http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/05/elderly-couple-trapped-weeks-in-mound-of-debris.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChicagoBreakingNews+%28Chicago+Breaking+News%29

How awful!  I just cannot imagine letting things go like that...

This is so sad.  People who do this are mentally ill, I can't imagine that someone didn't step in long before this, especially given the condition of the yard.  The same is true of people who keep excessive numbers of animals, it is usually cats.  They need help.

It reminds me of the infamous case of the Collyer brothers.  That story didn't break until both brothers had died among the heaps of garbage literally filling their house.  That happened in 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

Usually the horder is a solitary character.  Occasionally it happens with siblings or spouses, which can aggravate the problem beyond imagination!
:o

It reminds me of the infamous case of the Collyer brothers.  That story didn't break until both brothers had died among the heaps of garbage literally filling their house.  That happened in 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

Usually the horder is a solitary character.  Occasionally it happens with siblings or spouses, which can aggravate the problem beyond imagination!
:o


Grey Gardens  To prove it can happen to just about anyone, anywhere.

Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale  and her daughter Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at Grey Gardens for decades with limited funds, resulting in squalor and almost total isolation.

In the fall of 1971 and throughout 1972, their living conditions—their house was infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay—were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York Magazine after a series of inspections (which the Beales called "raids") by the Suffolk County Health Department. With the Beale women facing eviction and the razing of their home, in the summer of 1972 Jacqueline Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided the necessary funds to stabilize and repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet Village codes.

Grey Gardens  To prove it can happen to just about anyone, anywhere.

Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale  and her daughter Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at Grey Gardens for decades with limited funds, resulting in squalor and almost total isolation.

In the fall of 1971 and throughout 1972, their living conditions—their house was infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay—were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York Magazine after a series of inspections (which the Beales called "raids") by the Suffolk County Health Department. With the Beale women facing eviction and the razing of their home, in the summer of 1972 Jacqueline Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided the necessary funds to stabilize and repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet Village codes.


Yes, I know the Grey Gardens case well.  They made a great documentary of the Beales living their lives in that crumbling mansion.  Weird stuff.