There were signs of the macabre inside a brown, brick unit near a swanky pocket of Pakington St.

Rubbish would pile up outside the decrepit commission flat, attracting an unhealthy number of rats, and cats, to its haul.

Black mould could be seen growing on the always drawn blinds, garbage bins blocked the entry to its doorways, front and back.

Wet pillows, plastic bags filled with gumnuts, random cardboard boxes – it was a kaleidoscope of filth tucked inside a corner of one of Geelong’s most expensive suburbs.

And then there was the smell.

“It was just a rotten stench,” said Lisa Jenkin, who, for years, walked past the house on her way to visit a friend.

“There were dead things all around that place.”

Dead possums, too.

Yet not even the most suspicious could have predicted what lay undiscovered behind the curtains, as children rode their bikes along the driveway, and residents on the leafy Newtown street went about their daily lives.

Revelations the tenant’s corpse had been left to rot unnoticed for possibly several years, despite his sister living alongside it under the most vile of conditions, have shocked many across this state and abroad.

It’s a sad, cautionary tale of how easily the most vulnerable members of our society can often be ignored and, in this case, left to decompose under the nose of not only neighbours, but the state housing department and local law enforcement.

Some remember seeing the man – who we now know was Robert Natoli – occasionally venture outside in his underwear.

“But that was like five years ago” said Nicole Stratton, who moved into a flat behind him in 2018.

“I spotted him probably two or three times in the first year but never saw him again.

“I just thought he was a hermit inside, but we would see his sister all the time.”

Another homeowner, who moved in two years prior to the discovery, said he never laid eyes on him.

“Not once,” he said.

Detectives and a Victorian coroner are still piecing together exactly how long he lay dead inside the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing owned flat.

Evidence suggests it could have been two years, with some reports claiming as much as five years.

Buster Herman, who has lived across the street for three decades, believes it wasn’t as long as some claim.

“Either way it’s a tragedy,” he said.

All the while, the dead man’s mentally unwell sister was sleeping with the company of his skeletal-like cadaver, which was found in late December 2022 amongst squalor.

The woman was initially arrested when police broke through a window acting on a welfare concern. She was later released without charge.

The horror inside shocked the officers that saw it.

“It shook them up,” Geelong CIU Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Guthrie said.

Emily Drought, a friend of Ms Stratton, said she was “blown away” when she saw “something being pulled out in a body bag”.

“We overheard police saying it had been there so long it put a dent in the concrete,” she said.

“I don’t think there was much left of him.

“We thought the guy had just moved out.”

Just getting to his remains proved difficult. Police had to push through garbage bags filled with trash in all corners of the flat.

There appeared to be no electricity or running water.

Human faeces and urine could be seen lining the floor.

“How can someone, living under the watch of our government support systems, be allowed to live like that?” said another neighbour, who did not want to be named.

It’s a question being asked by everyone on the street, which is book-ended by a Billy Brownless owned pub, and the stadium that made him a household name at Kardinia Park.

“I contacted the Geelong housing office six months before the body was found,” another property owner said.

“I can safely say there was no routine inspection or welfare check on that individual for at least a year and possibly more.

“In some respects they have blood on their hands.

“They were completely let down.”

DFFH claim they did pay the unit a visit, on several occasions in 2022.

At each knock no one answered the door.

Calling cards were left.

“Why didn’t someone just kick the door down?” one source asked.

The Rental Tenancy Act prohibits such an action, even as a public housing tenant.

Maybe that should change now.

Meanwhile, neighbourhood cats continued to have a particular fascination with the street facing unit on Russell St.

“Rats will eat human remains, there is no question they do that, but so do dogs and cats and other animals who might have access,” said clinical professor David Ranson, from Monash University.

He was speaking in general terms on body decomposition.

“I have certainly come across cases where rats have had access and they have certainly chewed bits of the body and things like that.”

One pantry, blocked by garbage, was full of dried cat food – although the woman living inside didn’t have one.

Professor Ranson said although shocking to the layman, forensic pathologists are not unfamiliar with grim discoveries such as Newtown.

He’s come across cases where a body has been left “for a year or two” inside a house and no one has noticed a thing.

“With some of these long cases, and particularly with Australian temperatures, people do eventually mummify,” he said.

“It depends on the circumstances and how much they actively decompose in the early stages before the drying stages.

“With air conditioners and general dry atmospheres, bodies, in fact, dry out.”

But the stench?

Many have asked how the little old woman, who would collect gumnuts from a nearby park and cut her lawn with a pair of scissors, could have handled living with a rotting corpse - whether it was for five weeks or five years.

“It could still have a smell after a couple of months, but it could disappear in two, three, four or five weeks as things dry out,” Professor Ranson said.

“They can become like a hard gourd and at this stage there are very little health risks.”

More than a year on, there are no signs left of the chaos that occured behind the front door of unit one.

The house remains empty.

Flowers and magnolia trees have been planted in its front yard.

The rats, and cats, have disappeared.

mark.murray@news.com.au