Teresa Nielsen Hayden has put together an amazing, comprehensive post about squalor and animal collecting: the so-called “cat ladies” and garbage people. The stories are incredible, the syndrome pervasive. People across the country accumulate hundreds of animals, or fill their bathtubs with feces, or stack newspapers to the ceiling in room after room until their homes are uninhabitable.
Careful with some of those links, the stories they lead to are not for the squeamish. This article from the Minneapolis City Pages is particularly amazing.
[via Boing Boing]