Couple Arrested After Kids Found Living In Filth

[Anthony]

A Florida couple were charged with child neglect after deputies responding to a domestic dispute found twin toddlers living in deplorable conditions inside a Venice home.

Wesley Benoit, 35, and Elizabeth Davis, 32, were arrested after Sarasota County deputies found the two 2-year-old girls, unclothed and not wearing diapers while living in a "house of horrors."

Deptuties were called to the home around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning on reports of a disturbance.
When they arived they were met by Benoit, who they described as "agitated." Elizabeth Davis told the deputies she and their two-year-old daughters were in the house when Benoit broke a window in an attempt to get in. She also told them she was afraid that Benoit was going to hurt her and the kids, and said he'd threatened to kill her.

While speaking to the couple, the deputies noticed the house was considerably filthy. According to the police reports, floors, walls and ceilings in the home were covered in feces, urine and garbage from floor to ceiling. They also stated the house smelled of urine and feces. Deputies also wrote in the police report that there was stagnant brown water in the shower stall. Mold and decaying food were found in the kitchen. The kitchen was full of dirty and moldy dishes.

[video=youtube_share;iWAQaZpN7GI]http://youtu.be/iWAQaZpN7GI[/video]

Davis told the deputies that she cleaned the house everyday and did not think the conditions were bad.
Both claimed the other was a "danger" to the kids, and also tried to blame the other for the condition of the house.

The Department of Children and Families was contacted and the two-year-old girls, who have not been named were taken into custody.

Both parents were charged with charged with two counts of felony child neglect.

 

[Gelsemium]

They don't look clear either, but it's beyond my understand how someone can live and treat children like this, it's inhuman.

 

[warmweatherwoman]

She cleaned the house daily??? She must be delusional! I hope the children are taken to a caring and CLEAN foster home to stay!

 

[pattycake]

The pigsty is very common, and a lot of children in foster care who were extracted from a pigsty at home. It's a fact, that if the authorities discover subhuman living conditions in the home they will remove the children and place them in foster care. You can't keep a jacked up house while raising children. In America, this is illegal, as it should be.

 

[pattycake]

I saw this episode on the TV show Hoarders, where this lady's house was so piled up with garbage and dead cats, that her son was placed in foster care when he was 8, he grew into a man and came back to visit his mother still living in that same fifth.

 

[hayrake]

They don't look clear either, but it's beyond my understand how someone can live and treat children like this, it's inhuman.

You're right Gelsemium, they don't look any too clean. Neither do they look altogether straight. I know these things happen everywhere and in every city in the US, but it seems like Florida gets mentioned an awful lot.

 

[Sweetheart]

Denial, some serious denial. I've had neighbors like this before. Is it neglect or outright abuse? It is like torture to even stand in a house like this. This is beyond neglect. Hazardous abuse. If a woman thinks this house is not that bad. Imagine what she grew up in herself. Very sad that people think this is living. They need some kind of reform to learn how to live. Is it a crime if they don't know any better? A landlord can kick you out for keeping your place like this. Child protective services wouldn't like it, they would take the children.
This would be the first time I have heard of anyone being charged this way. I would have thought they would take the kids and tell them to get it together. I guess the house must be over the top.

 

[pattycake]

If a woman thinks this house is not that bad. Imagine what she grew up in herself.

This is rarely the case. People who keep a pigsty often come from a very clean home. Very clean. And many people who were raised in a pigsty keep their own house very clean. It's something else that causes people to live like pigs.

 

[Onionman]

They clearly don't see the world in a way that most of us do. The idea of having two toddlers living in such a messy space is shocking. If I'm going to make a guess, by looking at their pictures, drugs may be an issue somewhere along the line. I hope that they get the right help and punishment.

 

[Gelsemium]

You're right Gelsemium, they don't look any too clean. Neither do they look altogether straight. I know these things happen everywhere and in every city in the US, but it seems like Florida gets mentioned an awful lot.

It's really hard to see this sort of things happening, but at the same time we can only act when we see them, people are more and more degenerate these days.

 

[Gelsemium]

The issue is that there is no prevention to be made here, I mean, only when these things happen is when we can act on them.

 

[Peninha]

What a sad story, they look totally depressed and the situation in which they were living reflects exactly that, I hope they improve soon!

 

[pattycake]

They clearly don't see the world in a way that most of us do. The idea of having two toddlers living in such a messy space is shocking. If I'm going to make a guess, by looking at their pictures, drugs may be an issue somewhere along the line. I hope that they get the right help and punishment.

What we need to understand is that the child doesn't count to such adults. The child is nowhere on their radar. They can see nothing beyond their own needs, and bring children into the picture in the first place on the basis of their own needs. Joel Sternberg and Hedda Nussbaum kept an unkempt cave environment for their children to live in, that if the authorities had caught they would have removed the children from the home. They don't see anything wrong with a child living in filth. How can they? When they themselves are living in it?

 

[mairj23]

This is just another case of drug addictive parents, who don't take care of their children. They both should be charged with negligence. I feel sorry for kids with parents like this, as these things happen every day in this world.