Police Dispatch

Fruit Loops Everywhere

Foothills Area

May 5, 12:05 a.m.

A man was found not only living in squalor, but also having spread food and paint around his house in the belief that it would protect him from trespassers, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.

Sheriff's deputies went to the residence of the north-side homeowner after a neighbor reported that he'd vandalized and broken two nearby streetlights.

Upon arrival they saw that his house had been painted sloppily in blue paint coating random places like the outside walls, the sidewalk and even parts of windows. They could hear him rambling loudly inside the house.

When he opened the door, deputies could see that the house's inside walls boasted masses of scribbling in black permanent marker; the walls also had several holes in them, and areas not covered in marker were painted with different-colored patches of house paint. The front room was empty except for a dirty mattress and boxes of books, papers, "bags of food" and clothing stacked up against the walls in piles—with these piles featuring feces (from an unknown source) "smeared" across their top surfaces.

Deputies found that the man's bedroom contained a wet, discolored carpet and another soiled mattress, as well as more piles of junk "almost like from a packrat"—this time, however, placed in the middle of the room instead of against the walls (and not topped with excrement). Deputies were unable to enter another bedroom because so many papers, clothes, tables, food and other items were piled almost to the ceiling.

Even more oddly, when deputies spoke with the man, he said he was highly preoccupied with personal cleanliness, stating that he "constantly needs to take a shower ... and wash his hands a lot." He made many other random statements, talking about shopping at Wal-Mart and saying "someone had broken his bag of ice," and that there'd been a black sedan outside his house that made him nervous—so he'd poured chocolate milk on his doorstep (which deputies noticed), as if it had the power to repel the sedan's driver.

When asked about the blue paint (which was also on his pants), the man said "it is his house and he wants to make sure everyone knows that people live here and it belongs to him," and that "it is a way of keeping bad people away from his home."

Another deputy noticed and inquired about some generic Fruit Loops cereal that was spread all over his floor and along the edges of his windows; the man again replied that it was to show others that he was living there.

Finally, deputies pinned him down about the streetlight-breaking issue about which they were originally called to see him—but the subject adamantly denied breaking them (although someone's security camera had him on tape doing so).

The man was escorted to the Southern Arizona Crisis Response Center to get help.