'Tenant from hell moves in with her 56 dogs, 25 cats, and 145 severed cow heads'

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

The tenant, named as Oksana Platonova, had rented the house for a few months, insisting that she intended to buy it. Unknown to the owner Irina Goman, she moved in with her dogs - all but a few were collies - and more than two dozen cats. 

She fed the dogs on the severed heads of cattle obtained from a local slaughter house, the remains of which were scattered around the grounds of the pleasant cottage near Irkutsk. 

Irina Goman failed to check on her tenant after renting it to her and her three children. She had no idea there were any pets in the family.

'Oksana was renting house with the right to buy it,' she said. 'She paid for the first few months of living and then stopped paying. When I saw what Oksana turned the house into, I almost passed out.'  

According to the owner's friend Ivan Makarov, the dogs 'ruined the inside of the cottage, her expensive parquet was all scratched and covered with dog excrements.' Most of the furniture disappeared and a car in the garage also vanished. 'Her underage children and a woman are living in this chaos,' he said.

Another friend, Igor Gainullin, said: 'The eight-year-old girl wasn't going to school. Since October 2015 when they rented the cottage, the animals were pooping in the house, and no-one cleaned up after them. It was a complete mess, and the children - girls aged four and eight, along with a teenage boy - were living in this nightmare.'

When quizzed on the state of the house, the tenant said she 'didn't care' and refused to leave. Police were called but said they had no right to evict her, and it was a matter for the owner and tenant to resolve. 

Olga Platonova added: 'I've paid the rent for this house, 254,000 roubles ($3,850).' Contradicting neighbours, she added: 'The state of the house...it is only since Friday, because there was no water or heating.'

She claimed she was afraid to let the dogs wander outside because she could be 'bullied' by neighbours, so she kept them indoors. But she soon handed the children to relatives, evidently fearful that child protection officers might remove them from her because of the appalling conditions and health risks in the home. 

Next the pets were passed to animal shelter K-9 which took 50 dogs and 17 cats. Vet Mikhail Alekseev said: 'They were fed poorly, no-one cared for them properly. Their eyes are sunken. This is the last stage of dehydration.'

Then it emerged it was not the first time the tenant had caused such problems. Vyacheslav Slavin, owner of K-9 shelter, said: 'Sadly, we already know this woman. She is a well-known breeder of collies. The dogs are good, but not the way they are cared for.  

'Five years ago, we took her dogs. It was a similar situation: the bailiffs took possession of the house she rented. We picked up her animals.' One report said this was the fifth house 'destroyed by this woman in such a way' with her 'zoo'.