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When Tim Elkins heard a police battering ram smash against his front door, he hid with his kids under a blanket.
Quote:
Baby Matthew died sometime in the night. Tim knew that when the deputies broke through they would find out the Elkins family secret. It would mean the end of them as a family.
He whispered to his 5-year-old daughter, the favorite of his nine children.
“I won’t let them in.”
The door finally splintered. Tim heard voices in the foyer below, footsteps on the stairs.
A single flashlight beam swept across Tim and six of his small children, who lay in a tangle of blankets on a filthy mattress.
Throughout the home, just feet away from the mattress in every direction, lay more than a year’s accumulation of animal waste and hundreds of plastic trash bags filled with rotting garbage. In rooms where the Elkins kids should have played, dreamed and finished their homework, rats chewed and hordes of bugs crawled nightly to the ceiling for warmth.
When I got to the picture of the mattress I actually gagged. It was totally BROWN with filth.
How is this kept "secret" so long? The kids had to have been in dirty clothes, etc.
No money for garbage pickup but plenty of money for dad's 12-pack-a-day beer habit and mom's smokes.
We had white trash like this where I grew up. "Mental illness" my foot.
I dunno, I think this goes way beyond just trashy behavior. I mean keeping your rotting garbage in the home for years? That isn't just being lazy, that's disturbed.
The father is an idiot and must be mentally ill. The wife sounds sort of okay but she just went along with everything the father said instead of leaving him. The article said that he was like one of those cult leaders, all kinds of silly rules for them to follow.
I hope if he is let out of jail, he can't have contact with his family. NINE kids?? Who has NINE kids when they can't afford them. That is totally nuts. Those poor kids. They are the real victims in this, going to school and being told that they smell, not being able to have friends over, living in absolute filth.
No kidding huh. This sort of thing doesn't have barriers on skin tone. I've seen it along all color lines and it's non discriminatory. The kids just don't have a chance. A lot of this winds up being generational. A vicious cycle. There's a lot of focus on the inner cities and places like Appalachia with this, but I'll tell you folks who think they've seen it all should visit a reservation sometime.
I've seen things on the rez that will forever haunt my dreams. Sdly I don't see the cycle being broken anytime soon wherever this sort of thing is happening. When I was running my own plumbing and heating business I've been called to places that I just couldn't work in. Called by the landlord who was a serious slum lord.
Slum lords occupy one of the lowest rungs on my s*** list ladder. I've reported a couple to the state housing agency. I will say that NV acts swiftly an surely when a slum lord gets reported. How people can live in some of the conditions I've seen just floors me and a property owner knowing full well what's going on too.
When I hear the term "for the children" this is what comes to mind for me.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 20 days ago)
35,680 posts, read 18,050,667 times
Reputation: 50747
Quote:
Originally Posted by in_newengland
The father is an idiot and must be mentally ill. The wife sounds sort of okay but she just went along with everything the father said instead of leaving him. The article said that he was like one of those cult leaders, all kinds of silly rules for them to follow.
I hope if he is let out of jail, he can't have contact with his family. NINE kids?? Who has NINE kids when they can't afford them. That is totally nuts. Those poor kids. They are the real victims in this, going to school and being told that they smell, not being able to have friends over, living in absolute filth.
It sounds like the kids are all bonded, and are now with family within a block of each other.
I really think they'll be ok, besides the scarring of losing their baby brother.
Sounds like Glass Castle to me.
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