Cleaner details horrific conditions inside Pontiac home where children lived alone for years
Cleaner discusses conditions inside Pontiac home where abandoned kids lived
A cleaner who was hired to handle a filthy Pontiac home where three children lived alone for years said it took about eight hours to clean the mess, and she still doesn't believe the home is ready for people to live in it. Trash and feces were both found piled up in the home.
PONTIAC, Mich. (FOX 2) - A woman tasked with cleaning out the filthy home where three Pontiac children lived alone for years detailed what she saw inside the condo.
It took Kiara Mills, the owner of North Cleaning Service, and her uncle nearly eight hours to clean the home.
What they're saying:
WARNING: The details of this story are disturbing.
Mills, a mother of five, said cleaning the home was both physically taxing and mentally challenging since she knew the history of the condo. She said that she couldn't sleep when she learned she would be cleaning the house, which has been described as deplorable and intolerable.
"All night I couldn't sleep," Mills said.
A 15-year-old boy and two girls, 13 and 12, were allegedly abandoned by their mother and forced to live in squalor for four to five years.
(Photo: Kiara Mills)
When Oakland County Sheriff's deputies first visited the home on Feb. 14, they found the home full of garbage that was piled as high as four feet in some rooms. The rooms were also covered in mold and human waste. The toilet was overflowing, and the bathtub was full of feces.
A team first came through and emptied the house before Mills' company was hired to take care of the cleaning.
"They was screaming for help," Mills said.
She said "bad" doesn't come close to describing what she saw inside that home.
"I went over the walls at least about 10 times," she said, adding that she had to scrub so hard while trying to remove the feces that she was scraping paint off the walls.
Even after her deep clean, Mills said she does not believe the house is ready for a new tenant.
"The floor has to get gutted out," she said.
The home is currently not permitted to be occupied.
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Dig deeper:
Authorities were called to do a welfare check at the Lydia Lane home on Feb. 14, after the landlord said he hadn't received rent since October and hadn't heard from the tenant in December.
Deputies who responded found the house in squalor.
The boy, the oldest of the siblings, said they lived in the home with their mother but that she abandoned them in either 2020 or 2021.
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The children survived on food that was dropped off on the front porch each week by either their mother or a stranger. They had no access to toilet paper or personal hygiene items. The sheriff said they were unfamiliar with personal hygiene and didn't even know how to flush a toilet.
They had also not attended school since she left them and instead passed time by watching TV or playing games. The sheriff said the girls had not been outside in several years.
The boy slept on a mattress on the floor, but the two girls slept on pizza boxes.
According to deputies, neighbors were unaware that children lived in the home and had never seen them. They said they saw their mother at the home each month.
The kids were all wearing soiled clothing with matted hair and toenails so long that it was difficult to walk.
After finding the children living in these conditions, their mother, Kelli Bryant, was arrested.
What's next:
Bryant is charged with three counts of first-degree child abuse. She's currently being held in the Oakland County Jail on a $250 million bond.
She is scheduled to be back in court March 4 for a motion hearing.
The children are currently with a family member.
Kelli Bryant
The Source: FOX 2 interviewed Kiara Mills for this story. Previous reports were also used to provide context and background.