In the Urals, a pensioner let 12 street cats into her apartment "to eat and rest."

      In Krasnoufimsk, residents of an apartment building compelled their neighbor by court order to carry out a full disinfection of her flat and eliminate unpleasant odors that have left the entire stairwell gasping for months, the press service of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court reports.

      The cause is an unbearable stench coming from one of the apartments in the building on Achitskaya Street in Krasnoufimsk. Residents cannot calmly enter their stairwell because of the ammonia smell lingering there. Excrement litters the stairwell and stray cats run along the floors, people said.

      Neighbors repeatedly tried to persuade the apartment owner to tidy up and complained to regulatory authorities about the unsanitary conditions in the stairwell. Finally, having exhausted all options, they turned to the city administration, which filed a lawsuit.

      At the court hearing the apartment owner, 85-year-old Nina P., admitted that she does indeed feed homeless animals — cats and dogs. She spends about 15,000 rubles a month on food for 12 cats. The animals, she said, live outdoors but regularly come to her “to eat and rest.”

      The defendant explained that she cleans up after the cats, but the smell remains. She admitted that she does not have the strength to maintain the animals she feeds; she is willing to give the cats away but does not know where.

      According to the results of a Rospotrebnadzor inspection, the concentration of ammonia in the apartment’s air exceeded the norm by four times (!).

      The Krasnoufimsk District Court ruled that love of animals should not violate neighbors’ rights to a healthy environment and ordered the apartment owner to conduct a full disinfection of her home and eliminate the unpleasant odors within a month. The court dismissed the administration’s request to force the pensioner to personally clean the stairwell.

      As stated in the court decision, that is the responsibility of the management company; residents pay monthly for stairwell cleaning. The city administration did not provide any data indicating that the defendant owes payments for housing maintenance. The plaintiff may appeal the court’s decision within the time limit established by law.