Salem Observer : Salem, Family

Salem dirty house trial begins

Salem Editor — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:46:00 GMT

The trial for Michael and Maureen Bell, accused of housing their five children in an uninhabitable home, will begin on Wednesday, Oct. 15, in Salem District Court.

The Bells have been charged with five counts each of endangering the welfare of a child for keeping their children in the 31 Twinbrook Ave. home, which was found to be ridden with health code violations.

They’ve been free on personal recognizance bail since their arraignments, and their children, ages 2 through 9, have been staying with relatives.

The Bells were renting the splitlevel home for $2,000 a month for just under two years when their 2-year-old daughter was found wandering naked down Oakridge Avenue, which intersects with Twinbrook Avenue.

An Oakridge Avenue resident found the little girl on the evening of July 4 and called police, who returned her to her parents, Michael and Maureen Bell, ages 33 and 32 respectively.

When police arrived, the Bells were watching three of their own children – two of them, ages 5 and 9, were not home at the time – and three of a relative’s children. The Bells were allegedly not sure how many children were in their home, and had not seen their 2-year-old leave.

Police began investigating when they saw the condition of the home, reporting seeing spoiled food throughout the home, smelling a nauseating odor of food and trash, and finding soiled diapers strewn on the floor.

Police also reported seeing raw sewage in the sink and toilet on the second level, and ants in the kitchen. Old appliances and trash were strewn across the yard.

On July 7, Salem health inspector Brian Lockard deemed the home uninhabitable after investigating with police and representatives from the state’s Division of Youth and Family Services.

Salem health officials had already been to the house three times because of litter in the yard while the Bells were renting it, but had not been inside.

Lockard said at the time of his investigation it looked as though the house had gone neglected for more than a year.

Salem police brought charges against the Bells, who turned themselves in on July 10.

Kim Poirier of Peterborough, owner of the home, said the Bells always paid their rent on time, and although she’d received calls from Lockard about the yard’s condition, the Bells always assured her the house was being properly maintained.

Poirier and her husband, Dan Poirier, have been working to clean up the home. In August, Lockard deemed the home livable again.

Salem health inspector has seen many unsanitary homes

Salem Editor — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:38:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Declaring the split-level home on Twinbrook Avenue in Salem unfit for human habitation is nothing new to veteran health inspector Brian Lockard, who has seen residences as bad or worse in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

“It’s hard to put a number on it. Over the past year or so I’ve been to several homes similar to this,” said Lockard, who has more than 20 years of experience in public health. “I’m sure like every community out there; there’s others out there. There’s many more out there. This is an issue for every community.”

Over the past few years, Lockard has investigated a number of homes and apartments in Salem found to have been left in squalid or unsanitary conditions. In one case, an individual walked around collecting discarded trash from the barrels neighbors brought out to the curb on garbage day. In another, Lockard found a woman who had been hoarding pets, even keeping the animals in her home after they had died.

Earlier this month, he declared the house at 31 Twinbrook Ave. unfit for human habitation after police discovered unsanitary conditions inside while returning the residents’ missing 2- year-old daughter. Human *** and dirty diapers were found on the carpeting throughout the house along with ants, flies and rotten food.

“It’s tough to rank. I think it was pretty unsanitary. Deplorable conditions, especially considering the five young children who lived there,” Lockard said. “It’s not the worse I’ve seen.”

The residents – Michael and Maureen Bell – turned themselves in to police after authorities charged them with five counts each of endangering the welfare of a child. The couple faces up to a year in jail or $1,200 in fines. Their arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 4.

Lockard became Salem’s health inspector six years ago after spending the previous 15 years handling the same job for the town of Burlington, Mass., where he found his share of squalid or unsanitary residences before crossing the state line.

“I investigated one situation with an elderly man in his 80s who was ill with cancer, who didn’t know it at the time,” Lockard said. “The plumbing wasn’t working, but he was still using the bathroom facilities. Horrendous conditions.”

Many of his cases involved hoarding – where individuals refuse to throw away any of their possessions or who collect clutter in their homes – a condition more common among the elderly.

“What we’re dealing with is a type of mental health issue. The research is a subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The tendencies are there,” said Rachel Lakin, program administrator for the New Hampshire Adult Protective Service. “We don’t see the individual until later when they start to experience some kind of difficulty. It happens, and when it’s not treated, it just kind of goes on. When we get to them, its been an issue for a long time.”

According to Lakin, over the past fiscal year, the number of cases involving “self-neglect” have risen by 141. The self-neglect Lakin usually finds can range from hoarding animals to collecting meals-on-wheels containers, creating health and public safety hazards.

“It’s an area that comes to our attention more and more, and our reports are up in the category of self-neglect over last year,” Lakin said. “Normally by the time they get to our attention they’re over the age of 60. We don’t have clearcut research on why that is, but what we think happens is people manage pretty well, and then they get some kind of illness or incapacity and are brought to our attention.”

Lakin’s program takes a multidisciplinary approach while working with those living in self-neglect in cooperation with mental health services. Just cleaning up the conditions doesn’t work, Lakin said, because a week or two later clutter begins cropping up again.

“What we try to do is work together with the mental health agencies and landlords in trying to see exactly what is going on. If the individual is in their own home and not impacting anyone else, we’ll work with them in small ways,” she said. “It takes a lot of people and a lot of resources and a lot of time to help.”

While Lakin deals most often with the elderly – 107 of the new cases over the last fiscal year involved individuals over the age of 60 – young people can also exhibit the OCD-like symptoms associated with hoarding.

Self-neglect commonly involves an individual living alone without much contact with relatives or friends, according to Lockard.

“Many times the person is working or has a job, but the living conditions can be very unsanitary or unhealthy,” he said. “It’s a situation where you try to correct the problems, but also steer the people in the direction where they need some assistance.”

“It’s not something that most people are aware of,” Lakin said. “We are, because we see it quite a bit and we see it throughout the state.”

Family receives help

Salem Editor — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:25:00 GMT

By Pam Chaplowe-ruth

With hopeful weariness, Sue said, “I hope some day to be in a better position, where I can pay it forward.”

A quiet, grateful mother of two, Sue and her children are one of the many recipients of Salem’s Christmas Fund. As the holiday season roars on full tilt, it is community assistance programs like this that help families maintain some semblance of the gift-giving ritual.

Sue doesn’t know exactly who donates to the Christmas Fund. She’s only familiar with her family’s need for help, the process of requesting assistance and the welcome rush of relief as her appointed “shopping” time is arranged. When she actually sees the bounty of donated new items – toys, crafts, gift cards – all arranged neatly by recommended age group of the recipient, Sue begins to feel the first stirrings of excitement and joy of the holiday season. Her own gift? The relief that she feels being able to provide presents and full stockings for her children on Christmas morning, a treasure that all parents can recognize and appreciate. That is gift enough.

Aside from the quiet manner in which families like Sue’s are being assisted, these neighbors are part of the fabric of life seen every day in the community. Hardworking parents with similar circumstances of divorce, medical issues, compounding costs of living, they are often surviving barely within their means. A holiday season is especially difficult for those with children to find means to provide extras in the way of gifts and festive meals. Watching three minutes of commercial air time can make even the most stalwart optimist crumble with despair.

Sue is an example of many single mothers who struggle between providing for their children and encouraging them in various activities and school. The gentle art of molding moral and kind human beings makes a very full day for this mom. Her 16-year-old, along with being a typical teenager with all the emotional exercise that entails, also suffers a medical condition that demands Sue’s additional time and attention.

Her lively 10-year-old, in that zone between child and young adult, has places to go and things to do on a daily basis while still needing appropriate supervision. How to keep everyone fed, housed, safe, sane and happy?

“Sometimes I have to decide whether to put the heat on in the car when we’re driving because it uses more gas if I do,” Sue said.

That’s just one of her methods of allocating what they have with what they need. Late at night, when she is supposed to be sleeping is when most of her worries come unbidden. How to have one child somewhere, when the other needs to be picked up at the same time? How to make sure she’s home when her 16-year-old gets out of school so she can keep tabs on his medical issues? Will she need to wake her 10-year-old, wrapped in pajamas to sit in a cold car while she drives to pick up the older sibling from a part-time job?

Such is the reality when extended family lives out of the state and mom is the foundation, mortar and brick of the family unit.

But Sue said things are looking up. When she heads to the warehouse to pick out gifts for her children from the carefully sorted items she will look past the now and see herself someday donating to this very same organization, helping another parent very much like herself.

“I’m kind of old to believe in Santa Claus … but I guess in a way, right now I do,” she said