Jourdanton hoarder home cleanup begins

JOURDANTON – Fifteen days after more than a dozen dogs were rescued from a home in Jourdanton, Public Works is cleaning up the property.

The police department described the home as a hoarding situation.

Outside of the home on Terrel Avenue, there were large piles of trash.

“We’ve had a few houses like this and, you know, this is probably the worst one,” Robert Lopez, a public works employee, said.

On November 4th, more than a dozen dogs were rescued from what Atascosa Animal Control described as deplorable conditions, something neighbor Ronnie Champion said has been building up for seven years.

“I’m the one who gets to suffer. My family gets to suffer for it,” neighbor Ronnie Champion said. “The neighbors behind them get to suffer for everybody that surrounds this house gets to pay for their actions.”

Champion said the dogs that were rescued ate several of his pet birds.

“30 chickens, at least. And they killed my male duck. There’s his feathers there,” Champion said. “I come in here and it looked like, it looked like a massacre.”

While Champion is happy the city is doing something to clean up the home, he said more needs to be done to keep them from doing this again

“If the city wants it done, they’ll do it. If not, I’ll continue to have this mess in my, next to my house,” Champion said.

With this dumpster filled and still more mess to be cleaned up – workers out here said they’ll have to come back again.

“We’re probably going to have to set it up for either another day or maybe even next week, you know, to finish up what we have, what we have here,” Lopez said.

Currently, the homeowner is in jail for an unrelated charge.

In an email, the chief of Jourdanton police said they have a person of interest in the animal cruelty case against the dogs and the case is still open.