Some of you might know the story of a href="http://www.cat-lady.org/"Heidi Erickson,/a better known to most as the a href="http://www.massnews.com/2003_Editions/5_May/052603_mn_the_dead_cats_lady.shtml"Beacon Hill Cat Lady./a After being evicted from her Boston apartment upon the discovery of over 100 cats, some alive, more dead, in her home, Erickson soon took up residence in a Watertown apartment. The saga soon a href="http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/1345/MA/US/"played itself out again./a br / The animals were seized and Erickson responded by suing the state of Massachusetts to recover possession of the cat corpses she had been keeping a href="http://snarfd.com/2007/12/07/court-woman-can-keep-her-dead-frozen-cats/"frozen in her refrigerator/a, and a href="http://www.animallaw.info/cases/causma877ne2d542.htm"won/a. The victory spurred her on to a series of other less successful lawsuits that culminated in her being a href="http://bostonist.com/2005/05/13/the_return_of_the_cat_lady.php"banned/a from litigating in the Massachusetts courts without special permission from a judge. br / br / While many who hear of Erickson's bizarre exploits walk away understandably sympathetic to the plight of the unfortunate animals who wind up in her various abodes, others see the Erickson story as spotlighting a mental health issue that receives relatively little attention-- Compulsive a href="http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02893062.htm"animal hoarding./a