Houston hoarder is found dead under four-feet of debris inside his townhome after residents who ‘had not seen him in months’ grew concerned over ‘foul odor’
A Houston hoarder was found dead under four feet of debris in his townhouse after residents hadn’t seen him in months and were concerned about a “foul odor.”
The decomposed body of a man in his 70s was found Friday in a northwest Houston townhouse.
Houston police and firefighters responded to calls from neighbors after the smell became “too bad to ignore.” The condition of the house was so alarming that police had to enlist the help of Texas. EquuSearch will recover the man’s body on Friday.
Rescuers, equipped with protective suits, gloves and masks, recalled the shocking scene as they entered the house. They said they were greeted by rats and huge piles of rubbish blocking all paths.
“You think you’ve seen it all, and then you realize you haven’t,” said Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch. ABC 7.
A Houston hoarder was found dead under four feet of debris in his townhouse after residents hadn’t seen him in months and were concerned about a “foul odor.”
The decomposed body of a man in his 70s was found Friday in a northwest Houston townhouse.
Health and safety concerns led to delays in efforts to excavate the rubble and recover the man’s body.
Officials told ABC13 there was nowhere to go.
Miller said a cadaver dog found the badly decomposed body after clearing away nearly four feet of debris.
“I don’t understand how anyone can live in these conditions,” neighbor Neil Zimmerman told the publication.
The homeowner, whom neighbors said they had not seen in months, was known in the community for his hoarding problem.
Neighbors said the crisis has been years in the making. They had previously tried to help the man, but he refused to accept further help when a government agency wanted to exterminate the rats in his home, which he called his “pets.”
They said they were greeted by rats and huge piles of rubbish that blocked all paths.
The homeowner, who neighbors said they had not seen for several months, was known in the community for his hoarding problem.
Rescuers, equipped with protective suits, gloves and masks, recalled the shocking scene when they entered the house.
Luis Miranda, a homeowner board member who joined the cleanup effort, said the stench is too bad to ignore.
“When I knocked, as soon as I opened the screen, I smelled a foul odor,” Miranda told ABC 13.
“I didn’t think we’d be able to remove all the boxes. They just surrendered to him,” he added.
Neighbors said they wanted to help the man as soon as possible and said they felt terrible no one had come to check on him but felt they had done all they could.
“It is very sad. There is no one here to claim it or verify it,” Miranda said. “I feel like we did everything we could, but we just had nowhere to go. We tried the city. We just couldn’t help him.”
The cost of the costly hazardous substances bill will likely fall on the shoulders of the Homeowners Association, board members told ABC 13.
Neighbors said the crisis has been years in the making. They had previously tried to help the man, but he refused to accept further help when a government agency wanted to exterminate the rats in his home, which he called his “pets.”
The cost of a costly hazmat bill would likely fall on the Homeowners Association.
Houston police and firefighters responded to calls from neighbors Friday after the smell became “too bad to ignore.”
Health and safety concerns led to delays in efforts to excavate the rubble and recover the man’s body.
Neighbors said they wanted to help the man as soon as possible and said they felt terrible no one had come to check on him but felt they had done all they could.
The Harris County Institute of Medical Examiners removed the body from the scene.
The cause of death has not yet been announced.
Experts said there has been an increase in savings since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hoarding has become more common during the Covid pandemic, with experts blaming a combination of anxiety, grief and the ease of one-click shopping, according to an October report.
More extreme than the tendency to hoard a few trinkets for sentimental value or stock up on a few extra packs of toilet paper, hoarding behavior is often a symptom of more serious anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic put its grip on the globe, two to three percent of the world’s population were obsessive hoarders. But it is believed that since the spring of 2020 this figure has increased by four percent.
Cleaning crews bravely moving through crowded apartments often collect hundreds, if not tons, of trash. It is also common to find long-dead pets and human excrement.
People struggling with mental health conditions such as OCD before the pandemic saw their symptoms worsen as much of society found themselves in prolonged isolation and suddenly without easy access to treatment and support from loved ones.
Psychiatrists have identified hoarding disorder as a separate diagnosis, although it has historically been considered a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder, affecting approximately 2.5 million adults, or 1.2 percent of the U.S. population.
Early in the pandemic, when the new virus and its origins were still shrouded in mystery, the world was forced to impose mandatory periods of quarantine when it seemed that much of people’s lives were suddenly out of their control.
A hoarding cleanup crew photographed empty food containers, bottles, newspapers and trash stacked waist-deep in the living room of an elegant pre-war New York City apartment building.
They found hundreds of used toilet rolls, baby wipes and rubbish that left the luxury apartment’s bathroom inaccessible.
Hoarders often collect animals thinking they are doing them a favor. In reality, this environment is not suitable for animals. A cleaning crew discovered a dead husky in a case in a luxury apartment building in New York.
Dr. David Nathan, a psychologist at Allina Health in Minneapolis, told UPI: “As the pandemic has been so challenging for everyone involved, we have seen an increase in rates of all stress reactions, including an increase in hoarding behavior.”
Hoarding disorder usually begins in adolescence and then snowballs from there.
Thus, severe hoarding is more common among older adults than among their younger peers.
Although hoarding disorder is a diagnosis in its own right, its association with OCD is well known.