Weve had some experience on this topic...
About 5 years ago, some alcoholic ferals moved in next door. They had 7 kids, although 2 had been removed from their care. (why only 2, I will never know)
Within a few months, their back and front yards were FULL of junk, car parts, carpet, old couches, bricks, sheets of iorn etc etc. The inside was just as feral as the outside,
One day their toddler was found crawling down the road a few streets away, dragging its oxygen tubing along behind it. (the kid had some health problem)
When the cops went round there in the afternoon to tell them the kid had been taken by ambulance to hospital (after the medics borrowed a neighbours hose to wash the poo of the kid which was so covered in it that they didnt want to put him in the back) , they were in bed with the front door open, and wouldnt answer them, so we told the cops they were in there, and that they should just go in.. After about 30 secs of being inside, one of the cops ran outside and threw up! We could smell the inside of their house from our yard it was that bad!!
It took us 3 years to get them out, and when they were finally evicted, we spoke to the ppl who had to clean, repair and video the damage..
The entire kitchen had to be torn out, there were giant holes in all the walls that you could walk thru to the next room. Most of the plasterwork had been torn down or eaten by rats. The wiring and power points had to be replaced as they had been eaten by rats.
(the rat infestation there was so bad that it had spread to the rest of the street, to the point our dog couldnt lay out the back in the summer evenings, or rats would chew his ears)
The funniest thing was when we talked to the painters who had to clean the walls.. He said his mate who was helping came up to him and said, there is kids handprints in brown paint all up the walls in there.. He went to have a look, and after he had inspected it, he replied, mate, thats not brown paint.... It was poo.
Those 3 years were AWFUL.. I couldnt believe this could happen in our neighbourhood.
And I couldnt believe that it took 3 years to get them out, and thats only because the hubby would get drunk and threaten to kill us. One night he came onto our porch, yelling and threatening to kill me with a short metal pole, cos we'd dobbed them in. He went to have a swing at my partner, but lets just say he didnt get the chance to connect....
Feral hubby spent a week and a half in hospital..
Luckily I had the whole thing on tape and we were cleared of any wrong doing. (Feral hubby also had an extensive history of violence)
So, thats what it took for them to be evicted.. Crazy, isnt it??
The saddest part of all tho, is that these people had a pet snake..
They bought it when they first moved in and noticed that we had snakes. I think they wanted to be our friends, or thought it was cool or something.
Before it turned nasty, feral hubby asked my partner to check the set up as there was something wrong with the snake. He didnt want to go over there, but for the sake of the animal, he did.
The internal thermostat was outside the tank, and the temp in the tank was 50 degrees c. It had been like that for a cpl months. (since they bought it)
I felt SO bad, cos the only reason they bought it was because they saw ours.
I so badly wanted to break in and steal the snake when they were out.. maybe I should have..
Anyone who dosnt believe that this stuff happens all the time, in ANY neighbourhood, can have a look at the photos and video I took of their front and back yards over the three years..
Today tonight would have had a feild day, and to be honest, we were contemplating calling them, just so something might be done about it.