Plight of pets left behind irks neighbors

A woman moves and leaves 13 cats, but it's not abandonment, officials say.

By CAMILLE C. SPENCER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 20, 2007

Cat food left by neighbors and other debris covers the porch of a vacant home on Cutty Sark Drive in Port Richey where more than a dozen cats have been abandoned.
	[Brendan Fitterer | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Roughly a dozen kittens leap through the doorway of a vacant house on Cutty Sark Lane in Port Richey as Phyllis Breinager opens the door. Breinager, who lives on the next block over, is among the neighbors who have been feeding the abandoned cats for some time now.

PORT RICHEY - Inside the empty house on Cutty Sark Drive, 13 cats had their run of the house.

A neighbor who poked her head inside the unlocked front door saw feces on the floor. Through the window, another neighbor said, the cats clawed at the blinds.

A sheriff's deputy who went inside found no food for the cats and no way for them to get outside.

May passed. Then June and half of July. No one saw the woman who had lived there. Neighbors had called Pasco County Animal Control, but thought it was taking too long for someone to do something.

So they took matters into their own hands.

* * *

Gennice Marrs, 41, owned the cats. Phyllis Breinager, a cat lover and neighbor who knew Marrs by the nickname "G," said Marrs and her two sons left the house sometime in May and moved in with Marrs' boyfriend.

Marrs told her she'd be back for her cats, Breinager said.

Marrs told the Times her neighbors don't know what they're talking about, and she declined to comment for this story.

Weeks passed, neighbors said, and no one could remember the last time they saw Marrs. Broken flower pots and patio furniture scattered the front walkway. Neighbors got the feeling that no one was living there.

So Breinager began stopping by the house almost every evening with a bag full of cat food and a gallon of milk. Then, she called Animal Control to see if the agency knew what was going on.

Someone there told Breinager, 74, that she was breaking and entering, even though the door was unlocked.

"I said, 'They're starving to death,' " Breinager said. "I said, 'You're not doing your job.' But Animal Control said they'd handle it."

Without a warrant or permission from Marrs to go inside her home, however, Animal Control officials could only leave notes on the door and hope she called.

On June 29 - four days after Animal Control opened the case - she did.

"We received a message from Gennice Marrs that she is in the process of moving and will get rid of all of the cats except two," said Lynne Deddo, a supervisor for Pasco County Animal Control.

"Because we did have contact with her, we didn't have enough probable cause to get a warrant to go in the house."

Another neighbor, Tonia Tuttle, was concerned that she hadn't seen Marrs in awhile, so she called sheriff's deputies about the cats. A deputy went inside the house July 3 and found "approximately 10 to 15 cats," as well as "massive amounts of roaches" and "piles of numerous household items," according to his two-page report.

"It appeared no one was residing at the residence nor did it appear that anyone has resided at the residence for a long time," the deputy wrote.

He referred the case back to Animal Control.

On July 5, Animal Control officials posted a "possible abandonment of animals" sign on the front door and garage. That notice asked the owner to contact Animal Control within 24 hours.

Marrs called them back July 7. She told them she had the legal right to have her 13 cats at her Cutty Sark house.

In unincorporated Pasco, having more than nine pets in a house could constitute a zoning violation, depending on where you live. County land use codes say a building with more than nine dogs, cats or domesticated animals is considered a kennel. And kennels aren't allowed in certain residential neighborhoods.

Marrs said her new landlord would allow only three cats, and that she was trying to get homes for the others.

She also said she doesn't have a car and gets rides about 10 p.m. every night to feed her cats, Deddo said. And as long as the owner is feeding the animal on a regular basis, at least once every 24 hours, "it's not abandonment," senior assistant county attorney Kristi Wooden said.

* * *

As Animal Control officials tried to sort things out, a third frustrated neighbor decided it was time to give the cats a new home.

She rounded up all of Marrs' cats July 12 and took them to Animal Control, telling officials the cats had been abandoned at a home on Cutty Sark Drive.

One cat scratched the woman, so it had to be quarantined for 10 days. But since she wasn't sure which cat it was, all 13 went into quarantine. That incident, combined with the cats' questionable living arrangement, prompted Animal Control to take them in, Deddo said.

"I'd rather an animal be safe here than somewhere else," Deddo said. "We figured we'd sort things out later."

Some time later, Animal Control workers put two and two together and realized the cats in quarantine were from the Marrs case, Deddo said.

Animal Control called Marrs, who stopped by two days later to identify the cats. She also relinquished ownership of 12 of them. Those cats will be screened for adoption.

Marrs wanted to keep one, Deddo said, but said she needed time to get the $150 she'd have to pay Animal Control for the boarding charges for the quarantine period.

Marrs could be cited for failing to provide rabies vaccinations for the cats at her new home, animal services manager Denise Hilton said.

But Marrs won't face any charges for the cats left at the Cutty Sark house, Hilton said, because they don't meet the definition of abandonment.

Hilton said it's not unusual for Animal Control to see situations like the one on Cutty Sark, where people step in to help.

"There's quite an underground out there of individuals who like to take care of cats," she said. "We do get this type of behavior from time to time, with certain individuals popping up and people having their hands in it."

And Hilton said she knows the neighbors on Cutty Sark were only trying to help by feeding the cats and calling Animal Control and law enforcement.

"We like people to be concerned," she said. "Maybe, that way, we can circumvent some horrific hoarding problems from occurring."

Camille C. Spencer can be reached at cspencer@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6229.

[Last modified August 19, 2007, 21:04:45]