Feline Fancier Gets the Word: He Has to Give Up 110 of His 120 Cats

WASHINGTON, Pa. —  Sam Mancuso’s soft spot for cats has put him under a magistrate’s deadline to rid his home of about 110 cats by Aug. 12.

Mancuso, 58, said he hopes that cat fanciers will take them. If not, he will rely on friends.

“I’ll just have to impose on them. I don’t want to see (the cats) put to sleep,” he said last week.

Mancuso said he never liked cats that much, but he began giving them homes eight years ago because he didn’t like the way others abused them.

“They can’t vote and they don’t complain, so people don’t care what they do to them. A lot of them are strays that neighbors drop off,” he said.

He housed and fed as many 200 cats this spring, but now he has about 120. Magistrate J. Albert Spence, ruling last month, said he can keep 10 cats.

The city Board of Health, acting on neighbors’ complaints, declared his home unfit for habitation on May 19 and in July charged him with creating a nuisance.

Mancuso, who was in the hospital in May, had a son and his friend feed the cats, but they didn’t keep up with cleaning after them. When Mancuso returned, he said he had to throw out most of his furniture, carpeting and clothing, and he had the house fumigated.

He said food and litter costs him about $160 a week and he spends at least six hours a day caring for his felines.

“I don’t like the cost, (but) it wasn’t the cats’ fault,” he said.

The Washington County Humane Society inspected the house in June and declared that the cats were not being abused.