Nightmare in Sweet Home

This is a rant post.  If you can't handle it, don't read it.

I've gotten 17 cats fixed at that trailer park in Sweet Home so far, plus five kittens, one teen, and now two old females were relinquished.  Six of those went to Heartland, one old gal, Pepper, is being fostered by Felines First, and Lucy is still here.

So, that's 25 cats helped there so far.

And then there was last night and today.

I'm so fed up, after today, my god the abuse I take trying to help out that trailer park.  There should be laws.  A law you can't abuse volunteers and instead, be nice to them.   And laws that if you let your cat free roam, it needs to have ID.   How am I supposed to know who is who at that trailer park?  You think anybody helps or will go door to door, get descriptions, photos of owned free roaming cats, find out if they are fixed or not?  You think management there gives a shit?

I go up with the best of intentions.   Free just isn't good enough.

I was trapping at one trailer, in good faith, that she knew the cats.  She has me  take two cats with collars, one collar so frayed looks like its been drug on pavement.  And I trap a big black male with conjunctivitis who has been raping a little female whom I didn't catch.  A big tabby manx male is also having at her on the handicap ramp.  I wish I could have caught her.

There is no excuse for this.  People in that park need to cooperate in getting these cats fixed.  Maybe even help.  That's my opinion.

It's fucking free.  There's nothing better than free, you'd think, so you jump on that, help out, improve your neighborhood.  That's what I'd think anyway.

I am parked by the dumpster, have a trap beside the car, in case I catch one over by the lady's trailer, have it ready.  I've already talked to the woman living in the trailer with all the dogs, told her what I was doing, hoped to get some information but she just offered she feeds them outside and closed the door.

A black and white skrawny cat that had been eating in the dumpster gets in the trap.  I put him in the car to ask the handicap ramp trailer lady if she knows the cat and do ask her.  She says she feeds him.  But I turn him loose within a few minutes mainly because the FCCO in the meantime has called and limited my spots.

At this same time I go over to pick up some prearranged cats, five from one trailer, one from another.  The one trailer claims they'll have 5 cats and $25 gas for me.   But the moment I arrive a guy in the trailer I'm to get one cat from starts screaming his head off at me, that I'm stealing cats, that he will trash my car if I don't get off his property, which I'm not on.  I take this for about ten minutes as the woman in the trailer next to him rushes to get her cats, from her trailer,  in the carriers I hand her.  She only gets four, and no $25 for gas.  I tell her I won't come down that block of the park when I return them, that she will have to meet me at the end of the block.

I tell the guy who lives in the trailer with screamer man he'll have to get his cat fixed elsewhere, that I want no part of that.

I'm shook up from being screamed at by people who also wanted free fixes.

I'd told him if people let their cats run loose they need to take care of them (fix them) and have ID on them.

It's true.  There's no way to know, especially in a trailer park where cats are almost as common as drugs.

I get home with 10 cats.  Four from handicap trailer, four from the woman who had five.  Plus a gray female who was relinquished.

  The gray cat trailer people who had the gray mother cat, whose five kittens Heartland took, relinquished a gray female to me.  She'd been pregnant when I took the kittens and their mom a couple weeks back.  Their mom was fixed and returned, and they would not let me take the then pregnant cat to be fixed then.  She had kittens and they all died.  So today they relinquished her.  I took her over to Heartland, who took her, thank goodness.

Before that I'd taken the two shredded collar cats out, once home, to check them and one was a lactating female.  I call the woman who put them in my car, ask what's up with that.  She doesn't know, but maybe the cat has kittens somewhere, but who knows if she is owned or not.  Gosh darn, I think to myself, I'd asked her to talk to neighbors.  The cat was so starving it was pathetic.  I fed her well and drove her all the way back to Sweet Home, so she could go be with her kittens, if there even are any.

She tells me the neighbor, whose wife or girlfriend I'd asked about cats, came over and she told him I had his black and white cat.  What?  I'd told her I released the black and white from the dumpster, whether it was the dog filled trailer people's cat, is not known, but he wasn't in the trap more than ten minutes.  I'd told her that, why is she telling the guy I have his cat?  Fuck.

My phone won't ring.  I don't know why.  I get a message from the guy now convinced I have his black and white cat. I leave him a message that I don't have any black and whites.   Half hour later, despite the message I left, I get another from him.  I leave him a second message that I have no black and white cats and don't know if the cat in the dumpster was his or not, doubtful since it was scrawny and hungry.  For good measure I text him the same info, so he won't worry.   I can't figure out why that woman didn't tell him the right info in the first place.

By this time, I'd had it.

I've got nine from the park.  I could have taken ten to be fixed, as that is the number of reservations I had.  But I'd had my share of abuse/drama for the month.   I've got three from handicap ramp place, the four the woman handed me while her relative screamed at me and threatened me.  I've got two I got earlier in the week.

One more relinquished and now safe too.   So the total helped there is up to 35.

The toll on me however has been rather severe.

The good news is, after these are fixed, and returned, if I don't get shot in the process over there, I will take a break from that.  The better news is, I know someone who has a relative moving into the trailer park.  She loves cats and may be the one who will go door to door and create a list of who is who.  I'm hoping.

Looking at the big picture, helping 35 cats there in not very long is pretty darn good, so I will try not to sweat the small stuff.  Getting yelled at, part of the game.