A Scranton couple faces felony charges after police found their two young children living in deplorable and unsafe conditions at their Mary Street apartment.
On Dec. 5, officers were called to 542 Mary St. after maintenance personnel at the Bangor Heights apartment complex reported concerns about conditions in one of the units. Workers described the condition of the apartment as “deplorable.”
According to the complaint:
David Evans, one of the maintenance workers, entered the apartment with the tenants’ permission and immediately noticed it was frigid and that extremely cold air was streaming from a broken window.
Evans noticed garbage strewn throughout the apartment, live and dead rodents and a kitchen sink containing trash. He reported two small children running around the apartment, dressed in only diapers.
When Scranton police officers entered the apartment, they also noted freezing temperatures inside the unit, a foul smell and rodent feces throughout the unit. The apartment was “riddled with flies,” officers said.
Briona Everett and Zachary Healey, both 25 and the parents of the two young children, were at the residence and spoke with police.
Everett and Healey admitted that the window had been broken for about three weeks.
When officers noted a thermostat pulled from the wall, Everett said it had been that way for about a month.
The couple said they had reported the broken window but not the thermostat to property maintenance, but the the property manager later said she had not received a report on either issue.
The two children were taken into protective custody.
Everett and Healey were arrested and charged with two felony counts of endangering the welfare of children. They have preliminary hearings scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on Dec. 15 before District Judge Kipp Adcock.