free to
    via notanimalperson
  • 06
    р pp on our furniture or floor or where it was left out last. As I sit here in my basement, the one place where I do not allow any pets, I'm listening to a rabbit thumping it's paws on the floor above
    via notanimalperson
  • 07
    chickens standing in a field
    via Sonja Birkelbach via Adobe Stock

    Disclaimer: This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 08
    me, or it's the sound of it biting and ripping apart our wall or furniture. I'm not sure which noise it is but I don't care anymore. We have at least 6 rabbits. Their little claws make a loud scraping and tapping noise as they scurry and hop
    via notanimalperson
  • 09
    across our laminate floors. The main level of our home is littered in rabbit droppings. The droppings get pushed to the side as our four children and us inadvertently kick them around while walking
    via notanimalperson
  • 10
    through the main level of our home. The dogs won't likely get let out this morning to go the bathroom. The smaller dog doesn't even obey the command to go out anymore. He just stares at you
    via notanimalperson
  • 11
    confused by your directive. If he does go outside, he just comes back in to find a place to st and pin one of our bedrooms. Our backyard doesn't have much dog st because it's mostly in our bedrooms. It will stay there for
    via notanimalperson

  • Oh goodness no, please, this cannot be a reality where two adults and their children are living. Like seriously, this sounds like the scenes from one of those reality television shows where a crew comes to help a family that is in over their head. Except on the reality shows you do your best to hope that it is not real and that they have exaggerated certain aspects…

  • 12
    days on end because there is no expectation that it shouldn't be there. The new smell from the giant rug I bought for the basement has worn off. It smelled like glue and dye and it drowned out the
    via notanimalperson
  • 13
    odors from the dozen chicken that reside in our family and living room. They live in a couple 36 inch fabric pop up enclosures filled with pine shavings. It is saturated with chicken s' t and ue and has
    via notanimalperson
  • 14
    soaked into our oak hardwood floors permanently damaging them. The stench is eye watering. We have a lot of feathered friends here. In our master bedroom are three more cages with a
    via notanimalperson
  • 15
    variety of exotic birds that sing loudly all day long and leave a permanent mess of seeds on the floor around the cages. They are free to roam and so our room has dropping along our beds headboard, on our
    via notanimalperson
  • 16
    pillows, along the sides of the doors where they perch, in our bathroom mirrors and down our shower curtains. Our sunroom has 30 + chickens and about 8 or 10 of them are roosters and the roosters
    via notanimalperson
  • 17
    crow all day. This is where the flies breed. They come in through the 40 year old sliding door that is often left open. This door separates the sunroom from our living area and our kitchen. The flies swarm in and at any
    via notanimalperson
  • 18
    given time there are dozens of flies in our living space. The heat and humidity bake the sunroom floor which is covered in chicken stand ue and the odor spreads through the house.
    via notanimalperson
  • 19
    Our house is in a suburban neighborhood. We do not live on a farm. In addition to these animals, we have 2 pet rats. They are sweet but as you would expect, their cage is not well
    via notanimalperson
  • 20
    maintained and it stinks 90% of the time. Our boys room has a snake and axolotl aquarium. One of our daughters has an algae covered fish aquarium that we fill with water whenever we hear
    via notanimalperson
  • 21
    the filter screech because the water evaporated too low. She also has an unkept cage with a hamster that is rarely played with. Right now I'm listening to the mice eat through the foam board
    via notanimalperson
  • 22
    insulation in my basement. I want to get rid of them, but it's challenging with all the access to feed throughout the house. They seem to be breeding and entering through the home and a faster pace than they can be exterminated.
    via notanimalperson
  • 23
    I am not a pet person and this life is driving me nuts. My wife is a pet hoarder and has ADHD. Our backyard is a ghost town of quail cages from last year when she was really into quail breeding and we
    via notanimalperson
  • 24
    had over 150 living in our backyard. Now there remains broken and half built cages and mounds of shavings and wood chips that she intended to use as bedding. Scattered in random places in our backyard are
    via notanimalperson
  • 25
    household garbage bags of chickens' t. When you try to lift them they fall apart because they weigh 30-40 pounds and the bags have deteriorated from the sun.
    via notanimalperson
  • 26
    woman on the phone surrounded by trash
    via Yakobchuk Olena via Adobe Stock

    Disclaimer: This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 27
    When challenged, she seems to delight in the frustration it causes me because she is not happy in our marriage. It seems that accumulating animals is bringing her little bits of dopamine with each acquisition.
    via notanimalperson
  • 28
    I'm tired of living like this and I don't know what to do. Our children think this behavior is acceptable and they often chide at me for not being on board with the animals. They say I'm not a pet person. It's
    via notanimalperson
  • 29
    true that I'm actually not a "pet person". But what we having going on here is irresponsible, unsanitary and illegal. This is pet cruelty and normalizing neglect of animals.
    via notanimalperson
  • 30
    Fast forward nearly 12 months and my wife requested a divorce. We are now separated awaiting an official legal divorce.
    via notanimalperson
  • 31
    I have moved into a very nice home and have the kids 50/50. My physical and mental health has dramatically improved. My kids now have an organized and clean haven. They seem happy.
    via notanimalperson
  • 32
    It seems inevitable she may lose custody of the kids at some point altogether. I'm hoping she can keep things in check but due to the constant denial that there was a problem it will most likely repeat. I
    via notanimalperson
  • 33
    may have no choice but take steps to ensure the children's safety at some point further disrupting the children's lives from their otherwise loving mother.
    via notanimalperson

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responsibility animal cruelty animal stories hoarders mother living reddit story save pet neglect unsafe illegal animals children Father
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