Nearly 200 cats, some dead, found in Doylestown Twp. home
Lori Romanisko, 56, of Doylestown Township, is expected to be charged after animal welfare officers searched her home Tuesday and found nearly 200 cats, 59 of which were dead.
Nearly 200 cats, some of them dead, were found Tuesday in a sparsely furnished Doylestown Township townhouse that stank of ammonia and feces, authorities said Wednesday.
Lori Romanisko, 56, of Aspen Way, is expected to face criminal charges after the 136 surviving cats are medically and behaviorally evaluated, said Nikki Thompson, chief humane society police officer for the Bucks County SPCA.
She said 59 cats, many of them kittens, were found dead in Romanisko’s refrigerator and freezer. Several live cats were suffering from severe eye and upper respiratory infections, and others could be feral, she said.
Though animal welfare officers took all the cats to two local shelters to properly care for them, Thompson said, Romanisko, a volunteer for local rescue groups, has refused to surrender the animals.
“She felt that she was really helping the cats and loved them more than anybody else could," Thompson said. She did not say what charges Romanisko could face, but noted that she will be responsible for all the cats’ medical bills unless she forfeits ownership of the animals.
Officers with the Bucks County SPCA used a search warrant to enter Romanisko’s home, which she rents, around 11 a.m. Tuesday after receiving multiple reports from local animal shelters that kittens in her care appeared to be in poor condition.
It was the second time officers with the Bucks SPCA had gone to Romanisko’s three-story townhouse, so barely furnished that it did not have a couch or bed.
Last March, two months after animal welfare officers received an anonymous complaint about Romanisko, Thompson said, she tried to enter the home to check on the condition of any animals but was kept at bay. When she eventually made her way in, Thompson said, she saw only five cats, though she said she suspected that there were more.
More than a year later, she said, “the conditions inside the house were horrible. There was a high level of ammonia, a lot of feces. It was very unsanitary. It’s up there with the sanitation of some of my more severe cases, but I never say it’s the worst, because, you know what, I might get a call tomorrow, and it might just be as bad or worse.”