TOMS RIVER — What disturbed Bob Davison the most was the constant screaming.

For about 51 hours late last month, the director of the Mental Health Association of Essex County posed as a homeless man inside Dover Woods, a state-licensed residential health care facility in Toms River that is often home for patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals.

He checked in on a Thursday morning and came out on a Saturday afternoon, carrying with him a journal he kept describing dangerous conditions and relentless chaos.

In just two nights, Davison said, he broke up a fight, turned down oral sex for money from a hallucinating woman, and tried to sleep on a bed with a busted spring and no blanket.

"It stunned and angered me," he said. "The whole time I was there the staff never spoke to me. It was difficult, particularly hearing all the noises — the slamming doors, people hallucinating, people arguing with themselves, throwing furniture in the courtyard. It really sounded like bedlam."

Davison went undercover March 29 to show what can happen when the state discharges psychiatric patients into facilities his group says are poorly run. The state is in the process of closing the Sen. Garrett W. Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in Glen Gardner and is under a court order to reduce by half the number of patients in institutional care within two years.

Now Davison is calling on Gov. Chris Christie’s administration to demand these facilities be made safer or stop using them.

"Sparse living conditions, no social activities, no real choice of where to go ... no hope for improving their circumstances," he said. "When you take away someone’s hope you in essence exploit them. At Dover Woods, vulnerable people are stripped of their dignity."

Dover Woods attorney Harvey York of Toms River and a nursing director at the Route 70 facility declined numerous requests to comment for this report. Dover Woods is owned by Erez Healthcare Realty Co., a for-profit company incorporated in 1999 by Isser Kotler of Lakewood, according to state records. Kotler did not respond to numerous request for comments. Dover Woods has been a licensed health care facility since 1986, according to the state.

CHECKING IN

Posing as a street person in need of a bed and using the alias Bob Zimmerman — the real name of his musical hero Bob Dylan — Davison checked in at 10:30 a.m. on March 29, a Thursday.

Ross Croessmann, who works for Davison as director of supportive living services for the mental health association, said he called days earlier to say a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder needed a room for about four days. Because his stay would extend into a new month, the cost was $874.05, for three days in March and the entire month of April.

"I was able to get in without an ID. I just showed up with a check," Davison, 51, of West Caldwell, wrote in his journal.

The intake process lasted about 10 minutes, said Croessmann, who drove Davison to the facility. "They asked for his name, Social Security number and date of birth ... They asked if he had a legal background — murder, arson, Megan’s law. He said no, and they took that as fact."

"They emphasized he should take his meds, and watch where you cross the street," Croessmann said. Davison and Croessmann said a nurse also advised: "If you have a special friend, use a condom."

MOVING PATIENTS OUT

Since July 2009, the Department of Human Services has transferred 463 patients from state hospitals to residential health care facilities, including 63 to Dover Woods. State Human Services spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy said this is less than 10 percent of those who have left state hospitals, and stressed that some ask to live in these facilities and have a right to make that choice.

More than half of the 5,300 patients who left New Jersey’s four psychiatric hospitals since 2009 went to smaller, more closely supervised apartments and group homes, Lovejoy said.

The state saves money each time a patient is transferred out of a psychiatric hospital, which cost taxpayers on average $301,000 per patient each year. The tab for group homes is much as $68,000 a year. It’s $65,000 for a supervised apartment and about $23,000 for other forms of "supportive housing."

The state does not pay anything toward room and board costs at residential health care facilities such as Dover Woods, but requires operators to set aside $114 of a tenant’s $908 monthly supplemental security income check for a personal allowance, Department of Community Affairs spokeswoman Lisa Ryan said. The operators keep the rest.

THURSDAY NIGHT, FRIDAY MORNING

In his journal entry, Davison described his room as "small ... Cigarette burns on the floor, exposed wiring, ripped sheet and bed spread (but clean). No blanket. Bed opposite me has no mattress. Broken dressers and closets."

At about 10 that night, he wrote: "A woman offered me sex for money — oral sex for $20 ... She was actively psychotic. She was coming down the hall, talking to her herself. Broke my heart."

He noted there was "no heat on a chilly night." At 4:30 a.m., he wrote: "People were up all night screaming ... People were actively hallucinating. I slept about an hour and a half."

IN GOOD STANDING

Dover Woods is in good standing with New Jersey building code requirements. Nine days before Davison’s visit, Dover Woods passed state inspection from DCA, which regulates boarding homes and residential health care facilities. In their report, inspectors verified the owners had cleaned, painted, repaired broken furniture and replaced shattered windows, as ordered.

Often confused with boarding homes, most residential health care facilities are usually not as large as Dover Woods, which sleeps up to 232. The biggest difference from a boarding home, according to state rules, is that those in residential facilities get 20 minutes of nursing attention a week.

RELATED COVERAGE:

• In budget address, Christie outlines future of Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital

• Closure of Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital has patients' families worried

• Chris Christie to close Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital, state senator says

• N.J. psychiatric hospitals to release 300 patients under lawsuit settlement

• Task force submits inconclusive report on closing Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital

Lovejoy said Davison would have gotten more services had he come from a state psychiatric hospital. Before they are discharged, patients "have a treatment team assess their needs, determine the community-based programs and services available to support their recovery and arrange for ongoing treatment and case management," she said.

"It doesn’t appear to us that Mr. Davison’s demonstration mirrors the experience of our discharged consumers," Lovejoy added.

Dover Woods’ sprawling two-story building is behind a Ramada Inn, hidden amid a tangle of highways dominated by big box stores and shopping centers. The beige terra cotta-colored facade matches the Ramada, but a closer look reveals ripped or missing curtains, broken furniture and basketball hoop with a weathered and torn net. A rusted sign on the drive up to the complex trumpets its former status as the Dover Retirement Home.

Dover Woods is the busiest site for police calls in Toms River, Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said. From disorderly conduct offenses, thefts, mental health "checks," and "DOAs" — dead on arrival — it averages about 275 service calls a year, he said.

Three years ago, Toms River sued Dover Woods to force the owners to make big improvements to security and safety for residents and the surrounding area. The case settled in August 2010, with the owners promising to install lights, security cameras and a new fence between the Ramada Inn, Assistant Township Attorney Anthony Merlino said. It was far less that the township had wanted.

"It really has not solved the problem," Merlino said. "We still have police go in there once or twice a day ... It’s not that the township doesn’t want these people to get treatment. We just think (the owners) are demonstrably incapable of handling this."

FRIDAY NIGHT, SATURDAY

At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Davison wrote: "The most concerning thing I witnessed last night was a resident almost get hit on Rt. 9, the resident appeared disoriented and simply crossed the street right by the intersection of 70. It scared me."

He said he talked to residents outside and in the day room, where the nurses’ window looks out onto a row of chairs facing a large screen TV. People kept mentioning how a resident had died a week earlier crossing Route 70. "You’re free to come and go but where would you go? You are surrounded by highways. It’s not safe. Sidewalks run out after two blocks and many people are too impaired to cross the highway," Davison said.

His 4 a.m. entry reads: "Resident down the hall from me in psychiatric distress, slamming doors all night. Good news: overnight cleaning service came in, bad news: very loud."

About three hours later, he wrote that two people "got into a pushing match and I stepped between them to break it up. One ... was trying to steal the other’s lit cigarette ... This is speaking to the lack of supervision."

SEEKING ACTION

Davison plans to share his experience with state Human Services officials, and will ask Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee Chairman Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) to hold a hearing. He also wants to team up with other mental health advocates to offer possible solutions.

Davison said he targeted Dover Woods because he wanted to dispel the belief these facilities are only in cities and an "urban problem." He said about half of the 82 state-licensed residential facilities do a good job, but the state doesn’t discriminate between the good and the bad.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Davison said he left Dover Woods at about 1 p.m. In his final journal entry, he wrote: "They called my emergency contact on Tuesday, wondering where I was. That was three days later."