I’m no crazy cat lady!
That’s the cry from Barbara Rizzi — who runs the Crazy Cat Lady Animal Adoption, Rescue and Feral Food Center out of her Long Island home and says town inspectors are trying to drive her out of business.
Officials in the town of Huntington say she has 100 cats in her 1,500-square-foot home illegally.
Rizzi, 31, says she has no more than about 35 at a time — and she’s fighting back with a federal lawsuit claiming harassment by the town.
“I’m not some person collecting cats, hoarding them in my house,” she told The Post.
The trouble began in 2012, when a town inspector showed up at her home on Potters Lane to check smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors. An annual permit and inspection is required for the house because it includes a basement apartment for Rizzi’s mother.
While previous inspectors saw no problems and commended her rescue work, Rizzi says this inspector barely set foot inside before declaring, “You have too many cats.”
A few days later, she was issued a violation for “breeding animals in a residential home,” Rizzi claims.
“That’s impossible, because every cat in my house is spayed or neutered,” said the accountant, who estimates having saved more than 1,000 cats over her 11 years in rescue work.
She says in court papers that she called the town and the initial violation was withdrawn — but not without a threat of more.
“Those cats are not staying in that house, and I will find a violation to apply to your home if it takes me all day or all week,” an inspector told her, according to Rizzi.
Several violations followed.
A Huntington spokesman declined to comment on the suit, saying officials had not seen it, but he noted the town “has been lauded by animal-welfare groups for its programs at the town animal shelter.”
Rizzi’s lawyer, Steven Morelli, said the town was waging a vendetta.
“Because she’s doing what she feels is right, they’re coming after her and there’s not reason for it,” Morelli said. “It’s not a public nuisance, it’s not an apartment-rental issue. It’s just clear retaliation.”
Rizzi said: “I don’t know what they’re going to do: fine me, make me get rid of the cats, make my mother leave? I don’t know what their ultimate goal is.”
A local official falsely claimed under oath at a town hearing that Rizzi has “100 cats that were counted” in the 2012 inspection, her suit alleges.
“There’s never 100 cats in my house,” Rizzi said.