MILWAUKEE — It was sensory overload outside of the home near 71st and Dixon Friday as crews began the process of clearing out a disgusting home.
The house was the focus of a child neglect case in July after two children, 9 and 7 years old, broke out of the home and were found naked and filthy, roaming the streets of the neighborhood.
The new owner, who says he is renovating the home, was clearing out the house all day Friday. He had opened all of the windows of the home to help air out the home.
Dozens of garbage bags were being dragged out throughout the afternoon. At least three trailers were filled with garbage bags to be disposed of, each more disgusting than the last. At one point, a bag being dragged from the home had an unknown brown liquid spewing from the bottom. The man who tossed the bag cringed when he tossed the bag into the back of the trailer as the liquid soaked his arms.
Touch was just the first of the five senses to be pummeled on the day. Even from the sidewalk, the stench from the home was rancid. According to police, this was a hoarding situation and the room the children were being held in was covered in feces and urine. It was a smell one neighbor tried to describe.
“I don’t think I can say it on TV,” Rick Eder said. “It’s bad. If you use an outhouse, it’s beyond that. Let’s put it that way.”
The workers clearing out the house would oscillate between heavily focused on the work at hand and moments of breaking concentration, coughing, gagging, and at times spitting to get the scent out of their nostrils and mouths.
The original criminal complaint painted a disturbing picture of what these children were going through. As descriptive as it was, it couldn’t be matched by the reality of the situation. Investigators had said the walls of the room the children were in was covered in feces. But from the outside, the floors were easily seen and were covered in brown matter as well. The window was still broken from when the children escaped a month earlier.
The yard was littered with garbage but upon focusing closer, remnants of children’s happy memories could be seen. Toys that were once a source of joy were browned and tattered. Stuffed animals meant to provide a sense of relief for a child were soaked despite no one having played with them for over a month.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Cindy Peterson, a neighbor said. “Sure enough, it’s terrible. It’s unbelievable.”
Neighbors couldn’t contain their curiosity as they walked by to take a peek inside the “house of horrors” as some have started to call it.
“It’s a lot worse,” Eder said. “We didn’t think it was that bad and now, all of a sudden, it’s like wow. How could anybody even move around in something like that? It was bad.”
But this house of horrors is beginning the cleansing process to become a house of healing for the neighborhood. The neighbors around Friday afternoon hope it can restore peace to the neighborhood instead of the disturbing nightmare they’ve come to realize over the last month.
“Get it done with,” Peterson said. “Get it out of here. Get it cleaned out. We don’t want to see all that. It’s like, yuck, but it has to be done. I don’t see how anyone could live in that house with all that occurring. Starting fresh, maybe that’s it. New beginnings right there.”
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