The neighbor of Angelique de Rouw from Den Bosch died in the hospital last Saturday, after having been in his house for a day and a half following a fall. The pile of rubbish in his house was so high that emergency services could not reach him immediately. Angelique, who has her own foundation for lonely people, knows that her neighbor is not the only one who is slipping further and further away due to clutter in the house. “There’s so much shame about it.”
Angelique had been aware for some time that her neighbor was slipping. “He was thin, looked bad and had been wearing the same clothes for months,” she previously told Omroep Brabant. The house also looked increasingly neglected from the outside. Together with the neighbors, Angelique regularly brought food to her neighbor, but she had no real contact with him.
“I think he was ashamed of how he lived,” she reflects. On Saturday, her neighbor died in her presence. A day earlier, the emergency services had to rescue him after a fall, but they were unable to enter his house due to all the mess.
From her foundation VEADS (Voor Elkaar Aan De Slag) in Den Bosch, Angelique often sees neglected houses. “We have a department that helps people move, because they are going to renovate, go from a large to a small house or because they are forced to move. These people can no longer keep the door closed and then dire situations arise,” she says.
In the thirteen years that Angelique has been working on her foundation, she sees more and more cases that resemble those of her neighbor. “I increasingly see that seemingly ‘normal’ relocations are real healthcare cases, with a lot of suffering behind the front door.”
What plays a role, according to her, is that people who live in a neglected situation often do not realize this themselves. “They put things off, make excuses and don’t realize the mess they live in. They look at it very differently than we do,” she notes.
“Someone lives in every neighborhood.”
Peggy Heessels from Tilburg also notices this, who visits extremely neglected houses with her cleaning company Qlean Business. “It happens more than you think. In every neighborhood there is someone living in a neglected house,” she previously told Omroep Brabant.
More often neglected houses
Exact figures are lacking, but it was not only Angelique’s neighbor who lived in appalling conditions. In Brabant there have been more examples of neglected houses in recent years. For example, landlord Corrianne Noppen from Kaatsheuvel found her house in a big mess last year. “I think there is about 120 cubic meters of waste here,” she told Omroep Brabant at the time.
Although the house of Jan Gibbels from Son was not neglected, unlike Corrianne’s house, there were no feces in Jan’s house, but Gibbels was a fanatical collector. House clearer Joost Franken spent no less than six days clearing out Gibbels’ house three years ago. “I was able to fill six shipping containers with waste, one container with iron and six containers with items that ended up in the store,” Franken said at the time. According to him, there was little of value there, but mainly rubbish.
Neglected houses have been a thorn in the side of local residents for years. For example, in 2015, residents of the Oosterhout district of Oosterheide raised the alarm about a man suffering from dementia who lived in a very neglected house. The 72-year-old man lived in a house with diapers, dirty laundry, food scraps, poop and pee on the floors, a soaked bed and a horrible smell.
The cleaner also visits houses where someone has been dead for weeks, but neglected houses are often the toughest jobs. “Then you see how lonely people live, because they keep visitors out.” Peggy is sometimes called by relatives, but is mainly called in by the police, GGDs and healthcare institutions.
Angelique and her foundation cannot do much for people if they do not ask for help themselves. She experienced firsthand that this can cause problems with her neighbor.
“I recognized the signals. I called a crisis team and the intervention care and had conversations with housing consultants. People came to my neighbor’s door, but he did not open the door. If he does not want people in, that is his right. And according to the privacy law, authorities can no longer do anything,” she says.
With various activities within her foundation, she tries to prevent lonely people from ending up in such a situation in the first place. For example, people can help out in the foundation’s thrift store, they can come for a meal every week, they can receive free care products and we offer a listening ear.
“I don’t like to use the word lonely, because I want to give hope. People can develop here, focus on their own control, self-reliance and look at what they can do,” she says.
“When I leave here, I’ll be zen again.”
Maria, who comes to eat at the foundation every week, notices that it helps her to feel less lonely. “I’m having a hard time at home. I lost my daughter a few years ago and my son is ill. Here there is a lot of fun and there are lovely people who support each other. When I leave here, I feel zen again and I can tackle the week again,” she says.
Angelique hopes that people who have someone living nearby who they are concerned about will take action. “Keep in touch with them. Not haphazardly, but structurally. Build a bond, but don’t force them on because then you will lose them,” she advises.
The councilor in Den Bosch has sent them a letter to ask what can be done for people like her neighbor. “Someone may not want help, but sometimes they have to because a situation is no longer good for someone,” she believes.