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Just got back from a trip to Petco and had to call them and chew them out. Only 2 high school kids working in there and they was pretty useless so I called corporate.

Guess I just finally had enough. 2 years ago I brought home some catfood that was infested with corn weevils and I'm still finding them after throwing all my food away and killing them all or so I thought. Mice running around, birds flying around, loose crickets, food bags gnawed on and I challenge you to find a single bag of bird seed that doesn't have a hole in it from the mice.

The store in general is a mess but the aquatics department was a nightmare. they had Black and Ivory Mystery snails(sure didn't look like ivory to me) in with these huge goldfish. They were being nipped at and harassed from all angles. When I was in there a few days ago they had all sorts of tanks quarentined for whatever reason and all the fish were dead. Lots of them looked like they had been there for awhile too. Tons of empty ramshorn shells in other tanks with fish-big fish in them-so I can guess what happened to them all. Even the plants are sitting in stagnant nasty water. They just don't care at all!

Another Petco I go to near my job is so clean, the staff helpful, all the fish and snails and plants in excellent condition. Supposedly the manager will contact me within 48 hours to talk to me about all this. He better be prepared!

Thanks for reading my vent.

If the conditions are truly that bad at that store, skip the manager, he/she doesn't care to begin with to let it get that way. Call the county health deparment and file a complaint. Contact some of your pet-owning friends, have them stop in the store so they can see the conditions, then have them call as well.

After you do that, contact the parent company and let them know what you did and why.

Either that store will get cleaned up, hopefully with a new staff, or the HD will close them down.

Petco sold me a dead snail two times.

Oh wow. I would defiantly try to do something. Call the non emergency police and tell them of this? Or maybe search for local pet departments that will help?

I never had that experience before. I would be so sad for those little pets.

I have a Petco near me, and they only have one tank under survalience, but it's for only one fish that might have Ick. I will ask what to do for you, alright?

I totally understand. I live in Manhattan, and you'd think that the PetCo stores would be well staffed. Well, they s*ck. The one that I have to go to occasionally has two regular employees in the fish department, and neither one of them seems to have any regard for the creatures in their care. Many, many times I have had them reach into the snail tanks with unwashed hands and bracelets and such, and proceed to "flick" the snails until they fall off the glass. They are always housed in 10 gallon tanks with ghost shrimp, (at least 20) and some sort of fish (sometimes goldfish, sometimes guppies, it varies, but at least 50). These snails are TERRIFIED to come out of their shells. They all have severe damage. What you usually see is the ghost shrimp eating what's left of a snail, or the poor starved snails eating the occasional dead cory. I have complained to the manger so many times, that he threatened to ban me from the store. But you have to keep complaining to anyone who will listen. It's the only way to prevent this kind of abuse.

I know that I may be a bit more exreme that most people, since I have been vegetarian since birth and am an animal rights advocate, but I believe that all creatures deserve to be treated with kindness. So everyone, keep up the good work. It will not go unnoticed.