Transform John Isham's Living Conditions

Hi! I'm Gina Montano and I live across the street from John Isham, an 82 y.o. Navy Veteran.

I only recently learned that John, who is across the street from me, has a rat-infested house. Along with the rats, the carpeting is literally disintegrating on the floors, and prior storm damage to his roof has destroyed a lot, including the ceiling in the kitchen and the dining room. The smell, that I thought was him, is actually the entire inside of the house - clinging to his skin!

This man has nothing... no phone, internet, TV, car... nothing. I take him to the credit union once a month, to Aldi's on Wednesdays, and twice a month to see a dear friend of his who used to live two houses up from us.

The other day when I was carrying his groceries, he asked me to come in. OMG... the stench. I noticed there was water all over the kitchen floor. He said the fridge needs to be replaced. Well, I guess so!

With John's permission, I reached out to my Mayor. I sent her a FB message and she responded within 2.5 hours. She knows John and was wondering why she hadn't seen him around. I told her about the car and all the other horrors.

She rounded up her troops and there were six or so individuals from various organizations at John's house Monday morning to start helping. I called my exterminator and he was there the next day. A cleaning crew was hired later that week. Various organizations are offering whatever services they can to help.

Here's the deal - John will lose just about everything in his house that is made of fabric. The kitchen items may be okay as they are in cabinets and drawers. This we will wait to see.

Starting next week, a crew will be at John's house to box up whatever knick-knacks he wants to save and it will be stored in his garage. Once the items to be saved are out of the house, everything will go into a dumpster donated by ESI in South Windsor. Carpets will be removed, rats killed, floors cleaned, ceilings replaced, and everything cleaned from top to bottom.

My post is a plea to my friends and family asking that you keep John in mind if you have any clean & usable home items that you were thinking of donating. He needs to get rid of anything made of material. So, items like a couch, chair, pillows, and blankets, and maybe even curtains. Not exactly sure what he has and what he can keep.

Last, but not least, if you have it in your heart to make a monetary donation to this cause, I would forever be thankful. Even the smallest donation can help with food, bills, and items that need to be purchased once he is allowed back in the home. Just the cost of the cleaning crew is going to be somewhere between $10k - $15k. The City can't pay the bill, but they are working to find organizations to help offset the cost.

It takes a village and since John doesn't have any family, we can be his village.