Monday, December 6, 2010

No more Lil' Monsters on East 10th Street

Not sure exactly when Lil' Monsters, the pet care and animal rescue, shuttered at 279 E. 10th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue...


They opened last year around this time... I actually had to remove the post for a time. I was getting bombarded with e-mails and comments from people in North Carolina. For some reason, they seemed to think I owned the space and was responsible for kidnapping their pets. Seriously.

20 comments:

JM said...

oh, so YOU'RE the one stealing all those pets from north carolina.

speaking of wetodded, aren't those the people who elected jesse helms to the senate for 500 years?

Lisa said...

Strange place. It was never open when I went by, the sign on the door had a fairly hostile vibe in my eyes, and even though I emailed them a number of times asking if they wanted some quality bedding for their animals, no one ever got back to me. So the folks at Bide-A-Wee got it and were thrilled.

Anonymous said...

they were kind abrasive! but who knows maybe I would be too, seems like an emotional job. I noticed they were gone for a couple of weeks :( sad

hey EV have you done any stories about the Obscura (i think thats the name) shop on East 10th? Pretty sure they have their own reality show on Discovery coming up soon

magic fingers said...

they were never open and had a sign in the window that they needed donations of food and bedding, and that you could go there by appointment.
i believe the people that ran it lived in the back.
i think they answered their phone once in all the times i called. i went there and spoke to a rather nice young man. he said that i could just leave newspapers and towels, etc. outside their door.

the animals seemed fine.

Anonymous said...

I called once with some leftover medical-grade food after a cat had recovered. The guy I spoke to was very appreciative and said I could leave it at the door.

Hopefully anyone looking to adopt a rescued animal or seeking assistance with one knows to visit Social Tees on E. 4th St.

http://www.socialtees.com/

Anonymous said...

We adopted our dog from there six months ago and he's from N.Carolina. Besides the usual illnesses (eye infection and parasites) our dog was also positive for heart worm and lyme disease. We took care of everything except the heart worm because they had initially told me he had tested negative. After a month of dragging their feet they finally covered the treatment, which is quite expensive. I found them to be quite unprofessional and disorganized; nevertheless I appreciated their work. I wonder what happened?

Jill said...

I heard that the Discovery show about Obscura was threatened with cancellation. I never saw it. Morbid Anatomy recently had an event showing a marathon of the episodes but I couldn't make it.

VH McKenzie said...

Damn -- I've been walking by this place every morning on my way to work and wondered where all the cute kitties had gone.

I do recall seeing a rather heated
"discussion" between someone from Li'l Monsters and an outsider who made the mistake of just walking into the place. Much yelling about appointments only and how it was thoughtless to just open the door with all those animals lounging about.

I always did wonder how an animal shelter could afford storefront rent on that block........

Anonymous said...

The people don't live there. They do live in Manhattan, though, and I can't imagine how they could afford that if this not-for-profit shelter was their main source of income.

It was very disorganized. They had all the animals in the same room, with the cats and dogs separated. I know someone who adopted a cat there that was very unhealthy--fleas, conjunctivitis, a respiratory infection, ear mites etc. Maybe if they had quarantined the sick animals this wouldn't have happened; when I walked by I noticed that the other cats in the window had runny eyes too. I hope that they all found good homes when the place shut down.

meanmima@yahoo.com said...

Lil' Monsters rescue turned out not to be a rescue at all. Sadly, Angela Rodriguez doesn't know how to treat animals, and there are several owners who got very sick pets there. I have a dog from there because they were sending him to ACC to be euthed (so much for 'strictly no-kill'). He was there nearly a year - a dehydrated bag of bones, malnourished, infested with highly contageous whip/ and roundworms and had blisters on his rump and feet. Had hair loss on his back from too small crate and chewed his tail to the bone. Can't afford heartworm yet, so ...

Being an 'appt. only' facility that never returns calls should be a big red flag. The upset at a walk-in had more to do with what was inside, not what would get out. There are persons out there who have been inside, know what was there and tried to do right by the animals, others were hesitant. I hope some of them find this blog. Decent people are the only ones who can make a difference for those that can't help themselves.

Have any of you who walk by there stopped in to ask neighbors what they know? Or called city agencies? The stench infiltrated the whole building and could be smelled from outside. Some tenants moved out because of it. It was a nightmare for the animals. They were not fed, watered, bathed, exercised or treated properly. Most of them were visibly unhappy, nothing but skin and bone. They weren't 'rescued' by her, they were taken to hell. Some were kept in the dark, dirt basement with no light, others crated for months on end. They made very little attempt to find adopters for the animals. Only three were listed on Petfinder. Did anyone see all the crates and other donated goods covered in excrement that they left behind to be trashed? There were a couple dogs that were walked, the rest were left to sit, stand and sleep where they ate and eliminated.

As for paying that storefront rent - they didn't. Or the electric bill, which is why power was shut off six months ago. They were finally evicted last week. I'm glad that somebody thinks they may have done something good - if that's true, it wasn't for long. Rescue people in VA, NC, PA and CT know about her and refuse to give her animals. Even NY's own ACC won't give her animals, something quite telling. We should all be concerned about where those animals ended up, but it's not likely we'll find out. Rescues like Lil' Monsters makes it difficult for legitimate, well-run rescues to get much needed support, both financially and socially.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I volunteered to walk dogs there for a few days back in August. Never being let in - they just handed me a dog. And then after some coaxing from them I took the dog home - they said I was "fostering with the option to adopt." On the third day I discovered the poor dog was violently ill. He had to be hospitalized. They never returned any of my phone calls. I went to see them and they were incredibly hostile. (Saying that I should have just brought him back while he was throwing up large amounts of blood instead of bringing him to the vet.) They refused to call the vet or return the vets phone calls. I was stuck with a enormous vet bill. I have been trying to reach them and making complaints about them for months. I am very very glad they are finally closed. I hope some of the other dogs got out of there in time to find homes or their way to legitimate shelters. (My foster dog is healthy now!)

Anonymous said...

I adopted a dog from Lil' Monsters this summer. I thought the other shelters might have too many pitbulls which I knew would be too much for my family to handle and the Lil Monsters Petfinder seemed to have a lot of smaller dogs that were just right. We had a hard time getting a hold of them but when we finally did we were shown one dog - and they didn't seem too enthused to show us any more
(besides puppies). There were lots of people picking up dogs from daycare and chatting with the guy who owned the place so it seemed OK. We ended up adopting the only dog we saw that day. He's a great dog, no health issues but some behavioral problems that Lil' Monsters didn't share with us. It was also a pain in the butt to get our dogs paperwork which didn't have all of the shots we were told he had. He's also from North Carolina - so now I'm a bit worried we may have gotten a stolen dog!

Anonymous said...

I just saw this post and am incredibly saddened to read it. We adopted an amazing dog from Lil Monsters (we were also told our dog was rescued from N. Carolina). She is healthy and extremely well behaved. My interactions with the people running Lil Monsters were always positive (they got back to me right away when I saw my dog on Petfinder and I went and picked her up that very day). They seemed a bit unorganized, I must admit, (and the place smelled terrible), but I thought their hearts were in the right place. I am so disappointed to hear that they might actually be hurting animals, not helping them. This is so sad.

Anonymous said...

Hmm I am not surprised.

I went in there to meet the dogs last year and see about adopting one. It was fairly chaotic, and the dog we took out looked really emaciated, so much so that I felt people were staring at me in Tompkins Square Park like i was mistreating him.

He was scared and skittish. Of course he may have easily been that way before, but the environment was extremely cramped with dog chaos happening all around--a frightening environment for a scared little dog rescued from a kill shelter.

I see on their webiste that they are competing for 25,000 to build a shelter.

Makes me wonder where they are now, since they have many dogs posted on petfinder. They list no address now. Sad for the dogs. I hope they have more space than before.

And probably they should be shut down...I didn't get the sense that the dogs were well cared for, though I think the people's hearts are in the right place.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone have any additional information about this place or where it is located now? When I google them, this is one of the only links that comes up! They have a dog listed on petfinder that I am interested in but all of this info scares me!

Anonymous said...

I volunteered for these guys for 4 months as an internship for my school, they were a little unorganized, and a little smelly ( but hey they saved a lot of animals in a small space)... my main job was walking dogs to the park and taking them to the vet in the neighborhood...I never once saw them mistreat or leave an animal that was in need of medical attention without... they endured a lot of unnecessary flack from some people and even had to be inspected by the aspca due to crank complaints, but nothing was ever found, because they are in the end good people who save a lot of dogs other rescues wont even touch...

Anonymous said...

We are having a problem right now. I work at a rescue center in NJ and we gave them a dog just to transport to a NY foster. They stole the dog who is pregnant and in labor as we are told. My poor boss is going crazy. She didn't know anything about them. They told her the were just starting out. Now there is a poor stolen dog in labor in NY with no one knowing where she is.

Minister Mitchell said...

Can someone give us an address or a name or a phone number? So often dogs that are abducted from the shelter rescue transports are used as bait dogs in fights and they are literally ripped to shreds. Please, for the love of God, help us find this poor animal before she is destroyed. Thursday Lil Monsters rescue group in NY picked up this Husky Momma to drive her to NJ . She never arrived in NJ.. Just a text to her foster mom that Lil Monsters is keeping her. Then she agreed to meet us this morning & once again no show.. they say she is now in labor. They refuse to give us the location of where she is so we can go get her. PLEASE HELP US FIND HER ... she is somewhere in NY

Anonymous said...

Does the ASPCA have records on this rescue?

Anonymous said...

I am really saddened to see all of these negative comments. My husband and I adopted a truly wonderful adult dog from Lil' Monsters. He is completely healthy. We saw our dog on Petfinder, sent in an application, and heard back immediately. We met our dog and picked him up a few days later after he was neutered (no charge to us). I thought the couple that ran the organization seemed to really care about the animals.