A Motueka man whose house was home to up to 100 cats had been working with Tasman District Council staff to deal with the problem after a complaint was laid about the animals two months ago.
Police were called to the semi-rural Whakarewa St house on Wednesday after the 64-year-old manwas found dead in the house by his employer. His death is not being treated as suspicious by police.
The man had used two rooms of the house for his own purposes and left the rest of the house to the cats.
Council environmental health officer David Lewis said the man's family was cleaning up the house yesterday, but there were still "a hell of a lot of cats around".
Council staff were called to the house in August after a complaint was laid about the animals. Staff had been working with the man to get the number of cats down to five.
When council staff first entered the house they counted about 60 cats inside, and more outside in sheds and cars around the property.
Mr Lewis said the man was "lovely", with a genuine love for the animals.
"He just loved cats and was a lonely man," Mr Lewis said. "When we arrived to see him he was a well spoken, computer literate, and a very, very nice man. He was dressed in a white boiler suit and very clean.
"[However,] the health of the cats was generally not good. There was a lot of breeding going on."
Motueka woman Robyn Hogg said she had phoned the SPCA about a year ago to lay a complaint about the cats, but nothing had been done.
Her son had delivered newspapers in the area and they had been concerned about the "mangy and sick" looking cats on the property.
Detective Sergeant Mark Kaveney, of Nelson police, said on Thursday 18 cats had been taken out of the house and put down, and the rest would also be put down once they were caught.
Mr Lewis said there were too many cats for the Motueka SPCA to handle and the cost of making them healthy would have been prohibitive - money the voluntary organisation could not afford.
He believed all the cats were now out of the house and were being fed in nearby sheds.
