Anyone ever seen a situation like this in reality?

In 2003 the mother of a friend I had known since middle school passed away. I had not been in the house for 15-20 years. He asked me to help clean it up. Apparently after her husband left her she had a total breakdown and became a recluse. There was garbage and filth piled up so high you had to walk in narrow trails through the house. The piles were 5 feet +. There was no plumbing. She used garbage bags for a toilet. The ceiling upstairs had collapsed. There was decade old food in the fridge. The walls had an amber glaze from nicotine. Apparently she survived on snack food and whiskey for the last several years of her life. I coughed up brown phlegm from the dust in the air for a week, in spite of using a mask.

I don't know what the circumstances of her life had been at the end. I don't know who was bringing her what little food she ate and why they did not intervene. I don't know why my friend, his sister and their father allowed this to happen.

My friend had a mental breakdown himself a few years later. Lost his job, wife and kids left and then he went to live in a mission. Now he lives in a welfare building. Just a horrible situation all around.