The Strange Story of the Collyer Brothers
What a strange and sad story. The reclusive Collyer Brothers lived in New York in the first half on the twentieth century, owned a brownstone, and completely filled it with trash over the last decades of their lives. The whole Wikipedia page is worth a read, but here are some highlights:
They boarded up the windows, and Langley set about using his engineering skills to set up booby traps. Their gas, telephone, electricity and water having been turned off because of their failure to pay the bills, the brothers took to warming the large house using only a small kerosene heater. For a while, Langley attempted to generate his own energy by means of a car engine. Langley began to wander outside at night; he fetched their water from a post in a park four blocks to the south (presumably Mount Morris Park, renamed Marcus Garvey Park in 1973). He also dragged home countless pieces of abandoned junk that aroused his interest. In 1933, Homer, already crippled by rheumatism, went blind. Langley devised a remedy, a diet of one hundred oranges a week, along with black bread and peanut butter.
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In response to a query about the bundles of newspapers, Langley replied, “I am saving newspapers for Homer, so that when he regains his sight he can catch up on the news.” The Bowery Savings Bank began eviction procedures and sent over a cleanup crew. At this time, Langley began ranting at the workers, prompting the neighbors to summon the police. When the police attempted to force their way by smashing down the front door, they were stymied by a sheer wall of junk piled from the floor to the ceiling. Without comment, Langley made out a check for $6,700 (equivalent to about $90,000 in 2006), paying off the mortgage in full in a single payment. He ordered everyone off the premises, and withdrew from outside scrutiny once more, emerging only at night and when he wanted to file criminal complaints against housebreakers.
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On April 8, 1947, workman Artie Matthews found the dead body of Langley Collyer just ten feet from where Homer died. His partially decomposed body was being eaten by rats. A suitcase and three huge bundles of newspapers had covered his body. Langley had been crawling through their newspaper tunnel to bring food to his paralyzed brother when one of his own booby traps fell down and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralyzed, starved to death several days later. The stench detected on the street had been emanating from Langley, the younger brother.
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Items removed from the house included rope, baby carriages, a doll carriage, rakes, umbrellas, rusted bicycles, old food, potato peelers, a collection of guns, glass chandeliers, bowling balls, camera equipment, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, a sawhorse, three dressmaking dummies, painted portraits, pinup girl photos, plaster busts, Mrs. Collyer’s hope chests, rusty bed springs, the kerosene stove, a checkerboard, a child’s chair (the brothers were lifelong bachelors and childless), more than 25,000 books (including thousands of books about medicine and engineering and more than 2,500 on law), human organs pickled in jars, eight live cats, a beaded lampshade, the chassis of the old Model T Langley had been tinkering with, one British and six American flags, tapestries, hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, clocks, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), a clavichord, two organs, banjos, violins, bugles, accordions, a gramophone and records, and, of course, countless bundles of newspapers and magazines, some of them decades old. Near the spot where Homer died, police also found 34 bank account passbooks with a total of $3,007.18.