Police found 84-year-old Olga Kaminsky dead in the dining room in her home after her elderly sister came to check on her.
She had no children.
Officers say the home was littered with trash and thousands of empty cans of cat food.
Kaminsky often cared for stray cats and SPCA officers found 2 of them dead inside the house.
One investigator tells Action News, Kaminsky, herself, could have been dead for weeks.
"She was a wonderful, wonderful woman. She loved animals; we can't believe that it had to come to this," neighbor Fran Geaquinto said.
Neighbors say they've been calling License and Inspections since October to check on the house.
"We wanted them to go make that house inhabitable so that Olga could be taken somewhere safe because it wasn't safe," Geaquinto said.
"We were concerned as a neighborhood because there was a smell always coming out of her house; the condition of the house was always falling apart," neighbor Mildred Metz said. "I called L and I on three to four occasions, e-mailed them, as well, and nothing."
One neighbor says she was told by the 311 operator that it would be 30 to 45 days before the home could be checked.
A spokeswoman for L and I tells Action News that the last documented call about the house came in April 2008, but neighbors insist they've been calling for months and as recently as last week. L and I says they'll continue to investigate.
PGW tells Action News that gas was cut off from the home last summer for lack of payments.
The company says the service was in the name of Joseph Kaminsky who neighbors identify as Olga's husband who died several years ago.
Police in the 4th district say if you believe a neighbor, especially the elderly, is in trouble, you should call authorities. They will conduct a welfare check immediately.
In this instance, police say they were never called.
