Rescuers had to wear masked to remove over 100 cats from a barn because of the smell.  About 90 cats went to the Animal Rescue League in Bedford, NH, the rest  (~30 healthy cats) went to the Nashua Humane Society.  Most of the cats that went to the ARL had severe respirator infections and several were pregnant.

(Photo's courtesy of Maureen Prendergast, Animal Rescue League, Bedford, NH)

Adams, age 44, had collected the cats over several years and was using the barn to live in with the cats but it was rented as a storage unit and the cats were found when he was evicted from the unit.

It took Maureen Prendergast from the Animal Rescue League more than a month to round up all the cats.  The barn had a lot of hiding places, such as wooden pallets or through old military vehicles stored in the barn.  The first group of cats and kittens could be collected by hand, but as the weeks had gone by they had to be caught in traps or with nets.

Many of the cats had "special needs" because they weren't socialized with people.  "Many weren't handled, some spent the first few months of their life probably hiding in a corner".

(Photo's courtesy of Maureen Prendergast, Animal Rescue League, Bedford, NH)

Adams didn't face any charges because he had the cat's interest at heart when he took them in and did his best to care of them, although the numbers got out of control.

Update 10/30/08:  Adams, age 46, of Hampton, NH has been charged with 17 counts of animal cruelty with an arrest warrant out.  Earlier this month, the Salem Animal Control Officer was contacted by 2 women who rented a self-storage unit at Uncle Bob's Self Storage at 134 South Policy St. noticed that a cat was looking out of a space over the door of an adjacent unit.

At first they thought it was a stray cat in there.  When the Manger opened the door, he found it loaded with items and debris.  ACO Kelly Demers searched the unit for what he thought was 1 cat and found an artillery shell that had to be removed by the State Police Bomb Squad.  After the shell was removed, Demers resumed his search and found "quite a few cats" all alive and in fairly good shape living in the 10x12foot unit.

  (Photo courtesy of Derrick Perkins, The Union Leader, Volunteer Pat Blodgett with one of the cats found living in the self-storage unit)  22 cats were sharing the unit and the smell of ammonia was very strong and there were flies.  The cats were taken to the Salem Animal Rescue League for care.

Reference:

The Nashua Telegraph

WMUR

Animal Rescue League