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Anyone who has ever lived in an apartment complex knows the gamble of getting new neighbors. Sometimes you hardly notice them. Other times, they make daily life miserable. For one woman in Charleston, South Carolina, a new female tenant next door brought months of chaos, foul odors, and neglected animals that turned the building into a biohazard.
In a TikTok video, the woman explained that her first impression of the neighbor came from her Ring camera, which captured the latter, half-dressed, screaming at her boyfriend in the middle of the day. Soon after, the neighbor began moving in what seemed like dozens of cats. “To this day, nobody is sure exactly how many cats it was, but it was a lot of cats,” the woman recalled. Within a week, the hallway stank of cat feces, urine, tobacco, weed, and rotten food.
The TikToker said the smell grew so strong that apartment management eventually installed air fresheners inside the walls. She also added that the neighbor would leave bags of dirty litter in the hallway long before trash pickup, walk around barefoot or half-dressed, and could often be heard screaming, crying, or dry heaving behind closed doors.
The TikToker said things escalated when other residents began worrying about the cats. According to her, animal control officers knocked on her door several times, asking to review her Ring footage. She claimed the neighbor often disappeared for days, leaving her cats unattended. “There were so many times that my ring caught her opening the door and the cats trying to literally run out for their lives,” she said. “My cats don’t do that. They’re very happy here.” The repeated visits eventually became a formal case with animal control, though the neighbor continued living there for months.
Eviction and Biohazard Cleanup
The TikToker said the ordeal finally ended when the neighbor was evicted. She learned of the eviction after seeing a court notice demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid rent taped to the neighbor’s door. Around the same time, she overheard her talking about plans to move to Texas.
What came after the move was even more shocking. Maintenance crews discovered that the cats had defecated so much inside the apartment that it seeped through the vinyl flooring and into the concrete. A biohazard team was brought in to sanitize the unit and the door was taped shut for a week. According to the TikToker, no one has moved into the unit since.
Netizens’ Reaction to the Charleston Woman’s Story
Viewers quickly sympathized with both the storyteller and the neglected animals. “That is crazy, but so sad for the cats. I hope they got rescued and rehomed,” one person wrote. Another added, “This makes me so sad for those cats. 💔 I cannot imagine leaving my cats for days on end not being cared for.” “I feel horrible for those cats! But also for you and other neighbors. Because cat urine is one of the worst smells ever 🤮,” said a third.
Some criticized management for how they handled the problem. “I would get rid of the tenant before I put up air fresheners😭,” one netizen quipped. Another said the smell would be nearly impossible to remove and that the apartment management team may need to hire a cleaning company.
