Lodi Messy House Gets Parents Arrested, Kids Removed

Lodi Messy House Gets Parents Arrested, Kids Removed

LODI, Calif. (AP) -- A Lodi couple's messy house has gotten them arrested and their children taken away.

San Joaquin County prosecutors charged 34-year-old Rick Munn and 28-year-old Alisha Blake on Friday with one count each of child cruelty.

Police said they found so many piles of clothing and garbage in their home that officers could barely walk inside. A city worker had deemed the mess an immediate risk to the residents' safety.

The couple's sons, ages 2 and 4, appeared to be healthy, but were taken into protective custody.

Neighbors said Munn and Blake had rented the home for the past six years. The owners of the home could not immediately be reached for comment.

http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=64411&catid=2

There is this program on BBC America called "How Clean is Your House?". These two British ladies go into houses that are filthy messes, clean it up with the help of a crew, and try to get people to understand that living in filth is a sickness. I read an article in a British newspaper in which these woman were interviewed and they said that often within a few months it looks as if they had never been there. Only a minority of the people have actually changed their ways.

Some people are pigs and there isn't anything that can be done to change it. At what point does someone in authority come in and say that a house is too dirty and messy for children to live in? Is it like pornography - you just know it when you see it?

So if piles and piles of newspapers are stacked everywhere, or anything that rots is left to decay etc.

The papers become a fire hazard. The rotting garbage attracts pests & vermin.

And that means it effects neighbors as well as residents.

I live where the Beale's were. Gray Gardens, you know? Some have romanticized their story cause of the connection to Jackie O. I have heard from very reliable first hand accounts how totally repulsive conditions in that house were. Definitely mental illness of some kind.

in a house owned by a woman like that. It was in a good neighborhood, quiet street; just the kind of place I needed to finish out my senior year in college. I made the mistake of only checking out the room I'd have. This woman was crazy. She saved newspapers so she could cut out articles to send to her relatives in Germany. Thing is, she never cut anything out. Ever. The piles just grew and grew. I made the mistake of throwing out some rotten food in the fridge and she had a fit saying the bad parts could have been cut off.

Then one night Iturned on the kitchen light. Cockroaches everywhere scurrying away. I moved out as soon as I could.

Watch a bit, if you've never seen it, Kim and Aggie are a riot (Kim, especially, with that beehive!!!!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EN8c2Up3bw

"Dear....GOD....this is a RATHOLE....the STINK!!!.....EWWWWW, my GAAAAAWED!!!"

I get that it seems funny, but it's sad to see people living in squalor when they don't have to.

Doesn't sound that way, since you're generalizing that most of them are "mentally ill" because they don't prioritize spending their lives scrubbing. Most of the people have busy lives; full time jobs, students, lots of responsibility--in the sample I provided, the husband was a builder (who didn't help around the house much, apparently) and the wife a packrat graphic designer who spent most of her time at her mother's clean house looking after mom.

I've known people who are quite normal, quite happy, quite engaged in the community, but they don't have a maid and they don't like to/know how to clean. Some are a bit focused on their own interests and simply do not see the dirt. It's people like that who end up in these kinds of straits...and on this show.

living in disarray is not a mental illness. Living in dangerous conditions due to hoarding and neglect is absolutely
a sign of mental disturbance.

It's a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior. These people have panic attacks when the attempt is made to throw things away.

They also aren't "hoarders" who know exactly where everything is and freak out if anyone moves stuff. They're just lazy SLOBS.

The people on these shows are, plain and simple, PIGS. Some hang on to things longer than they should, but that's laziness -- not a freakish unwillingness to let go of stuff. They often laugh when a piece of crapola is found under a pile of junk.

These people live in "disarray" but perhaps because it's a bit worse than YOUR disarray you want to ascribe a pathology to it.

If you think those HCIYH "tips" are indicative of mental illness, well, I knew a lot of really crazy people during my college years. Half of those joints look like the apartments of my classmates!

So nope, sorry--I'm not going to agree with you. Having seen the show, a lot of these people on it are just L-A-Z-Y.

I was just reading that medication is not really helpful. It's a difficult disease to treat.

Piles of garbage around is not normal. No one is THAT busy that they can't throw away trash instead of letting it pile up around them in unsanitary ways.

The woman living in a house covered in bird shit who has slug tracks all over her carpet is indisputably mentally ill. So is the guy who works at the dump, regularly brings things home and hasn't cleaned in fourteen years.

Many of them are slobs, but I've seen four or five episodes (almost all on the British version) where people are hoarders or have other obvious problems like believing cat vomit is easier to clean after it has dried out.

To my mind, though, that is an argument against shag carpet....

People on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum often don't see the mess around them. You're saying they're "mentally ill?"

I'm saying the woman with 300 birds who lets them fly all over her apartment shitting on everything is mentally ill. And so is the guy who brings trash home from the dump and lives, literally, in a cloud of flies. Watch the episodes and try arguing that they aren't.

Never said a word about autism. I will say that my threshold for "mental illness" is when someone's beliefs or behaviors become so extreme that they interfere with that individual's ability to perform day-to-day functions like holding down a job, cleaning one's self to a minimal standard and preparing food. And living in a house literally covered in cat vomit (and no doubt going to work smelling of cat sick), having multiple overflowing litter boxes in every room of your house, having asthma induced by breathing ammonia from cat urine, having given up cooking because your fridge is full of moldy stuff from 6!?! years ago and you can't walk in the kitchen because of maggoty trash bags to me qualifies as mental illness.

It doesn't get that bad if you could just snap out of it, as you could if you were being lazy. I also understand that people can get overwhelmed... my apartment was a huge mess when I was working 70 hours weeks... but if I had had a team of 15 cleaners come in and sterilize everything, I could probably have maintained a higher level of cleanliness for quite a while. The fact that most of these people are in a mess again a few weeks later shows that most of them obviously have serious problems. Some of them have unsustainable lifestyles, some are incurably lazy and some *are* mentally ill.

if you run into a hundred people, there will be at least two crazy people in the bunch. That doesn't make them ALL "mentally ill" and that is where you're going and what you are saying.

Some people ARE lazy. Some people do take what's called "the path of least resistance." That does not necessarily make them "mentally ill."

And you don't watch the show, or you must tune out at the end. You said: The fact that most of these people are in a mess again a few weeks later shows that most of them obviously have serious problems.

In the show, Aggie and Kim come back 'a few weeks later' to check up on their slobs (it's a feature at the conclusion of each episode), and most of the people are not 'in a mess again a few weeks later'--in fact, MOST are doing very well and keeping up appearances, or at least trying. There's always the "two out of a hundred" that don't, but at least at the outset, 'most' do give it a go and behave in a reformed way.

"That doesn't make them ALL "mentally ill" and that is where you're going and what you are saying."

Seriously, if you're not even going to read what I'm writing what's the point of continuing this?

You claimed that they were all lazy, I claimed some are lazy, some are overwhelmed by life and a few are mentally ill. How does that "go" to "they are all mentally ill"?

We are actually on the same page, pretty much.

cat vomit IS easier to clean after it has dried. i usually clean it up right away and create a stain on the carpet, and then have to get out the stain remover and scrub like hell. but on occasion i will find one of these little gifts when i am moving furniture to clean, and it usually just lifts right up as one unit - no stain, no mess.

in handy.

my japanese mother in law saved everything. she had a room full of junk, she had a refrigerator full of containers of bits. she lived through WWII in japan & survived, she was tight fisted & definitely not crazy.

i think internet psychiatrists are crazy.

there's something wrong with folk who can live in utter filth

People's tolerance for crap varies.

I saw some pretty rude looking farmhomes out in the countryside in UK. Some bachelors lived their lives with their momma picking up after them, and then when momma died, the joint went to hell. And some women just don't give a crap about housekeeping, either.

Cheap "stuff" is so easy to come across these days, it is just an epidemic.

There have been three or four episodes where the families had kids and I'm surprised they didn't call social services. There's one in Wales I think where the family was wading through thigh high garbage just to get to the door and the kitchen and bathrooms were unusable.

I'd say at the point where kids can't take a bath or shower, use an indoor toilet, find anything in the fridge that isn't spoiled or touch anything without being exposed to e-coli then it's time for them to spend a few weeks in foster care while mom and/or dad get their shit together.

:rofl:

My house is nowhere near that bad, I sometimes skip a couple weeks between mopping the kitchen floor and the clen laundry is poften trying to emerge and chase me down the hallway like a blob...but the "dirty" factor isn't an issue...

My mom was fuckin Donna Reed, she would be on he hands & knees scrubbing the kitchen floor when I'd come home on a saturday afternoon. In fact, even when she comes over to MY house,(usually to babysit) she never just brings a book to read or relaxes with the kids...she will FIND a project to do (like putting away all my dishes and wiping my counters till they sparkle)
While I appreciate the notion, and also understand that is her own dysfunctions about control and her raleationship with my dad, It is almost upsetting

She says things like "I know I didn't raise you to be like this."
excuuse me? you had no job and your husband was gone drinking most of the time - it was your "therapy"
I am a single mom running a business and trying to finish school while raising 3 kids ho are VERY energetic.

folding the fuckin laundry is LOW on my priorities...

Anyway - it's sad that some folks really DO live in squalor...and that MY mess isn't nearly that bad. (my friends say I have the cleanest "mess" they have ever seen, lol!) Stories like this are too true, and I'm sorry, make me feel a little better.

around the NYC apartment. I saw something move in a pile of garbage and thought it might be a rat. Turned out to be the baby waking up from the afternoon nap. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

That was remarkably original, I must say.

It was disgusting.

While I was there my solution was to give everyone a plate and silverwear and if it was dirty in the kitchen, I'd put the filth in the slob's room.

Didn't last long there.

And my advice on DU whenever someone starts a "let's start a communal living space somewhere" is to forget having people take turns cleaning kitchens and baths and HIRE someone.

Most people are either slobs or not very neat. My family has had a guest house for over 50 years. That assessment is from experience.

admitted, it has to reach critical mass for me to break out the vacuum and sponge.

Our house was never neat and tidy growing up but it has gotten worse as she has gotten older. And my dad doesn't help. He complains but he brings home worthless stuff too. But at least theirs is just piles of clutter with no where to sit or walk but it isn't filthy. They (unlike lots of hoarders) throw their garbage out, wash their dishes and keep the tubs and toilets clean.

But it is an illness - a form of OCD. My mom gets very upset when someone talks about her house and went crazy when my aunt tried to clean up the junk.

no kidding, if a leaf falls she HAS to go out there or it drives her batty.

actually a guy I lived with back 20+ years ago, but anyway, you could go go her house and literally eat off the floors.

She had one dog, then got another...she also had like four or five cats.

If you didn't know she had animals, you would never guess. The house didn't smell at all. Every week, on Saturday, she would do her cleaning...fill the sinks up with bleach, pull the furniture out and vacuum behind it (at my house we vacuum behind furniture maybe twice a year).

One day she was making some chicken for her dinner that evening. She actually used dish soap and water to wash it.

But anyway, the leaf thing...her son (my boyfriend) used to crack up each fall...his mom would almost lurk by the back door with the rake, waiting for one leaf to fall so she could put it in the leaf bag.

:7

:rofl:

I love these stories! I'm seeing the same thing in elders in my family.

We have an important philosophy, learned from our friends at the Victory Garden: "He (or she) who rakes last, rakes least!"

Amazing what a New England breeze will do to lighten your load!

a real sweetheart, just the greatest guy.

One day, my cousin - his son - and I went to his house for a visit. As we were approaching the front door, my cousin pointed out to me that all the shrubs were brightly green. Not a brown spot anywhere.

Not one. And they were all growing beautifully.

A closer look showed where my uncle had painted them.

To his credit, my cousin explained that Uncle Buddy only touched up the brown spots...............................

'safe' and biodegradable) that realtors spray on lawns to make them look more attractive!

and a brush. Much more precise that way. Uncle Bud didn't give a rat's ass about safe or biodegradable. He wanted green, and he got green..........................

20 years of marriage. My house was spotless. They children and I kept it that way. If we didn't when my husband came home from work he would inspect it and if he found a particle of dust or lint we would catch it. The last straw for me was one day after my oldest daughter had cleaned her room it shined, he came home and looked at it and saw it was clean. He pulled up a corner of the carpet, ran his finger over the dust and showed it to her. He said "And what is that?" Well, that was it. We had had enough. I filed for divorce the next day and a month later I was free of the White Glove. Best thing I ever did. I will say that he came from a home that had 2 people living there with OCD. His sister would get up in the middle of the night and vacuum her house if she thought there was a particle of dust. There is a difference between clutter and unhealthy messes.

The police state is out of control.

What adults do is very often their business alone but when children are put at risk the authorities do need to step in.

i have done a few evictions were the house was unbelievable, ive seen all the cliches, ie dead cats in bags, piles of dirty diapers, kids sleeping in urine soaked and vermin infested beds, personally i dont care what you as a nadult do in your own house, but if its someone elses property or there are kids involved then i would rather get teh law involved than have to respond to a home with a dead infant.. Worse thing ever was the dead occupant who did the newspaper thing, whole house was full to the ceiling with narrow corridors leading around, cat feces and dead kittens littered everywhere, and the occupant was lets just say that in death your pets are no longer your friends.. still makes me want to retch even thinking about it, and no im not going to post the pics.

the "dirty house" excuse to get kids out of environments that are abusive in other, more serious, ways. At least some people I know who do that for a living have told me as much.

One lives across the street from us now. I was in the front door once years ago and the smell about knocked me over. Awful.

And then there's the squalor survivors Web site:

http://www.squalorsurvivors.com/

We were "lucky" enough to have to clean and rebuild a former crack house. The water had been off for months and the toilet was literally filled with feces to overflowing. Someone must have stood over it because shit was over the seat level. Once the toilet was filled, they shit in the bath tub, basement, closets, and kitchen sink. It was so bad a guy I worked with started puking.

It boggles my mind. All they would have had to do is steal someones garbage can and let it fill with rain water. Then once a day they could use the water to flush the toilet.

I always knew I wasn't the best housekeeper in the world. There is no way in hell I'd let my house get that dirty. I tell myself that I have to clean or else Kim and Aggie will come after me.

that would be a little too close to home.