Adjoining House Is A Crumbling Threat To Ours And We Have No Idea Who To Contact (usa, Pa)

Hi Reddit, I’m hoping that the intelligent folks of this subreddit can help us generate some ideas on next steps/who to contact, because no one so far has been of any help to us.

Context:

My wife and I bought our first house in Montgomery County, PA back in November. It’s a twin home (originally a single home when built in 1890, then split into two units somewhere in the 1940s) and we were told that an 80-some year old man lives next door. Let’s call him Tom (not his real name). The exterior of Tom’s property was visibly deteriorating when we were first touring our home; holes in the roof covering the back porch, severely weathered window frames, overgrown/untrimmed bushes, etc. But we figured that the house must be getting difficult for him to keep up with on his own, and didn’t think much of it.

Shortly after settlement and moving in, for reasons I can’t clearly remember, my wife and I were researching the public records for Tom’s home and found that he is not the owner of the property. It’s owned by the estate of his deceased brother, and Tom is the executor of the property. There are also several years’ of school and borough property tax liens against the property. We were fascinated by the drama of it all, and figured it’s hard to pay for upkeep of a house if you can’t afford the tax payments either, but again moved on.

Then, in mid-January, Tom went missing. There were 2 weeks during which there was absolutely no sign of him at home - we never saw him, never heard him through the walls, never saw any lights on in the house or evidence of movement. We eventually found out through other neighbors that Tom was struck by a vehicle and was in the ICU, and given how difficult of a time he already had taking care of himself, it was unlikely that he would come home even if he recovered from his injuries.

The Problem:

The house has been empty ever since, which became a problem when last week water started entering our basement from Tom’s property. Borough dispatch sent out the fire department to gain entry to his home and turn off the water main. The firefighters knocked on our door afterwards and informed us that a broken radiator pipe had poured two inches of water into the first floor of the house, and that water was now raining into the basement and leaking into our side of the property. The firefighters also informed us that the house was “a disaster” and looked like “it hasn’t been cleaned since the day it was built”, with massive piles of dirt and detritus throughout. They suggested we call borough code enforcement the next morning to send out an inspector.

We followed their advice, but the code inspector was of no use. He told us that since the home was “owner occupied” there was nothing he could do. When we raised the point that Tom isn’t legally the owner of the property, the inspector shrugged and told us there was still nothing to do. Meanwhile, that water is sitting in his basement, and we have serious concerns about the possibility of mold developing and spreading to our side, or any other complications that may arise - if they haven’t already.

Who can we contact? Who takes responsibility here? If Tom dies, what happens to the house next door? There are no other family members, no children or nieces or nephews, so who takes responsibility? Do we call our insurance company to handle this? Everyone we’ve turned to in our lives seems completely baffled by the situation, and has been unable to provide any guidance. Any and all ideas welcome.