I feel badly for the neighbors who suspected there were children living in tents in the back yard but never said anything.

one of them called the police, but was told that they couldn't do anything without a warrant. Which isn't quite true. They could go and ask to see the backyard. If the owner refuses, there is nothing they can do, but they could have asked and possibly seen some probable cause to investigate further.

As Vortex notes, the neighbors did call. The thing that boggles me is that the cops had been to his house multiple times and searched it but somehow didn't bother to go out into the back yard to discover the compound. They just looked out the back yard and saw trees and shacks and some pit bulls. Seriously slackass police work. There's an overhead shot in the Chron story of Garrido's lot that clearly shows the compound. A fucking police helicopter could've gotten that easy.

Garrido's luck held in July of last year, when a multiagency task force in Contra Costa County searched his home as part of a sexual offender compliance check, officials said. He had a string of offenses dating back to 1971 and was a registered sex offender on parole in California.

Authorities found only evidence that Garrido, 58, his wife, Nancy, 55, and his mother were living in the home on Walnut Avenue, said Sgt. Diane Aguinaga of the Antioch police.

The team looked in the back, but saw only a screened-in porch and a back fence, she said.

Behind that fence, authorities now believe, was a hidden backyard with sheds and outbuildings. There, Garrido was housing Dugard and two daughters she allegedly had by him, officials said.

...Police, however, had been told about the backyard lair before, according to a former neighbor.

Erika Pratt said that two years ago, she called police after seeing what looked like a living compound with tents and sheds.

Weirdly, it was in Antioch, which is one of the teams we played in all-stars.

I would like to see Garrido and his wife expunged from the planet.

We were talking about packing and moving here, right?

I am doing that super organized thing that I never do when I move. I just printed out labels fot the plastic bins and made up a spreadsheet to keep track of what is where. Box #, Contents, Date Packed, Whether contents have been treated, and then on the spreadsheet, where that bin is located. THIS is the stuff I am good at.

I feel badly for the neighbors who suspected there were children living in tents in the back yard but never said anything. I'm sure they feel like shit now.

Worse still, one neighbor actually did call the cops on him about a year ago. She saw the sheds and caught a glimpse of someone in the back-backyard. The police went to his house, stood on the back porch, didn't see the shed, shrugged and went away. When she checked in to follow up, they basically told her they didn't see anything and didn't have a warrant, so that was the end of it. If they'd run even a cursory check on his name, surely his registered sex offender status would have come up first thing?

I don't know who must feel worse, the neighbors who got bad vibes off him (nobody's saying, "Nice fella, kept to himself," they're all saying things like "Weird, angry man, gave me the creeps") but never called, or the one who did call, assumed the people in charge of doing something would, oh, DO SOMETHING, and then found out that they'd completely fucked off and that poor woman and her children were trapped there for another goddamned year. Sadly, I'm sure the Antioch police have rationalized their way out of feeling bad about it at all. Still, in addition to whatever punishment the kidnapper-rapist gets, I dearly hope someone in Antioch officialdom gets their head handed to them on a platter, or shoved up their ass.

eta: And everyone else got there before me. FUCK, what a police fuck-up. That poor woman. Those poor girls. And in the end all it took was two UC Berkeley cops looking at him, feeling like something was very wrong, and trusting that feeling.

(I'm positive erika has an appropriate Gavin de Becker quote or three about that)

The fact that it was all going on for EIGHTEEN YEARS is what kills me.

THIS is the stuff I am good at.

Nice.

Seriously,

I feel like I should write a book about doing all the non-Pest Control professional stuff for dealing with bedbugs. The thing I have not been so great about doing is getting rid of stuff, but that honestly has had more to do with lack of brain power and time to do thoughtful work going through stuff.

Jackson's drug intake before his death:

You know, it pisses it me off IMFUCKINGMENSELY that on the one hand MJ can get this badly fucked up with little supervision, and then on the other hand, normal non-celebrity people get treated like junkies when they try to get enough meds to get their pain dialed down from a 12 to an 11.

You know, it pisses it me off IMFUCKINGMENSELY that on the one hand MJ can get this badly fucked up with little supervision, and then on the other hand, normal non-celebrity people get treated like junkies when they try to get enough meds to get their pain dialed down from a 12 to an 11.

Oh yeah, that too.

(And to be super-clear, both hands piss me off.)

::sits in the pissed-off corner::

Also, if anyone does feel they need to inflict more of the awful kidnapping story on themselves, the Contra Costa Times, the local paper for the county Antioch is in, has good (if depressing) coverage. Including an apology from the county sheriff, which is too little too late for the woman and her children, but at least is a real apology and not a handwavey not-our-fault fauxpology.