A 77-year-old U.S. Postal Service worker in Martin County has been charged with animal cruelty after deputies discovered she had allegedly been collecting feral cats along her mail route and bringing them home. The final tally: 92 animals, 80 cats and 12 dogs, living inside a house with no air conditioning and up to a foot of animal waste on the floor.
Martin County Fire Rescue had to send in a hazmat team just to ventilate the property before anyone could safely go inside, which tells you roughly what mail delivery had turned into on this particular route. The sheriff called it one of the worst hoarding cases his office has ever handled, a sentence that carries real weight in Florida.
The animals are now recovering at the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast, many underweight or dealing with skin and dental issues. Several were microchipped, and at least five have already been reunited with their actual owners, meaning some of these cats had homes the entire time and simply got picked up along the way, like a very committed rewards program nobody signed up for.
Somewhere in Martin County there is a mail carrier position posting that badly, badly needs the phrase “no side projects” added to the job description.
We did not make this up. News4JAX has the receipts.