A Bohemia man was charged with animal cruelty after the Suffolk County SPCA found 69 cats living in “poor, squalid conditions” in his home.
Investigators responded to the home of Stephen Glantz, 75, on May 3 after receiving a complaint. They found a horror scene — wet urine and feces coated the floors, the stairs and even the walls, officers said. The smell was so putrid that detectives needed to call in a hazmat team and a fire response team from Islip and Bohemia; the level of ammonia in the air was so high, Islip Fire Marshals found, that the entire building was deemed uninhabitable.
“They were dirty, some of them were covered in feces,” said Jason Heller, president of the Long Island Veterinary Medical Association (LIVMA), who spearheaded the volunteer effort to treat the cats. “The discharge was all over their body.”
Glantz and more than 60 cats were living in the filth, the SPCA said — but the shocking scene didn’t stop there. Detectives allegedly found more than 20 dead kittens wrapped up in Glantz’ freezer.
It’s not the first time Heller has seen something like this. The commonality underlying many of these cases, he said, is that hoarders are often experiencing mental illness, and hiding dead animals in the freezer is often a form of “out of sight, out of mind.”
“Having done this long enough, [I’ve seen] there’s a sadness that goes along with mental illness,” Heller said. “I’m sure it got overwhelming very quick. I’m sure it started as a good deed, it got overwhelming, and at that point, if you’re seeing something pass away, well, what do you do? You either call someone for help, or you hide it.”
The SPCA worked with Long Island Cat & Kitten Solution over the next day to trap all of the cats, who needed veterinary treatment of varying urgency. Some cats were pregnant; many had upper respiratory infections, eye disease, missing teeth, ear discharge and urine scalding; three cats were in such dire shape that vets had no choice but to euthanize them.
On top of the medical treatment, every cat needed to be spayed or neutered. The massive undertaking took Heller and multiple LIVMA volunteers Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday to complete.
Seeing so many cats in such a dire state can take an emotional toll on a person. But though it’s difficult, Heller and the other volunteer vets have no choice but to stay focused.
“The problem is how to compartmentalize what’s going on so that we can be effective in what we’re doing and know that we have a job to do,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of crying today,” he added. “We get small wins and a lot of losses, in certain senses. So we have to look at the positive, and hope that we can always look at the positive, so that maybe when this happens again … that we can continue to work in that direction of helping.”
There may still be a happy ending for many of the cats, who are recovering at the Islip Animal Shelter. Once medically stable, 26 of them will seek forever homes in upstate New York, while the rest will be available for adoption here on Long Island.
Glantz surrendered to SPCA detectives at the Suffolk County Police Department on May 6. He was arrested and charged with nine counts of animal cruelty and nine counts of animal neglect. He is due in court on May 23.
