Texas children -- ages 5 and 11 -- found living in abandoned bus

Reporting from Houston —  Texas officials went to court Thursday to begin deciding the fate of two children found living in an abandoned school bus near Houston earlier this week.

A postal worker discovered the children, an 11-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother, on Wednesday morning in Splendora, about 35 miles north of Houston.

The bus windows were blocked, the lot around the vehicle covered in trash.

Officials called in Child Protective Services, who placed the children in foster care pending an investigation, spokeswoman Gwen Carter told The Times. She said agency staff would appear in court Thursday to ask a judge for emergency custody of the children.

“We were concerned about the living conditions of the children, not the bus per se, but the supervision issues,” Carter said.

The children’s parents are believed to be in prison for embezzling money from victims of Hurricane Ike in 2008, according to the Associated Press, but Carter said she had yet to confirm that Thursday.

A woman on the property — believed to be the children’s great-aunt — told social workers she worked 12-hour shifts during the day but stayed with the children at night, although Carter said that also had yet to be verified Thursday.

The children told social workers they were home-schooled, and that was being investigated, too, Carter said.

“We don’t believe the 5-year-old has been in school,” Carter said. “We’re talking to the aunt and eventually hope to get information from the parents.”

She said it was not clear how long the children had lived in the bus. Investigators told KTRK-TV that the children have been living in the bus since the beginning of the year.

“The aunt said that she does provide meals for them during the day,” Montgomery County Constable Rowdy Hayden told KTRK. “Looking around the [bus], we didn’t see a lot of food readily available. One of the neighbors had told us earlier that from time to time she will bring food over for the children.”

The bus appeared to have electricity, an air-conditioning unit and bunk beds, but neighbors told the Houston Chronicle that the children often ran around at night and appeared unkempt.

“They always had dirty clothes on [and] no shoes, even in the winter,” neighbor Gayla Payne told the Chronicle. She said the 11-year-old told her daughter she bathed twice a week.

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