It is difficult to imagine living one day without food and water, but recently a story emerged about a man who found his 85-year-old neighbor lived a year without running water!
The elderly woman lived right next door to him. Harriet Butler, a resident of Saint Lawrence County, New York, has been living without a cellphone or a computer and has never used the TV she owns.
She is completely aloof about the pandemic, the presidential race, and other main headlines. But the most astonishing fact is that her house has no running water, a broken furnace, a raccoon eating her cat food, and a leaky roof.
Harriet stayed alone in a two-story home for thirty years until that structure collapsed and then she moved into a trailer adjacent to the previous building, along with nine cats. There are trees in inconvenient spaces, an active deer trail, and brush everywhere in the property.
She wanted to live independently and so used portable heaters instead of her furnace. She took a cart with three empty jugs to fill up her drinking water. But when her neighbor of seven years, Veteran, Joe J. Bullock who lives next door with his wife, Tina saw her condition he decided to do something about it.
Bullock is a disabled marine who works for the Department of Transportation. They have both borne witness to the decaying conditions of Harriet’s home. Joe and Tina moved out there to be away from cell phone service and to get some distance from society.
Joe had told her in the past to let him know if she needed anything and even though she did not ask him, Harriet’s conditions grew so bad that Joe just had to step in. It was the ultimate when one day her door froze shut trapping her inside and then again when a part of the old house fell onto her trailer’s porch. Joe had to step in each time.
“It got to the point where I said, ‘You’re my adopted grandmother, and you’re not going to live like this anymore’…Enough was enough.” Joe said, “I’m in the position where I will never allow her to cry to me again about any situation that’s going on over here.” He added, “She feels like it’s a handout, and I said, ‘Harriet, I’ll help you with anything I can.'”
Harriet will be getting a new trailer soon. The furnace has been fixed, the raccoon problem has been solved. The government even stepped in as The Canton Office of the Aging will start sending her meals on Monday. Although Harriet prefers a solitary life now she can live life a bit more comfortably thanks to Joe.
