WILTON MANORS, Fla. -- A 40-year-old man was arrested and charged with elderly abuse Sunday after police found his mother living in filth.

“The interior of the house is just deplorable. The stench when you open the door -- how anybody can live in there? I just don’t understand it," Wilton Manors Police investigator David Jones told Local 10.

Rescue crews responded to a 911 call of smoke in a back shed at a home on the 2900 block of Northeast First Avenue when they discovered the elderly homeowner, Phyllis Martz, and her Paris Drew Martz, living in what investigators said were disgusting conditions.

Police said when they arrived, they found the nude woman covered in excrement. When her son attempted to run away, he was quickly arrested and charged with elderly neglect and resisting arrest.

Inside the house, investigators found huge piles of newspaper and trash.

“If you had to go to the bathroom, you can’t get in," Jones told Local 10's Julie Summers. The condition of the interior of the house would explain the stench, the feces and everything else – because the bathroom is unusable."

Neighbor Tom Miller said he and others have tried contacting the state hotline for adult abuse because they have seen piles of human feces in the front lawn and the elder Martz naked outside.

“Our concern was for the owner -- her name is Phyllis -- whether or not she was being properly taken care of by her son who is known to not be of full mental capacity," Miller said.

Inside the home, police said they found piles of human excrement everywhere. Many of the garbage bags in the backyard were also filled with feces.

Neighbors were furious that Beatrice Thomas, the Adult Protective Services investigator who was called to the scene Sunday afternoon, is the same case worker they spoke with five months ago about the deplorable living conditions.

“I’m just out here as an investigator on a case. And I really can’t comment about anything," Thomas said.

“These case workers need to follow up on these things. I mean -- God forbid -- she had died," one neighbor said.

On Sunday night, Phyllis Martz was evaluated at Holy Cross Hospital. She cannot return home because police have put a sign on the front door preventing anyone from living there – saying it is "unsafe."

Her son faces charges of elderly neglect, resisting arrest and battery against a law enforcement officer.