Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

Three days af­ter two tod­dlers were found liv­ing in a ram­shackle Mal­oney home, res­i­dents con­tin­ue to ex­press shock and dis­be­lief that such ex­treme con­di­tions ex­ist­ed in their own neigh­bour­hood.

The three-year-old boy and two-year-old girl were first seen by po­lice on pa­trol on Jor­dan Trace, off Samaan Dri­ve, Red Hill, Mal­oney, around 7.30 pm on Mon­day.

Of­fi­cers found there was no one in the house, which ap­peared to be di­lap­i­dat­ed and clut­tered with garbage, dirty fur­ni­ture and was sur­round­ed by tall bush­es.

The of­fi­cers took the chil­dren to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion, where of­fi­cers of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) were called in.

As of yes­ter­day, sources said the chil­dren re­mained in the cus­tody of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

Con­trary to re­ports, po­lice said no one was ar­rest­ed in re­la­tion to the chil­dren and in­sist­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing. The of­fi­cer said the chil­dren ap­peared to be in gen­er­al­ly good health and said while the probe was on­go­ing, the first pri­or­i­ty was their well-be­ing.

The of­fi­cer al­so called on the neigh­bours to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion, as in­ves­ti­ga­tors were try­ing to piece to­geth­er the cir­cum­stances that led to the chil­dren be­ing left alone.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the house yes­ter­day and spoke with res­i­dents, who said while they were sad­dened to hear about the con­di­tions the chil­dren were liv­ing in, they were re­lieved they were re­moved from the home.

Res­i­dent Pamela Lystra-Wick­ham said the sit­u­a­tion was not par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing, as she got used to see­ing the chil­dren with their fa­ther.

She claimed the fa­ther had a de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ty and she of­ten spoke to him about clean­ing the house to have a safer, more hy­gien­ic en­vi­ron­ment for the chil­dren.

“I feel re­al­ly bad be­cause I used to talk to him every­day un­til I got fed-up. I used to tell him how they aren’t tak­ing care of the chil­dren,” she said.

She said the en­tire neigh­bour­hood was con­cerned for the well-be­ing of the chil­dren and re­called see­ing them on the street.

Lystra-Wick­ham said the chil­dren did not seem to be well-tak­en care of and she would do her best to as­sist the fam­i­ly with mon­ey or food.

“I am the one who does be there for them when they have noth­ing to eat, I have to give them this, give them this, give them mon­ey. I am ac­cus­tomed to see­ing them and some­times they will walk down. They were nev­er tak­en care of,” she al­leged.

Rel­a­tives said the chil­dren’s fa­ther still lives in the house where they were found but was not at home when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed.

Res­i­dents said the moth­er of the chil­dren al­so suf­fers with some de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. They said while she was seen drop­ping off the chil­dren at the house with their fa­ther, they were un­sure where she went. They said the prop­er­ty be­longed to the par­ents of the tod­dler’s fa­ther, but fell in­to dis­re­pair af­ter the death of his moth­er.

Lystra-Wick­ham said she saw the fa­ther as re­cent­ly as Thurs­day morn­ing but did not know where he went. She said she tried speak­ing with him at the house on Wednes­day but left be­fore stay­ing too long as there were sev­er­al rats.

While in the neigh­bour­hood, of­fi­cers from the Mal­oney CID were seen at house in search of the tod­dlers’ fa­ther.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Kaloan Mosodeen, who lives a short dis­tance away, said he did not even know about the sit­u­a­tion un­til he heard it on the news.

Mosodeen, who has been liv­ing in the neigh­bour­hood since 1978, said he was sad­dened to hear the in­ci­dent.

“It’s on­ly when I heard about the sit­u­a­tion on the ra­dio I de­cid­ed to ask around and that’s when I found out whose chil­dren they were. I felt re­al­ly bad to know that, look I don’t have any chil­dren and I have a big house and peo­ple who have chil­dren have noth­ing.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is de­scribed the con­di­tions the chil­dren were liv­ing in as “hor­rif­ic.” She said the fam­i­ly was in cri­sis and com­mend­ed dif­fer­ent agen­cies for their prompt re­sponse in of­fer­ing as­sis­tance.

“I am heart­ened at how quick­ly the gov­ern­ment agen­cies re­spond­ed, such as Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, I have al­so reached out to mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty and NGOs to see ex­act­ly how we can all work to­geth­er to al­so as­sist the adults in­volved in these deeply trou­bling cir­cum­stances.”

Say­ing she had con­tact­ed be­hav­iour change con­sul­tant Dr Joanne Spence, Rob­ni­son-Reg­is added, “This re­quires an em­pa­thet­ic in­ter­ven­tion and while I wel­come a swift out­come to the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, I will en­sure that we pro­vide the sup­port nec­es­sary be­cause this is an ‘it takes a vil­lage’ sit­u­a­tion.”

She said the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment (CEPEP) pro­gramme was al­so called in to clean in­side and out­side the house.