NEW SCOTLAND — Two animals were found dead and decomposed in a Feura Bush house last week.

Alice Boughton, 59, who had owned the house since 1983 has been charged with two counts of failing to provide sustenance, a misdemeanor.

“You could tell she had been crying the last time she left,” said Marjorie Nelson, who lives next door and talked with Boughton the last time she was there, about a week earlier. “I guess she must have known it would be her last time in the house.”

The modest house at 24 Jones Ave. with dormer windows peeking out over a quiet street lined with neatly kept lawns now has padlocks on the door after being foreclosed upon.

Kenneth Stewart, who also lives next door, had sometimes mowed Boughton’s lawn, he said, and noticed that her dog had stopped barking last fall.

On Friday, Albany County Sheriff’s deputies found one dead dog and one dead cat in the house.

“All you could see was ribs and hair,” said Stewart of the animals’ state.

Boughton told police that the animals had died in the fall, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s office. She moved out in March and now lives in Rotterdam.

“She’s a really nice person,” said Darlene Willwerth, who lived across the street from Boughton for 25 years. “She probably felt ashamed.”

None of her neighbors in Feura Bush knew that things had gone awry.

“She acted as if she was OK, and yet she was hiding so much,” Willwerth said. “My heart breaks for her.”