ST. HUBERT - A coroner is investigating the deaths of two elderly people on Montreal's south shore, as new details emerged about the cluttered state of the frigid home where they were found.
Cathy Sansoin, 66, called police to a home near the airport in Saint-Hubert Sunday night after her 72-year-old partner suffered an apparent stroke.
When paramedics arrived they confirmed the death of Michael Ashworth. They also found Sansoin's 82-year-old mother bed-ridden and suffering from symptoms of pneumonia. She died in hospital early Monday morning.
The three had reportedly lived in the house for years, during which
they had become increasingly isolated from their neighbours.
"It was clear and obvious that there were problems with the household, you can tell by just looking at the house," Harris said.
All three occupants were taken to hospital, however the man and elderly woman did not survive.
"It was very rare to even see them or hear them at all. They were nice people," Harris said.
But he did hear from his neighbours on Sunday night, when one person called asking for help, saying her boyfriend had collapsed.
"I told her, well you have to call an ambulance, because she hadn't done that yet, so she then called an ambulance and I went over," he said.
Neighbour Jean-Paul Lamy lived next door to the home for three decades and says his relationship with the occupants became strained because they kept taking in noisy dogs.
The last time he was inside the home was during the ice storm of 1998. When he visited on Sunday he was shocked.
There were "boxes piled over boxes, floor to ceiling, clothes hanging everywhere, just totally disorganized," he said.
"You couldn't get a stretcher in the house."
Mailman Dario Novelli said he had no idea how bad things were behind the front door.
"I just noticed obviously there was a lot of clutter around and everything," Novelli said, adding that he didn't see anyone at the home "more than a couple of times."
