A horrifying picture of modern-day squalor has been revealed in Dundee.
A woman and her four children were discovered living in maggot-infested chaos amid ”mountains of rubbish” in a St Mary’s house at the weekend, a local councillor has revealed.
Strathmartine Councillor Ian Borthwick says the conditions at the terraced home were the worst he had ever seen, even after it had been partially cleared by environment department workers.
It has emerged that worried neighbours had contacted Mr Borthwick after the workers had arrived with a large bin lorry and another vehicle and began clearing out the house, taking almost eight hours, without completing the task.
The councillor has now called for an investigation into how long the woman and her children, all aged 16 and under, have been living in those conditions.
”I know that social work and child protection teams are involved and I was very impressed with the director’s prompt response when I contacted him on Saturday,” Mr Borthwick said. ”Alan Baird intimated to me that they will be holding a case conference tomorrow.
”The neighbours are very concerned about this and are also concerned about what kind of environmental issues there are under the foundations of their homes which adjoin that property. I think it is very concerning and I would like to know when the council were first alerted to this.
”The conditions this family were living in were absolutely terrible and it is unacceptable in this day and age for that to happen.”
A 29-year-old woman who lives next door to the house with her husband and two children under seven said it was impossible to describe what she had seen in the house.
”The rubbish was piled up seven feet high in the living room there was only a wee path cleared so they could walk into the room,” she said.
”It was absolutely awful. The place was crawling. The binmen arrived around half past seven in the morning and didn’t leave till after one and it was only half done.
”I went through at the back of nine and they showed me inside. You’ve seen those programmes on TV about hoarders they’ve got nothing on this.
”One of the rooms was taped off so nobody could get in and the bath was absolutely full of toys, so nobody had been using it for ages.
”One of my neighbours said a duvet or something was brought out and it was crawling with maggots, but it’s not surprising because there was food and food wrappers lying around everywhere.
”The whole house will need to be gutted and fumigated and a new kitchen and bathroom put in and the place redecorated,” she went on.
”We’ve been told the family will be coming back, which is ridiculous. After getting it into that state they can come back to a bonnie home, all paid for by the council tax payers.”
The neighbour said she was now contacting the environment department to make sure her own family home are not affected by any infestations.
”I don’t know how she managed to have four kids in there it’s absolutely disgusting,” she said. ”They were the quietest neighbours you could ever have. We never saw them at all except sometimes at night and there was never a window, a curtain or a blind open.”