A woman who kept more than 200 exotic mammals in filthy conditions has been convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to her pets.

RSPCA inspector Barbara Kvalheim visited Ute Siewert's home following a complaint from a member of the public.

The inspector was horrified to discover at least 17 dead pets inside the filthy house, including a cat wrapped in a cloth in the hallway, dead bats, rats, guinea pigs, birds and a chinchilla.

None of the surviving animals at Siewert's home in Vale Road, Seaford, had any water and only the cats had clean food provided.

The house was filled with faeces and the smell of ammonia in was so strong it made the RSPCA inspector's eyes water.

Animals kept in cages sat in faeces several inches deep and there was faeces on all the floors in all the rooms of the house.

A vet, police officers and other RSPCA inspectors and animal collection officers were called to the house and all the animals were removed and taken into RSPCA care.

The animals included rare mammals usually only seen in this country in zoos including maras, which are like giant guinea pigs with long legs, jirds, a type of gerbil, spiny mice, fat-tailed dormice, pallas squirrels, sugar gliders and degus, which are all squirrel-like creatures.

Siewert denied causing unnecessary suffering to the animals but failed to turn up at Lewes Magistrates' Court for a hearing yesterday.

The court was told RSPCA inspector Barbara Kvalheim arrived at Siewert's house on October 31, 2001, where the scene of filth and death was uncovered.

Inspector Kvalheim said: "It was horrific to go into a house and see animals being kept in those conditions."

Siewert had claimed she was keeping the animals as a hobby and she hoped to buy a smallholding to keep them in.

But Judge Anne Arnold said Siewert had shown a "wholesale lack of reasonable care" and the RSPCA investigation must have been "long and unpleasant".

She found Siewert guilty of 19 counts of causing unnecessary suffering, dismissing an accusation of causing suffering to chickens kept in the garden.

The case was adjourned until December 3 for sentencing at Brighton Magistrates Court.

Judge Arnold added: "Such was the scale of suffering caused to these animals that this calls for a lengthy if not lifelong ban on keeping animals."

There was no one at Siewert's semi-detached home in Vale Road, last night.