2/26 Orange County-House Unfit To Live In/Son investigated

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Filthy house may be razed
Villa Park officials find house unfit to live in.
By ELLYN PAK-THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Officials found the filthy house after 76-year-old owner Mary Maloney was taken to the emergency room earlier this month. The homeowner's son said his elderly mother was unable to maintain the home in which she lived for more than 20 years. She owned up to 15 cats, he said.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/home-city-enforcement-1987885-code-tonight

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

http://www.ocregist er.com/news/ house-maloney- public-1989404- mother-lived

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Son investigated for elder abuse in filthy house case

Inspectors found pile of cat feces, dead cats, inoperative plumbing
and winged insects in Villa Park home.

By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ and ELLYN PAK
The Orange County Register
Comments 5|

VILLA PARK â€“ Sixteen live cats, four dead, a 3-foot pile of feces in
the middle of the living room and a urine-soaked floor are some of
the reasons why investigators are looking into suspected elder abuse,
neglect and animal cruelty against the son of a 76-year-old woman,
authorities said.

An investigation is ongoing into whether 53-year-old Kevin Maloney
committed elder abuse by having his mother, Mary Maloney, live in a
house so filthy that code enforcement officers were forced to red-tag
it earlier this month, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange
County Sheriff's Department.

The house was in such deplorable condition that a foul stench reached
into the street, he said.

Officials found cat feces in the living room and debris inside the
home, across the street from Villa Park Elementary School on Center
Drive. The kitchen was reported to have no running water, and baths
and toilets were semi-operational or not working at all.

Four dead cats were found inside the home â€“ two behind a piano.
Several of the cats found were also suffering from burns on their
paws, believed to have been caused by the urine on the floor,
Amormino said. Animal Control officers confiscated 14 cats, two
kittens and found two cat skulls.

Emergency personnel found the filthy house when Mary Maloney was
taken to the emergency room early this month.

When an ambulance arrived at the house, authorities said, Kevin
Maloney had his elderly mother waiting outside the home.
Investigators believe that he did this so emergency personnel would
not see the condition of the house, Amormino said.

Orange County Sheriff's Department investigators were contacted by
hospital personnel, who said the woman in their care was suffering
from a rash and several other ailments, and appeared to be badly fed
and cared for.

Investigators served a search warrant on the house Feb. 6, allowing
the city's code enforcement officers to inspect the house. City
officials are expected to hold a public forum March 11 to decide if
the home is a public nuisance.

The Maloneys will have 30 days to meet the city's requirements after
the public hearing, or they could face a lien. The house will likely
be razed, according to Maloney and the city.

Kevin Maloney said in an interview Tuesday that his elderly mother
was unable to maintain the home where she lived for more than 20
years. He also said he lived in Los Alamitos and that his mother was
currently hospitalized with blood clots.

"I knew it was coming," said Maloney, who also added that he assumed
his mother was taking care of the home. Maloney was allowed to check
out the house key from the city during daytime hours to clean up the
home, according to city officials.

Investigators believe he in fact did live at the home, Amormino said,
including in January when Mary Maloney was bedridden.

Investigators are expected to recommend charges to the District
Attorney's Office by early next week, Amormino said.

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

Same story, some other sources:

Elder abuse suspected at putrid Villa Park house LA Times
2/20/08
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-filthyhouse29feb29,1,472897.story

Villa Park Home So Dirty It May Be Destroyed
VILLA PARK, Calif. Sheriff's investigators are determining if the state of a filthy Villa Park house occupied by a 76-year-old woman and her son constitutes elder abuse, authorities said.
http://cbs2.com/local/Villa.Park.House.2.664724.html

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Public nuisance hearing on Villa Park home continued
Red-tagged Center Drive home to be discussed again on March 25.
By ELLYN PAK
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Comments 0| Recommend 7

VILLA PARK - A public nuisance hearing on the filthy, red-tagged Center Drive home will continue to March 25, city officials decided Tuesday.

The home, which was left in such deplorable conditions that it was determined inhabitable, could be declared a public nuisance after the hearing closes at the next City Council meeting.

"This is sad and tragic situation," City Manager Ken Domer said Tuesday.

The city is working with the homeowner to remedy the situation and not force her to raze her home.

In the meantime, Sheriff's Department investigators are looking into suspected elder abuse, neglect and animal cruelty against the son of a 76-year-old woman who lived in the home, authorities said.

An investigation is ongoing about whether 53-year-old Kevin Maloney committed elder abuse by having his mother, Mary Maloney, live in squalor, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Mary Maloney is currently living in a care facility, according to city officials.

Last month, officials found 16 live cats, four dead cats, piles of feces and debris inside the home, located across the street from Villa Park Elementary School. The kitchen was reported to have no running water and baths and toilets were semi-operational or not working at all.

Investigators are expected to recommend charges to the District Attorney's Office.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1997083.php

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

Villa Park to tackle filthy house Tuesday
Owner could have 30 days after meeting to fix the home.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_2003627.php

Quote:

In the meantime, Sheriff's investigators are looking into suspected elder abuse, neglect and animal cruelty against 53-year-old Kevin Maloney, who authorities said allowed his elderly mother live in such squalor.

Some reader comments posted:

ninanbh wrote:

Quote:

It is against the law! He is responsible regardless of his relation to the victim. His mother could not care for herself or her home. He knowingly kept her in an unhealthy and dangerous (possibly deadly), environment without reporting it to anyone. If he did not want to care for her there are agencies who would have stepped in and helped her. This kind of thing happens all the time, caregivers and siblings alike who take advantage of the elderly. I'm glad he is being held responsible!

sopadecaracol wrote:

Quote:

It is terrible that the son didn't help his mom but unless he was being paid to take care of her he has no legal responsiblity to her.

justmoi2cents wrote:

Quote:

Actually, it seems only right that adult children should be somewhat responsible for caring for their elderly parents...... if an adult was to leave a small child to exist in living conditions such as these........would it be allowed?? (I don't think so!!) so why wouldnt an able bodied son or daughter be held responsible (to some degree)for attempting to get the elderly parent the care or help that is needed. Sure the elderly arent as cute as a small child, they dont smell as good as a baby....they are a bit larger, more stubborn, but, similiar criteria ..... unable to care for themselves...needs constant monitoring.... guidance/instruction etc..... if the adult child wants nothing to do with it, then at least get them to the help or assistance they need. After all (in most cases, the elderly parent devoted some portion of their life to the adult child) There are various programs or State agency's that can assist with this kind of thing.

It may not be a law, but it is just the right thing to do.
(in most cases, not all)

(All these parents that are now "required to buy their children a car" should make a contract with these kids that they will buy them a car but when the time comes the child will need to care for the elderly parent)

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject:

Sad, I think it's about the Social Security Check.

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

A response sent in by a reader that I thought was worthy of posting here! I hope it's ok to do this, I was just worried they would remove the article and its comments and it would disappear:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/home-city-feces-2003627-hearing-tuesday

racewiththemoon wrote:

Quote:

When this story first came out, I thought, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." My mother was a hoarder. Yes, that's a clinical illness/addiction. The children of hoarders suffer in many of the same ways as the children of alcoholics, and when they become adults, they are just as helpless in ensuring the well-being of their parents.

Luckily, my mom did not hoard animals so she never had feces and carcasses in her house (unless you count mouse droppings and cobwebs). She just had rotting food, moth-eaten clothes from decades ago, and piles and piles and piles of newspapers that blocked every possible entrance. Our water and heat were often out for weeks at a time because she wouldn't let repairmen in. I spent my childhood being told that her possessions were more important to her than I was - and being severely punished if I moved something. She was extremely controlling and emotionally manipulative, and I learned that it was best to stay quiet and do as she said, so that she wouldn't go into a rage or start sobbing. I had to haul water from a pond to flush the toilets and take a bath (in the 1990s!). I kept thinking, "Well, it's not that bad, I guess," because my sense of normal was so far off because it had been that way for my entire life.

As an adult, when I would try to remove the trash, she would scream, cry, hit me, and threaten to kill herself. Same thing would happen when I would trick her into leaving the house so I could bring in a repairman to fix broken things. She would go through the phone book to try to find out who did it and cuss them out and threaten to sue. It got so most repairmen in our small town would not go in her house, no matter how I begged them. Sometimes after I fixed things, she would break them again (like when I had a new furnace installed in her trailer, she ripped it out and threw it into the yard. Her reason? It took up closet space that she wanted to use to store newspapers! She preferred to use space heaters in the midst of all that tinder).

I approached the authorities about it several times and they all said it was her business and not my property. Same thing when I reported her suicide threats - she would be hauled in to the emergency room, and then sweet talk the shrink and be back at her house in hours. I got her minister to talk to her, so she refused to speak to me for weeks (which scared me, because at least if she kept in contact with me, I could keep an eye on the situation).

Finally, one day I was able to remove all the newspapers. Why, after all those years, could I finally do it? Because she had become ill with ALS, and had gotten to the point where she could no longer move her legs, and couldn't really hit me very hard with her weak arms. I took her to my sister's house for the day, and without her knowledge, I went in there with three friends and masks and gloves and we threw the papers out the window into a pickup truck. We took many, many loads to the dump.

When I brought her home, she screamed for an hour straight. Like an animal howling in anguish at the top of her lungs. The neighbors called the cops because they thought someone was dying. Thank goodness she told the truth when they arrived - I was petrified she would tell them I'd hit her, but she just tried to talk them into arresting me for theft of her newspapers. The cops just sorta laughed at the crazy old lady and her terrfied adult daughter. That night she tried to commit suicide (she was unsuccessful, but died a few months later of the ALS). After she died, I had to spend ten thousand dollars on dumpsters and bulldozers to remove all the trash she'd hoarded on her 1.5-acre property over the years. Oh yeah, and the clean-out took three straight months of my life.

I spent most of my young adulthood trying to decide which was worse: let my mother live in an unhealthy, dangerous mess - or clean it up and risk the chance that she would kill herself and it would be on my concience. I felt like no one in the world would help me as the authorities repeately told me my mother could make her own choices.

So...I'm just saying...we can't know what it was like for that son. We don't know the choices he faced and the hell he lived with. We also don't know how he grew up, how skewed his sense of normal was, or how much his mom continued to control and manipulate him after he became an adult.

Look, if your elderly dad was an alcoholic, even if you tried to get him treatment and poured out all his liquor and asked his friends not to take him to bars, and tried to get the state to take away his drivers license, could you really prevent him from ending up dead in an alley somewhere? Well, that's about how easy it is to prevent a hoarder from ending up with a mountain of cat feces.

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:06 am Post subject:

Wow- that's a powerful testimony.

I don't envy the authorities who have to try to tease out the true motives of the son who is being looked at for possible elder abuse. As a COH I completely understand how difficult it is to make a parent live in a safe and socially acceptable way- it's impossible.

I can also see why it would be easy to assume his motivation was the social security check. It's a very real possibility. And if he's a true COH his ability to lie and hide his true feelings will be honed razor sharp. We may never know the truth.

Probably, all the authorities can really do is made a decision about this case that will either A: Dissuade someone else from considering elder abuse in the pursuit of the social security check, or B: Compell a COH to speak out if they find themselves in a similar situation with their parent, lest they be accused of the same offense.

I'm all for speaking out. Keeping a twisted secret for a hoarder is much too damaging on way too many levels.

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:25 am Post subject: fearful

along with the guilt of knowing my Mother is living the way she does and rebels against any help I fear legal action will be taken against me if something happens , I guess leaving a paper trail of requests and emails would be smart, I know I have witnesses as far as the neighbors seeing me taking out things ( when she is out shopping)

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Cabo

Hello,
Norse and his wife (norse's mother was reported to authorities by an unknown person), often stress how important it is, like you said, to document, document...along with photographs.

Here is a comment that was sent into the website from someone who apparantly did a clean-out, but might be some good into all around?:
Donna

Quote:

"I recommend a good digital camera with a flash. It may be useful to document stuff, for insurance purposes or other reasons. You can take pictures of stuff like the water meter and gas/electric meter in case there's a question about the readings when it comes time to deal with bills, for example. And it may help to have a thorough set of "before" pictures of the house/apartment, to show relatives--you may find you get less resistance from them (and, who knows, maybe even some sympathy) if they see for themselves how bad things really were in the hoarder's house.

Some of my relatives who hadn't been in my mom's house in years (especially those who lived out of state) were pretty horrified when they saw how she had been living.

If you don't have access to a digital camera, a regular camera will be fine too; the digital is just an advantage because you can e-mail the pix to relatives.

A camcorder may be helpful too if you have one. The company who did our cleanout films everything, for their own protection. That way, if local town officials interfere, they have a record of it and can prove that the bureaucrats cost the client time and money. That tends to make the two-bit local officials behave themselves better. (Usually.) (Well, sometimes.)"

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 359

Wonderful article combined with a dead on rebuttal. One thing that puzzles me is, "Where is the Line?" At what point is this condition identified as needing intervention? Do they have to be buried in filth and debris before someone says, "Something has to be done, this is just too horrific!" If it was another mental illness in the family would it be addressed early and made a family effort to establish a support system to keep the person functional? Perhaps early diagnosis and treatment would help establish the much needed boundaries.

In California the streets are filled with the mentally ill who go off their meds and the families seem helpless to do anything about it. I don't think those families are accused of abuse, because it is a free will issue, unfortunately. Why aren't these people declared incompetent, and placed under a guardianship somewhere? What faction of society is letting these people down?

It seems like there should be guidelines for legal intervention, like habitability of the dwelling, working plumbing, sanitation, mold, etc. to prevent slum dwellings. Also what constitutes a hoard vs. an organized collection and when does it threaten the well being of the resident? Then I would think violations could be addressed.

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject:

Crayfish and I touched on this a while back on another thread and agreed it was a "slippery slope".

But you're right VJ, it seems like something could be organized to help prevent hoarding/filth in the early stages... but how, without stepping on our freedoms and then how could it be enforced?

Active Member Joined: Apr 29, 2008 Posts: 359

I know, OAI, I hate the "slippery slope" theory because in supports inaction where it is needed so badly. However, it seems to be human nature in some to start micromanage things that should be personal freedoms. We are legally bound to use a bluetooth earpiece when driving as of July 1 for our cell phones here. And they are talking about citing people who let their dogs in their laps while driving. I haven't seen too many Great Danes behind the wheel, but they must be causing a lot of accidents somewhere.

My daughter got caught by an intersection camera for making a safe right turn on a red light, she was crawling but did not come to a complete stop, $300. Then she opted to take public transportation to work and was cited for being in a crosswalk with a group of people when the light changed. Next time she will knock them all down to get across more quickly, $150. That's Los Angeles. I would hope the guidelines would err to the side of the hoarder's freedoms but would eliminate the obvious, but who knows...

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject:

I know it's crazy isn't it... I just wish common sense could prevail... but who's common sense?

It's not an easy thing.