POTTSTOWN — Two people were found dead inside a residence known to many as a hoarder home, police have confirmed.
Randy Smith, 58, and Paul Cullin, 53, were found dead on Jan. 25 on the first floor of 203 East St., a half-double on the northeast corner with North Hanover Street, according to police.
Authorities were called to the scene by Cullin’s daughter, Samantha Haefner, 29, who apparently lived in the home with the other two.
The home, owned by Smith, is well known to police and borough code officials.
“It is known as a hoarder house and it is difficult to move inside,” according to the police report.
Both deceased were sitting on the floor of the house, which has no heat or electricity and “is known to be obtaining power from gas generators” in the basement, so the fire department was called and detected low levels of carbon monoxide, according to the incident report.
No sign of foul play or injuries to the deceased were observed by police.
Goodwill medics on the scene determined Haefner “had an elevated carbon monoxide levels” and was taken to Pottstown Hospital for care.
As of Feb. 23, the coroner’s office still had not issued a cause of death and was awaiting the results of toxicology reports.
Police said in addition to two generators, there were “multiple heaters inside the property.”
Haefner told police she and her mother had been staying at the home for about six months and that she usually stays in the front room of the home and Cullin and Smith stayed in the rear room, where they were found.
Haefner’s father, who frequently visits, arrived and told police that both of the deceased were drug users, according to police.
East Street neighbor Ginette Himes-Beetem asked the borough council during the Feb. 12 meeting why Smith was still allowed to live on the property.
“There has been a major hoarder problem there for years, there was no water, no electric,” Himes-Beetem said. “At any given time there were 50 to 100 lawn mowers with gas and oil seeping into the ground. It was all brought to the borough’s attention and he was still allowed to live there. I’m just so disappointed this dragged on for five years until tragedy struck.”
Keith Place, director of the borough’s Licensing and Inspections Department, told MediaNews Group that the borough has cleaned the exterior of the property at least twice, as well as convinced the owner to do the same “and then you come back a few weeks later and it would all be back again.”
Smith, “would never come to the door and the only time we ever could speak to him would be when we arrived and he was outside working on one of the lawnmowers.”
Unlike a rental property, where an interior inspection can be compelled, his department has limited powers regarding owner-occupied properties.
“We’re pretty much limited to the exterior,” Place said. “The borough does not evict people. We can only compel a landlord to evict tenants.”
The department does have the authority to post a property as uninhabitable when known issues such as lack of water or electricity exist, but it remains the owners’ responsibility to comply with the order, Place explained.
“We expect them to be in there trying to correct the problem and we can’t be there all day to make sure they’re not staying there,” he said. “We can cite them, they don’t show up to court, then it sits in the court system for a couple weeks and it can’t be resolved because there is no plea and you can’t hold a hearing.”
In very limited circumstances, when there is an obvious structural problem that poses eminent danger to the life of the residents, and/or to others, the borough can forcibly have an owner removed from a property, but it is very rare and comes with a serious risk of a civil lawsuit, said Place.
