For eight months, residents in a Florida neighborhood had no idea what was happening in the blue house next door until one got a glimpse of what was going on through the window. When cops finally showed up to investigate, they came out with petrified looks on their faces, not prepared for what they walked in on.

Detectives were alerted to the home after a series of strange activity was seen over recent months, the first of such incidents a neighbor thought was a Halloween prank. As it turned out, what she saw was a horrific reality of what was really going on inside, but it would continue for several more months since nobody called authorities about what they first saw.

Jennifer Susan Poulos (inset left), Debra Germaine Poulos (inset right), Florida home where the incident took place

Kathryn Ashe, 66, lived in the home with two other women, 41-year-old Jennifer Susan Poulos and 61-year-old Debra Germaine Poulos, along with Jennifer’s 4-year-old son. A crossing guard in the area described the Poulos women as “quirky” on the rare occasion he saw them, but worse was how Ashe was described by one neighbor caught off guard by her when she saw her outside the home for the first time in a year.

Ashe had only been out of the house twice that year and was a picture of what was happening inside her home, hidden behind closed doors. It was ignored until it was too late. A mother, living a few doors down from her, said she was terrified by Ashe’s appearance and thought it was a spooky prank, when in reality, she was actually that emaciated and rotting away.

According to WFLA, the Poulos women were “friends” of Ashe’s and given the responsibility of being her caregivers. Instead of making sure the victim was taken care of, they grossly neglected her, leaving her to rot and die in her recliner, soaked in bodily fluids.

Seen through window inside of home

Jennifer’s little boy watched as this woman was neglected and abused by his mother and grandmother, living in the worst conditions Gulfport police have probably ever seen. With no air conditioning in the house of horrors, Ashe died a slow and horrific death in her chair, surrounded by hoards of trash and a flood of roaches.

“The stench of rotting garbage was oppressive. Thousands of roaches scattered about and fed on food containers left open in the clutter. There wasn’t even a clear pathway through the small two-room apartment,” News 8 reported of the scene officers walked in on.

Ashe was too frail to lift herself from the recliner she was left in when the “caregivers” abandoned her there to die because they were simply sick of looking at her and the circumstances they created. After she passed away alone, having fallen from her chair and dying while surrounded by filth on the floor, police were finally alerted to the situation and were the ones to find her.

Neighbors were horrified at what had been happening so close to home without knowing about it. They say if they had any idea this decrepit level of neglect was occurring, they would have stepped in and done something about it. Not in anyone’s worst nightmare would they have expected this was happening, even with heaps of trash seen through the window.

Both Jennifer and Debra were found at a nearby motel and charged with elderly and child neglect, the latter charge is for the little boy. That child has since been placed into protective custody while these monsters are in jail. With nobody by her side, no family or friends to say goodbye to her, surrounded in unimaginable filth, Ashe lived a painfully lonely life and died in a way nobody ever should.