Horrific Hoarder + Cat House

[mike]

A couple of days ago my son and I saw the most horrific living conditions that I expect to ever see in my life. We closed on a house about ten minutes from my home that he hopes to remodel and live in one day. It was a bank-owned property that we knew was full of debris but that we could not enter prior to closing due to hazardous conditions. We had some blurry photos but we were not prepared for how horrific the conditions were. It was last occupied in 2024 or some time prior to that by an elderly lady in her 70s and apparently 70-80 cats, and who I am told was prosecuted for animal cruelty. According to public records she is still living, and at another residential address in the area.

The only door in the house that can open partially is the back door, and the entirety of the first floor of the house is piled with debris anywhere from 3-5 feet high, without even trails to walk through. The debris, consisting of garbage, books, decorations, used adult diapers, empty cat food cans, and household goods soiled by cat excrement and who knows what else goes up the steps to the second floor, which we did not enter yet because it appears to be 1-2 feet deep in soiled adult diapers. It is an extremely nasty hazmat situation.

The most appalling thing about it is the fact that an elderly human being apparently lived alone in these unfathomable conditions for an extended period of time, routinely crawling around over the debris like an animal. It is a hazmat situation and we will be wearing suits and respirators to clean it out. The smell is almost unbearable, although possibly not as bad as it could be given the house has sat vacant for at least a year or more. I can only imagine what it was like when the filth was more fresh.

I have no idea what the story is, but there was apparently no one in this person's life, not a family member or caregiver or neighbor, who could provide any help to this person for many years while she lived in this situation. There is no way this accumulated in six months or even a couple of years. It is structurally sound, a fairly nice looking brick home, and it is in a nicer section of town, and there is little to no indication from the street or the outside of the house what is in side.

I post this story to show that there are people who live in our neighborhoods in these sorts of conditions and who have no one to help. The sadness of an older person with no one to care about them is one of the great tragedies of our society, and I believe this sort of situation is bound to happen more and more, particularly as there are fewer children in families, less community cohesion, and social isolation caused by many factors.

Can you imagine the horror of growing old in these conditions? I cannot. But here are a few of the pictures I took to give you an idea.

[Valerie]

A couple of days ago my son and I saw the most horrific living conditions that I expect to ever see in my life. We closed on a house about ten minutes from my home that he hopes to remodel and live in one day. It was a bank-owned property that we knew was full of debris but that we could not enter prior to closing due to hazardous conditions. We had some blurry photos but we were not prepared for how horrific the conditions were. It was last occupied in 2024 or some time prior to that by an elderly lady in her 70s and apparently 70-80 cats, and who I am told was prosecuted for animal cruelty. According to public records she is still living, and at another residential address in the area.

The only door in the house that can open partially is the back door, and the entirety of the first floor of the house is piled with debris anywhere from 3-5 feet high, without even trails to walk through. The debris, consisting of garbage, books, decorations, used adult diapers, empty cat food cans, and household goods soiled by cat excrement and who knows what else goes up the steps to the second floor, which we did not enter yet because it appears to be 1-2 feet deep in soiled adult diapers. It is an extremely nasty hazmat situation.

The most appalling thing about it is the fact that an elderly human being apparently lived alone in these unfathomable conditions for an extended period of time, routinely crawling around over the debris like an animal. It is a hazmat situation and we will be wearing suits and respirators to clean it out. The smell is almost unbearable, although possibly not as bad as it could be given the house has sat vacant for at least a year or more. I can only imagine what it was like when the filth was more fresh.

I have no idea what the story is, but there was apparently no one in this person's life, not a family member or caregiver or neighbor, who could provide any help to this person for many years while she lived in this situation. There is no way this accumulated in six months or even a couple of years. It is structurally sound, a fairly nice looking brick home, and it is in a nicer section of town, and there is little to no indication from the street or the outside of the house what is in side.

I post this story to show that there are people who live in our neighborhoods in these sorts of conditions and who have no one to help. The sadness of an older person with no one to care about them is one of the great tragedies of our society, and I believe this sort of situation is bound to happen more and more, particularly as there are fewer children in families, less community cohesion, and social isolation caused by many factors.

Can you imagine the horror of growing old in these conditions? I cannot. But here are a few of the pictures I took to give you an idea.

My sister had a rental condo in a nice area in southern CA. She was widowed with 2 college age children with her. My sister didn’t do routine visits. To her horror, after being contacted by neighbors who were concerned seeing bugs on the windows and things piled high contacted, my sister, my sister walked into a horrific situation of a hoarder.
She spent over $100,000 out of pocket because insurance would not pay for it since she hadn’t made routine checks.
In this case, it was on an elderly person and there were two young people living with her how they could’ve let themselves live like that is beyond understanding.

We learned that hoarding is a disease. I helped a coworker move out of her apartment last year and it was pretty bad and she was 59. She would be considered a hoard or two but not as bad as my sister’s situation and your son situation.

It’s very sad that the woman apparently had no one in her life that was helping her but often hoarders don’t let anyone in their house. My sister hired a team who had to wear hazmat suits. Because of the mold from modern damage and neglect, my sister was advised not to be on the premises.

When I visited her in June, the place was absolutely gorgeous. Looked brand new. She sold it immediately because it was like a brand new condo totally updated.

That cat situation is another sickness and es. This doesn’t seem like just a case of someone not being looked in on, but we do live in a society where people don’t know their neighbors well.

[ohio jones]

My parents had a similar situation down the road from them. The house caught on fire and the occupant died, partly because of the volume of combustible material that fed the fire and partly because the firefighters couldn't reach her in time. Sad.

[mike]

We learned that hoarding is a disease. I helped a coworker move out of her apartment last year and it was pretty bad and she was 59. She would be considered a hoard or two but not as bad as my sister’s situation and your son situation.

...

That cat situation is another sickness and es. This doesn’t seem like just a case of someone not being looked in on, but we do live in a society where people don’t know their neighbors well.

I agree that both hoarding and extreme numbers of pets show some level of mental illness. Although some of it could be simply life in general getting out of control, beyond one's ability to maintain and cope with routine tasks. This can happen to anyone. I think mental illness reflects the inability to see how things really are. Life just getting out of control might not necessarily be mental illness, and there are people who live in chaos who know it very well and are ashamed of it, but can't really do anything about it.

[JohnH]

I have no idea what the story is, but there was apparently no one in this person's life, not a family member or caregiver or neighbor, who could provide any help to this person for many years while she lived in this situation.

Chronic hoarders often won't let anyone help, and push people away who try to confront them about it. The best hope the family often has is to wait for them to break a bone, go to the hospital, and then try to get them directly discharged into a nursing home. Legally, there isn't much that can be done, either, other than enforce criminal animal cruelty laws.

There are laws against breeding vermin and so on but they simply have financial penalties for non-compliance. I have a house in town, and a few doors down is a chronic hoarder who is essentially conducting a feral-cat breeding facility. She won't let her family in the house anymore. She also has closed off the sidewalk and has "reserved" multiple parking spots on the road for her vehicle (which hasn't moved in a while) and a spot for delivery vehicles, since now she orders everything in be it from food to Walmart deliveries.

The city has been enforcing things like rules against how high weeds can get, so they came and cleared up the weeds which were many feet tall, sent her a bill, and then eventually put a lien on the property. This will continue to happen, and they may eventually enforce an ordinance against breeding feral animals, but that will just mean more liens on the property to pay for the cost of a crew to come in and remove the animals. And they'll be back. There is a large network of people who "rescue" cats and place them into situations like this.

You basically have to wait for the person to die, and often the structure is in such bad shape then that it just has to be torn down.