SALEM — When police entered the home at 31 Twinbrook Ave. in July, the floors were covered with garbage, nearly all the doors were kicked in, and the pool in the backyard was a murky, dark green swamp.
The garbage is gone, the doors are being replaced, and the pool is a pristine blue.
Police discovered the conditions inside the house July 1, when a neighbor found the 2-year-old daughter of Michael and Maureen Bell, the tenants of the home, walking naked in the street several blocks away.
Since then, property owners Dave and Kim Poirier have spent every weekend and several days each week removing the piles of trash that filled nearly every room of the four-bedroom house.
The nauseating odor of soiled diapers and nicotine that made Dave Poirier "want to vomit" when he walked through the house in July is gone, replaced with the scent of fresh wood and paint.
The home was deemed livable by Salem Health Officer Brian Lockard at the end of August, and the Poiriers continue to work to restore and improve the home.
"It was no longer uninhabitable," Lockard said. "Work still needed to be done, I don't need to oversee the remaining repairs."
Lockard had ruled the house uninhabitable after inspecting it in July.
Kim Poirier has owned the home since 1995, and lived there with her own family for more than 10 years. The Poiriers moved from the Salem home to Peterborough, Mass., in 2006, and intended to sell it. But after listing the home for eight months, they decided to rent it to Bell, the nephew of a neighborhood friend, for $2,000 a month.
Bell always paid his rent on time, Poirier said, and he always led her to believe there were no problems with the home during conversations on the phone and via e-mail.
"He was a very good con artist," she said. "He just wanted to be sure I wouldn't come and check the house."
The Bell's have five children, ages 2 to 9. The Bells are scheduled to appear before a Salem District Court judge on Sept. 30. Each parent faces five misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child.
The Poiriers have hauled away more than 3,000 pounds of trash, painted the walls, steam-cleaned everywhere, and continue to clean up the damage inflicted by their former tenants. A window, which neighbors said had been broken since winter, still needs to be replaced, new carpets need to be installed over bare, wood floors, and expletives etched into door frames at the height of a young child need to be sanded away and the wood refinished.
The work on the home is expected to be finished in October, and Michael Bell has indicated he will pay for the damage, Kim Poirier said.
While they would prefer to sell the property, given the current market conditions, the Poiriers will likely offer the house for rent again, Dave Poirier said.
"I've learned a valuable lesson," he said. "In the future, I'll come and collect the rent myself."
