Anonymous letter calls home 'trash dump;' community helps clean up

Household member battling cancer unable to clean home

ST. CLOUD, Fla. – A house in Osceola County that was pointed out and shamed for its long grass and messy porch is now a point of pride in the community.

George Timmis received an anonymous letter in the mail earlier this week calling his home a "trash dump."

"You need to walk away from your house and then take a good look at the front and side," the letter read, in part. "It looks horrible."

Timmis said he was shocked when he received the letter.

"I read it and I was like 'I can't be reading that right,'" said Timmis, who admits his bad back and knees had been stopping him from cleaning up the yard.

"It was the saddest thing I've ever experienced," added Dorrie Pontarelli, who lives with Timmis.

Pontarelli was recently diagnosed with kidney and brain cancer. Timmis and Pontarelli go back and forth from St. Cloud to Tampa for cancer treatments.

"I used to be able to do so much but now I felt responsible for that letter," Pontarelli said.

So they posted their frustrations online in a neighborhood group and then something spectacular happened.

"It was overwhelming," Timmis said. "It snowballed in a good way."

In just a day, volunteers, such as the St. Cloud Rotary Club, came out and cleaned up the home.

"It was really with heart because they weren't just grabbing things," Timmis said. "They were taking care of things as if it was their stuff. Everything from the porch, they cleared out the shed and reorganized the shed and put everything back into the shed."

"We didn't ask for help but they wanted to help," Pontarelli said. "It was really heartwarming."

"Really want him to focus on what he needs to be focused on, which is his health and Dorrie's health," said Jim Larisa with the St. Cloud Rotary Club. " He doesn't have to worry about moving stuff off his porch. We can do that for him."

Because of Pontarelli's cancer treatments, the two are looking to move to Tampa and possibly rent out this home. Volunteers are expected to be back out here in a week or so, so they can start clearing out some of the clutter inside.


About the Author:

It has been an absolute pleasure for Clay LePard living and working in Orlando since he joined News 6 in July 2017. Previously, Clay worked at WNEP TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he brought viewers along to witness everything from unprecedented access to the Tobyhanna Army Depot to an interview with convicted double-murderer Hugo Selenski.

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