Saturday, May 24, 2025
53.0°F

House rented by cat hoarder to be razed

The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 9 months AGO
by The Associated Press
| August 1, 2014 9:00 PM

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — Butte-Silver Bow County health officials have determined that a rental house where officers found nearly 100 cats living in filthy conditions is not livable and ordered it demolished.

Assistant health director Dan Powers tells The Montana Standard the house was in such disrepair it couldn’t be cleaned to make it habitable.

Powers says the owner, who has been cooperative, will have to pay for the demolition work, which will cost between $5,000 and $10,000. 

The renter, 54-year-old Douglas Den Billman, faces seven counts of felony animal cruelty. He has not yet appeared in court on the charges.

Prosecutors say Billman confined the cats, failed to meet their general care needs and eventually abandoned them.  

About 50 of the cats rescued from the house were spayed or neutered last week.

MORE IMPORTED STORIES

Butte man denies animal cruelty charges
Daily Inter-Lake | Updated 10 years, 8 months ago
Dozens of cats rescued
Daily Inter-Lake | Updated 10 years, 10 months ago
Montana law contradicts CDC quarantine recommendations
The Western News | Updated 3 years, 9 months ago

ARTICLES BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 9, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: Top Republican says Taliban holding Americans

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says some Americans who have been trying to get out of Afghanistan since the U.S. military left are sitting in airplanes at an airport ready to leave but the Taliban are not letting them take off.