By JOEL TAYLOR - Wednesday, April 1, 2009Cheetahs lounging in the bedroom, a leopard stealing scraps from the kitchen and wolves roaming the garden? No, it's not the set of an amiable safari-based Sunday evening TV drama - it's Riana van Nieuwenhuizen's place.
The big cat lover sold everything she owned to turn her home into a haven for felines.
They have complete freedom to roam the house, often sleeping in their owner's bed and making a nuisance of themselves while she does chores.
Cheetah Fiela has even learned to open cupboards and drawers - and Ms van Nieuwenhuizen swears that licks from the big cat's tongue knock spots off even the best skin exfoliators.
'A beauty therapist once asked me about my skin products because I didn't have a single dead cell on my skin - I told her it was a cheetah's tongue,' she said. The 46-year-old became besotted with big cats as a child.
After realising she had failed to grow out of the obsession three years ago, she gave up her office job and sold her townhouse so she could buy a cheetah and move to a friend's game farm.
Her brood - reminiscent of the one on ITV's Wild At Heart drama - has been increasing ever since thanks to visitor donations and she now boasts nine cheetahs, three leopards, two wolves, a jaguar, a lion and three dogs. They chomp their way through 25kg (55lb) of meat a day.
'They all live together harmoniously,' said Ms van Nieuwenhuizen, of Bloemfontein, South Africa.
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Animal_lovers_house_is_really_wild&in_article_id=605768&in_page_id=2&in_a_source=
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