At the large, two-storey corner house on Marrakesh Dr., the garage door was always closed.

Chao Yang can’t remember the last time he saw his next-door neighbours open their two-car garage. The Scarborough couple — who live with their 6-year-old daughter and both their mothers — always parked in the driveway, he said.

Last Wednesday, Yang finally learned what the family was doing with their garage. For nearly four months, police allege, Yang’s neighbour has been using the uninsulated brick garage as a “makeshift bedroom” for his 68-year-old mother.

“When she was in the house alone, she was always defecating and urinating on herself without even realizing it,” Yang said Monday, speaking in Mandarin. He said his neighbour’s mother-in-law told him this.

“It smelled so much and it was like this every day. I think because of this, they moved her in (to the garage).”

At around 10:50 a.m. Wednesday, paramedics responded to a 911 call at the house near McCowan Rd. and Finch Ave. E. They discovered a woman unconscious, unresponsive and suffering from frostbite.

Her skin was cold to the touch and her stomach was empty, police say. She was taken to hospital, where she later suffered a stroke. She remains in life-threatening condition.

Det. Sgt. Mike Stones said the woman appears to suffer from dementia and was declared legally incompetent in the fall. His son was named as her guardian. Since then, she has been living in “deplorable” conditions in the attached garage of her son’s home, said Stones.

Officers who investigated the room described being “taken aback” by the smell of urine.

Stones called the case one of the worst examples of elder abuse he has ever witnessed.

“I’m disgusted,” he said, adding the house has four bedrooms, two of which were vacant at the time.

The woman had been sleeping on a mattress in the “makeshift bedroom,” Stones said.

“When I say makeshift, I’m referring to two drywalled walls. The remaining walls are the cinder block concrete walls. The floor has some cheap flooring on top of concrete.”

“There is no running water, there is no fridge, no stove, no microwave.”

The only heating source is a “modified dryer vent” connected to a furnace inside the house, Stones said. To relieve herself, the woman was given a box of diapers and a port-a-potty. Her “washing facilities” consisted of a bucket of water. When she was found, the only food in the room was a piece of bread.

Stones said the woman had a room on the main floor until she was relocated to the garage around early November. He said her former room has been “converted for other uses” and now has a computer desk and some toys.

Neighbours said they thought the family may have been operating a daycare and often saw small children coming and going.

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There are also two tenants living in the house, one in the basement, Stones said.

According to Stones, the family is originally from mainland China but are now Canadian citizens. The older woman has another child in Toronto, he said.

To Yang, the couple next door were always nice people. He said the husband worked as a chef and last summer the family invited his children over for a barbecue.

Yang said he was told by his neighbour’s mother-in-law that the older woman agreed to be roomed in the garage. She also said the room was heated.

“That’s the first time I heard that. A room in the garage, man?” Yang said. “How can you sleep in the garage, especially in the winter time?”

Jason Chu, who lives across the street but has never spoken to the family, also expressed dismay at the allegations of elder abuse.

“It’s unimaginable,” he said.

“My furnace was down for only one day last month and I couldn’t stand it — and I’m a healthy man. How can an old woman?”

Kwong Yan, 43, and his wife, Qi Tan, 28, face charges of failing to provide the necessaries of life and criminal negligence causing bodily harm. They are scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.

With files from Amy Dempsey and Wendy Gillis