Mom has cats trapped in her bathroom in ALF! Any ideas how I should handle?

If facility employees helped her, this comedy is entirely on them.

I would not involve myself at all.

Upstream; DO NOT spoil your holiday weekend over this.

Your mother needs to live with the consequences of her actions. This is simply not your problem to solve. I'm curious to know why you think it is.

There's a technique used in parenting called "natural consequences". I don't recall your saying that your mom has dementia, so if she can still learn, this is the way to go.

Stop swooping in and saving her.

Update: Turns out staff & management were not so much on board with the situation so the cats have been turned back out. Mom's heart was in the right place but the operation needs to be planned out better so that the cats are not brought into the building. We will attempt in the future to get the cats to an adoption facility where they can find suitable homes :)

Inform administration and allow them to deal with this. With cats this feral your mother herself is in danger of scratches and infection. My brother died of sepsis from a very small wound on his shin.
It does sound, larger picture, that your Mom is moving out of the timeframe in which she can be ALF patient and may need to move up to memory care or to Nursing Home.
There may be light holiday staffing soon, but the staff will have access to other staff on call. Put this in the hands of whomever is working. Our own Animal Care and Control does the same work weekends and holidays it does all year round in an emergency situation, which is what this is.

Upstream, correction.

If your mother gets kicked out of the AL, SHE is up a creek.

Not you.

She is not your child and you are not her Guardian. You don't intervene. Tell the AL to send her to the ER and let the state take control.

I only run myself ragged for folks who are cooperative. I take a hands off approach to those who are self-destructive, mentally ill and or "stubbornly independent".

They need more help than I or any mere mortal is capable of giving.

You can let Mom know that the cats need to be fixed and once they are out tell her that the real owner was found and don't bring them back. Really hard.
Prayers

I cant see her leaving the cats in the bathroom until Tuesday. She might have to let them go for now.

Upstream,
Written letter to the Facility Admin, stressing how dare your staff exploit
the tender heart towards animals that your mother has, and actually help her to quarantine feral animals in her living space.

To support your mother in this "not well thought out" behavior of a vulnerable adult, the staff involved puts her at risk of falls, disease from fleas and ticks, and liability, at a time when her needs are too great to be caring for feral animals. The facility should be made responsible to treat for fleas and clean the carpet and bathroom.

Their actions involving helping your mother should result in staff taking the responsibility for their own lack of judgment, responsibility to rectify this situation should not fall on my mother or myself to rectify this impending disaster. end...

Do you think that might protect your Mom from being evicted, and from this situation becoming yours to fix? (Whether or not you agree, you can present this false bravado for liability reasons, or to fight an eviction.) imo. Poor cats, she thought that she was "saving" them. Sad.

Just thinking on it, and wondering what we will ever do when (not if) our elderly 'cat lover' ends up in AL. A scenario such as this did not even enter our minds, until now.

I hope that you cannot be drawn in, but totally understand your worry, on so many levels.

The cats should be let loose, returned to their natural habitat. imo. The mother cat may have other kittens to attend to.

Alva basically said what I was going to write, but I have to add that the title of this post is hilarious! Not to laugh at the situation and the trouble and stress it is causing you but . . . 😉

To clarify: Mom and I were involved in animal rescue in the past, together (like 20-30 years ago). To my knowledge, she does plan to release the mother cat once she has been spayed. I think she is under the impression that someone is taking the kittens to put them up for adoption. I am trying not to get sucked into this vortex. I have my own problems including a career that is much more time consuming than a 40-hour workweek. I just got off the phone with mom. She says the director knows the cats are in the bathroom. And yes we are looking at a lengthy time frame before the spay/neuter facility will be open due to the long weekend. Also, mom has the trap set out again in the hopes of catching more kittens. So this is only going to get worse.