KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mikey Montero is an animal lover, and sees his pets like his kids.
"When I had issues with my family, friends, growing up and seeing you can’t trust everyone, stuff like that, they would be the only ones there," Montero said.
He's had pets ever since he was a kid. A couple years ago, he moved from Virginia to New York to stay with his mom, and had a sizable animal collection then.
When living in New York didn't work out, he moved to Kansas City to room with a friend.
He went through tumultuous experiences with family and friends.
A few rescued rats turned into several, then eventually turned into more than 200, plus several mice, gerbils, guinea pis, rabbits, and reptiles.
Animal control came to Montero's duplex on Wabash last week to take his animals away after a complaint. Montero got three municipal charges for unclean conditions in the home and having too many animals in one cage.
"I agree that I was an... I would say, yeah, like an animal hoarder," Montero said. "I guess I was, ended up being at that point, but that wasn't my intention, because I'm always worrying about them psychologically."
After that ordeal, KC Pet Project took the animals in and on Friday said all of them have been adopted or fostered out to good homes. The Central Missouri Humane Society took about 54 of the rats.
Montero could only afford to take back a guinea pig, a rabbit, and a blind rat named Rosie. He's had the guinea pig and rabbit for four years.
The city came back to the duplex and did couple inspections to make sure everything was clean. Montero passed all his inspections.
Montero said he wanted to give some of his rats away, but was too worried they'd be used as feeders or that they wouldn't be taken care of.
"Which is really common in people who hoard," said Dr. Katie Kriegshauser with the Kansas City Center for Anxiety Treatment. "They really care about their belongings and their animals, and it's difficulties in just organization and information processing."
Kriegshauser is a clinical psychologist. She said there are certain questions to ask yourself if you or anyone else thinks you might have a hoarding problem.
"If you're noticing yeah, this is interfering with a good quality of life, this is interfering financially, or interfering with my relationships with family members, which we see quite often, that's the time where you can say, 'This is a difficulty for me and I need to get help,'" Kriegshausen said.
She said many times people with hoarding disorder also have anxiety or depression, however studies don't show that they cause hoarding; it's the way their brain works. Kriegshausen said someone who hoards has trouble organizing and sorting information into categories and processing that information in a streamlined way.
Like many disorders, hoarding falls into a spectrum. Collecting and saving items isn't necessarily hoarding, but it can progress to excessive acquisition, refusing to throw those items away, and becoming highly agitated or stressed when faced with a decision to throw items away.
Kriegshauser said cognitive behavior therapy can help. A therapist helps a person who hoards distinguish the thought patterns that lead them to continue hoarding. They practice throwing things away.
In an animal hoarding situation, a therapist would work with an animal rescue to help get the animals in good homes.
Montero said losing his pets was hard, but feels he's in a good place.
"I'm not blaming anyone but myself for what happened. I'm happy the rats are finding more homes and being able to be cared for," Montero said.
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