Animal collectors-long and disturbing

I went to the vet last Mon to pick up some meds for one of my cats and a woman was there with 7 cat carriers full of cats. I asked her what was going on with all the cats, and she told me they were all being put to sleep, she explained that the city animal control officer had given her a court order that her mother's 70 some cats except 2 had to be put to sleep, because of health code violations. Her mother is 80 yrs old and lives with all of the cats. As I spoke to the daughter two women from Planned Pethood just happened to stop in to drop off a stray they had found, well to make a long story a little shorter both of the women from Planned Pethood and myself went to the house to rescue some of the cats. The daughter was basically given the run around by the local animal shelters, but the two women were able to give her better direction in hopes of getting some of the cats adopted and not euthanized.
When we pulled up to the house you could see flies all over the windows, and it even smelled from the drive way, when we entered the daughter, Joanne introduced us to her mother, who seemed to understand everything that was going on, and then directed us upstairs to where the cats lived. At the top of a winding staircase was a door that opened into four adjoining rooms, the smell of ammonia about knocked me down when we opened the door. There were two pieces of a sectional couch that looked like they were made of fur from all the cat hair, about 4 litter boxes filled to the brim with feces. The flooring in the first room was tile and just covered wiht hair, litter, vomit, and more feces.There were cats and kittens everywhere, some were affectionate and others were very feral. We saw that there were no food or water dishes so that was the first priority, the cats went through a ten pound bag of food in about 20 minutes they were absolutely starved, we dumped the food in pile on the floor and then they all came running. In one of the other rooms was an old beat up full sized couch and the back of the upolstrey was moving so we put the couch on end and 10 or so cats ran out, we still heard noises coming from inside the couch so I cut the fabric open which was so saturated with urine it was sticky, inside were about 5 more cats and a litter of dead kittens. The floors in the other rooms were bare wood so the urine had just soaked in . There were holes in the drywall and the floor vents for the furance had been removed and cats were just running in and out everywhere. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. It was something that you read about in the paper or see on the news, if you've ever seen Animal Cops it was just like some of the homes they show. AT one point we picked up another couch and about 25 cats ran out from under it, the whole thing was so sad and sickening I didn't even know what to do to help. I did take home one kitten who has slept almost the entire time she has been here because she is so malnurished and under weight, the Planned Pethood ladies rescued about 15 cat and kittens. I have so much more to say about this experience that I will continue later on, as all of the events of that day really begin to sink in.
Btw my new little kittens nname is Frankie and I just love her to death, I know that she has never known the love and care that she will now have for the rest of her life.

Becky