South Bay : Child Found Amid Squalor Is Removed

It is one of the last places you would expect to find a pigsty. Not with the million-dollar estates that dot the winding streets of Rancho Palos Verdes. Even the name, Seacliff Drive, sounds like the address of a resort.

But on Thursday, the district attorney’s office filed a misdemeanor child endangerment charge against Paula Miklovick, 47, after authorities allegedly found her ocean-view house in such squalor that they put her 5-year-old daughter into protective custody.

“I wouldn’t want any 5-year-old in that house. It’s disgusting,” said Detective Deborah Rogers of the Lomita sheriff’s station.

Deputies were called to the residence about midnight Wednesday when a neighbor saw two men moving furniture with a U-Haul truck and suspected that a burglary was under way. As the deputies were questioning the men, who were moving into the residence, Miklovick arrived home with her daughter, Rogers said.

After talking with the woman and her daughter, the deputies entered the residence and found that it was without power or running water, Rogers said. The kitchen counters had rotting food and dirty dishes, she said. Bathroom toilets were clogged. Clothing and debris were tossed about and the entrance way was smeared with fecal matter.

In addition, Rogers said, deputies found the young girl not only unusually dirty but wanting to eat. “The child made the comment that she was very hungry,” Rogers said.

The girl is in protective custody, said Rogers, while her mother awaits arraignment Sept. 9.

Miklovick declined to comment Thursday