Woman slept by dead brother’s body for years in ‘House of Horrors’

An elderly woman slept alongside her brother’s rotting dead body for potentially up to five years in her public housing unit in Victoria, Australia.

Victoria Police arrested the woman at the property on Russel Street, in the well-heeled Newtown suburb, on December 28, 2022, following a welfare check for a male resident.

Inside what neighbours dubbed the ‘House of Horrors’, they found floor-to-ceiling rubbish, rats, human faeces and a ‘bloody skeleton’.

Officers had to use a crowbar to shatter the woman’s back window to get inside, while forensic investigators later went inside wearing biohazard suits to retrieve the skeletal remains found just a quarter of a kilometre from the shopping hub Pakington Street.

The woman, thought to be in her 70s, was released without charge last year with police still investigating the man’s death.

To the residents who had long complained, sneered and worried about the woman’s home, this was anything but surprising.

‘Imagine having dinner every night with a rotten corpse,’ a resident who didn’t wish to be named told News Corp.

The man’s body likely wasn’t found for years, neighbours said, because of the build-up of ‘utter filth’ in and around the home.

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing flat was crammed with junk, from McDonald’s Happy Meal boxes to plastic bags, photographs show.

‘Dead possums’ also littered the property and neighbours’ rubbish often ‘disappeared’ as the woman often moved people’s bins.

‘This house was like the show Hoarders,’ added Nicole Stratton, another social housing tenant.

‘There was just rubbish piled to the roof. It was vile, she would not have been able to use the toilet. I don’t know how she lived.’

She added that residents had long complained to the authorities about the state of the property, with the mouldy blinds being the only thing stopping them from seeing the true extent of the rat-infested home.

The deceased man is understood to be the woman’s brother and the signature tenant of the property, with his rent being paid by a guardian.

He was last seen by locals in 2018.

The two-bedroom house has remained vacant ever since, with a third resident saying it should be torn down.

Public housing officials had knocked on the woman’s door in the past following neighbour complaints about the ‘mess’.

City officials confirmed complaints and health concerns had been lodged about the condition of the unit and its tenants.

Public housing officials said welfare checks had been made since 2021.

Victoria Police told Metro.co.uk: ‘Police attended an address in Newtown for a welfare check on a male resident on 28 December, 2022.

‘Officers attended the Russell Street property about 6pm and located the male deceased inside. A report was prepared for the Coroner.’

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and the City of Greater Geelong have been approached for comment.

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