New York: A man in the US, who had won a storage unit at an auction, has found over 40 frozen dead cats stacked on top of the other, some on aluminium trays and others wrapped in plastic bags inside the two freezers.
The man had paid USD 150 for the unit he won at the auction in Long Island City of New York earlier this week. He had gone to the sale held by American Self-Storage Facility for abandoned storage lockers. But when he went to check over his purchases he found the dead cats.
In one freezer, the cats were stacked on top of the other. In the second, police found them individually wrapped in paper and plastic bags. One cat was found skinned, resting on a catering platter, the New York Daily reported.
The New York Police Department's animal cruelty unit arrived, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took the cats into its custody for necropsies autopsies for pets.
Officers had to change their clothing and shower because the "stench was stuck to their clothes," the report said. The unit had no noticeable stench with the freezers closed, but once it was opened, a police source described a "horrendous death smell, rotting."
Local reports claimed the unit was rented out two years ago by a 66-year-old woman paying month-to-month who stopped paying in July.
