The Nova Scotia SPCA says a man who got himself into a situation where his home was overrun with 66 cats did the right thing in reaching out to them for help.

But providing the help does not come easy.

The SPCA is working to get the cats healthy so they can be adopted. Due to the large number of cats it is a proving to be a physical and financial burden. Providing care for these cats will likely run over $20,000. The cats are infested with lice, are underweight and require dental work.

While the SPCA still says other people finding themselves in a similar situation should reach out for help, the most important thing the public can do is to make sure cats are spayed and neutered so situations like this are avoided.

"When people just have a couple of cats, they need to do the responsible thing and have their cats spayed and neutered. This is what we want to stress, that they do it before it gets into this type of situation," says Joanne Landsburg, chief provincial inspector for the Nova Scotia SPCA.

In this case the Yarmouth man contacted the SPCA last November, saying he couldn't afford to care for the cats. The man – who has health issues and who the SPCA is not identifying – will not face charges. Even though things had gotten out of hand, the SPCA says he did do the responsible thing in contacting them for help.

Not everyone does, Landsburg says, often because they are afraid of being charged with an offence or having to pay vet bills.

"Then the situation becomes even worse," Landsburg says. "They hoard the cats and leave them in poor conditions and they don't give them medical care or the proper food and shelter . . . So sometimes we do have to charge people."

In this case, due to the number of cats they couldn't be taken out of the home all at the same time. But as they are taken out they are receiving medical care. The cats have been housed at various shelters in the province.

"Because our shelters are so overwhelmed with cats, and because of the amount of care these cats need, it's been a strain on our veterinarians helping us and it's been a strain on us financially," Landsburg says.

She says when the SPCA first offered its help to this man it didn't know how extensive the medical needs of the cats would be. The SPCA is not government funded. Even with adoption fees it won't recoup all of the costs.

The goal is to find these cats another home.

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"We don't euthanize for space. Behaviour-wise if they're very feral or they're medically so sick that treatment is not going to help them then we would humanely euthanize. But other than that we will be looking to adopt them all out," Landsburg says.

She says when cats are not spayed and neutered, situations like this can arise, even when people have the best of intentions.