Woman faces eviction from Mayfair for feeding stray cat

Officials won't comment on gardens

Bernice Fuller loves feeding a homeless cat.

In 30 days, she might join him.

Fuller has received an eviction notice from Mayfair Apartments, a senior rental community, for continuing to feed a stray cat.

It’s the same community that recently ordered residents to tear out the flower gardens they have cultivated for years next to their front porches.

Seven years ago, Fuller befriended a stray cat who came to her door on Chicora Court in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-supported senior rental community.

“I have a thing for animals,” she said.

Fuller said she enjoyed it when the cat rubbed his leg on hers each night.

“I loved it when he paid attention to me,” she said.

On June 6, Fuller was given a 30-day notice to evict her from the apartment she has called home since the community opened eight years ago.

In the eviction notice, Fuller was told that on May 27 she was issued a lease violation citing “no feeding of stray cats.”

“In that letter you were told that the practice of feeding stray cats was not allowed,” the letter from Mayfair Apartments management states.

In a letter to her on May 27 from the community manager Marcia Elks, Elks states that during her walk through the neighborhood, she noticed two small food bowls outside Fuller’s unit to feed stray cats.

“This practice will not only attract cats but other wild animals including squirrels, rats and reptiles, including snakes,” Elks states in the letter.

On Wednesday, when asked why she had sent out a letter to the seniors ordering them to remove their flower gardens, Elks said she was not allowed to comment to the media.

Elks referred comment to Diane Simonowich, the district manager for the company that runs the complex, Wellons Management in Dunn. Simonowich could not be reached by telephone after numerous attempts to reach her on Wednesday. But on Thursday morning, she was at the Mayfair Apartments office.

She had no comment about the flower garden issue.

Simonowich said she was not aware of the pending eviction of Fuller.

“But I’ll check into it today,” she said.

Asked whether she thought it was fair to evict a senior citizen for feeding a stray cat, she replied: “I’ll check into it,” and walked into the next room.

About seven years ago, Fuller said, she began putting a dish of food on her front porch each night for “Morris,” named after his resemblance to the cat in the 9 Lives television commercial.

After the feeding, she’d take the bowl back inside the apartment, she said.

When the cat recently died, she began feeding his male offspring, who residents affectionately have named “Bojangles” because of the cat’s enjoyment of food scraps from the restaurant. Fuller pointed out that many other residents have fed Bojangles.

“We’re senior citizens. We love cats,” she said. “All the way down (the row of apartments), we’ll give him tidbits (of food). He went to a lot of houses. He was very friendly.”

Fuller rejected the argument that feeding Bojangles will attract wild animals into the community.

“Every night I just feed him and bring it (the food dish) in,” she said. “I have never seen a wild animal, except two foxes in the woods. They never came this way.”