Armed with a tip and a warrant, detectives showed up at a house in Northport, N.Y., last week and found more than 200 animals living in squalor.
There were pets like cats, dogs, parrots and hamsters, and an exotic menagerie including hedgehogs, chinchillas and flying squirrels. Most of them were in cages strewed with waste, in a house infested with insects and so full of trash and debris that some areas were impassable, the authorities said.
On the second floor, it got worse.
The police came upon a 95-year-old woman so hemmed in by clutter that she was essentially trapped inside her room, investigators said.
The police arrested Samantha Boyd, 57, a wildlife rehabilitator. District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney of Suffolk County called the case “a deeply distressing situation.”
Ms. Boyd was charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty and endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person, prosecutors said.
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