When the ambulance medics arrived at the brick bungalow, the entrance was so cluttered they couldn’t get the stretcher inside. And the air was frigid cold.
Quickly enough, they found a 71-year-old man dead and a woman of 82 in such poor health that she died soon afterward in hospital of possible pneumonia. Elsewhere in the house they found stacks of boxes and detritus reaching to the ceiling, along with several cats and dogs.---
The weekend deaths of the two seniors on an ordinary suburban street, surrounded by neighbours in the middle of large metropolitan area, have sparked a round of hand-wringing about whether the tragedy could have been prevented.
The two seniors lived with the elderly woman’s daughter in what neighbours describe as growing isolation. Two long-time neighbours say the people in the household withdrew gradually over the years, as piles of clutter spilled out from the home and into the driveway.---
