SEAL BEACH : Cat Lover Digs In for Dogfight

Dorothy Diggins is ready to let the fur fly.

A 59-year-old resident of Leisure World in Seal Beach, Diggins is ready to take on the management and do battle for the right to keep her cat, Tippy. Leisure World is trying to make her get rid of her fluffy companion, citing a policy prohibiting cats and dogs in the sprawling complex.

As she digs in her heels, Diggins has become an unlikely heroine for dozens of elderly residents she says are quietly keeping cats for company, despite the rules. She also finds herself the target of angry phone calls from others who helped enact the no-quadrupeds rule (birds and fish are permitted) and want to see it enforced, Diggins said.

“I don’t think my kitty-cat and I infringe on anyone’s rights,” Diggins said. “She’s quiet and never goes outside. I don’t want to bother anyone, but I don’t think we do.”

Diggins has had Tippy for six years without any problem. She contends the no-cats-and-dogs policy has been benignly ignored and unenforced for years, and she doesn’t understand why it’s being enforced against her now, since management has known about Tippy for at least two years, she said.

William A. Williams, an attorney for the Golden Rain Foundation, which operates Leisure World, said the rule was enacted by the residents themselves and has always been enforced. Diggins is not being singled out, he said.

“I don’t know of any instance in which it hasn’t been enforced when we’ve found out about someone keeping a cat or dog,” he said. “Each time it’s come up, it’s been taken care of.”

Williams would not specify how such disputes have been resolved.

But Richard Sontag, a Newport Beach lawyer who represented another cat owner in Leisure World several years ago, said he got management to drop its move against her by arguing that it had known about her cat for years and done nothing.

Diggins has been discussing her predicament with Sontag.

Sontag said Leisure World should fall under the rules of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because HUD insures its mortgages. That agency permits pets for the elderly and handicapped who live under its jurisdiction, he said. But Sontag said Williams has stated that he believes Leisure World is exempt from HUD regulations.

Diggins says she will do what she can to keep her home and her cat.

“We’re a great pair,” she said. “We need each other.”