A welfare check led Michigan deputies to a filthy home where three children had been living for several years without outside contact, education or basic hygiene, authorities said.

Children, ages 15, 13 and 12, were found inside a Pontiac, MI home full of feces and trash. According to the sheriff's office, their mother had left them alone in the home around four years ago, and would return to drop food off to them.

Police discovered a boy and two girls abandoned by their mother and living in squalor for at least five years in southeastern Michigan while conducting a welfare check during the past weekend.

Three children were found living alone in "absolute squalor" in a Pontiac, Michigan, rental home after their mother abandoned them years ago, authorities said.

The woman accused of abandoning her children in piles of garbage years ago was arrested and is being held at the Oakland County Jail in Pontiac, Michigan. Rooms were covered in human waste, with garbage piled several feet high.