Dead Mouse Leads to 'Filthy' Find
Feb. 8, 2005 -- -- Two Oklahoma City children are in protective custody today after city police officers discovered that they were living in a mobile home filled with trash and dog feces, overrun by cockroaches.
The children's parents, Shannon Hadding and Michael Harvey, were both arrested Monday on suspicion of child neglect. Neither parent has been formally charged.
Officers said one of the couple's children showed up at a day care facility Monday with a dead mouse in his pocket. Social workers from the Department of Human Services were sent to the home, but they had to call police.
The social workers said they witnessed "filthy" conditions inside the home, as well as a chemical smell that made them suspicious there might be a methamphetamine lab inside.
When officers arrived, they found dog droppings, roaches and mice covering the floor of the mobile home. One officer who walked through the trailer said he heard "rustling" noises among the refuse on the floor.
Neighbors said they were not shocked but were nonetheless disgusted by the discovery.
Susan Calandro, who lives nearby, told ABC News affiliate KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City that she and other neighbors have always tried to stay away from the mobile home where Hadding and Harvey lived.
"It makes me sick," Calandro said. "They used to keep trash in their car. I told the maintenance guy ... they left it in there piled up for a week."
The officer who filed the report said that each time he took a step, he landed either on a roach or in dog feces. In his report, the officer said "knives, chemicals, and other items that should be kept out of reach of children" were also found in the trailer.
Although officers found no methamphetamine, and eventually released Hadding and Harvey, the manager of the mobile home park, Frank Storimer, said he had seen enough and ordered the pair to leave the park within 30 days.
"There's nothing I could do," Storimer told KOCO-TV. "He owns the trailer himself ... wouldn't be a thing I could do."
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