RUDE WELCOME FOR RESERVIST

An unholy stench and paint-splattered walls greeted Army reservist Arleen Agosto when she returned home Thursday.

The emergency-room nurse, who has been treating wounded combat soldiers at Fort Eustis, Va., received a call a few days ago from a friend saying her Meadow Pointe home had been vandalized.

Pink paint was splattered on the walls, television, floors, furniture and ceiling, and the walls had been burned.

That was just in the living room.

"It was overwhelming," said Agosto, 43, a single mother of three.

The stink came from human feces and urine on the family's beds.

Her 3-year-old daughter Olivia's toys had been smashed or stolen. Family pictures, including a sonogram image of Olivia, had been destroyed. Unused condoms were strewn about the house, and a large phallic symbol was painted in pink on a wall near the kitchen.

Even a military uniform belonging to her 26-year-old daughter, Lisandra Bigler, had been taken. It is unclear when the house was vandalized.

"I was totally devastated," Agosto said. "I mean, they stole little kids' toys, little exercisers for a baby, and they went out of their way to destroy my military photos."

Agosto spent Friday picking through her belongings and starting to clean up the home she bought in 2000.

A portrait of a unit with which she once worked is splattered with pink. So is a photo of her children.

"I always take pictures of my kids before I leave on deployment," she said.

Laptop computers are missing, a video camera, too.

Although the house's newly repainted exterior was not touched, slats were broken out of her backyard fence, and many of her belongings wound up in the pond behind her home.

"I still haven't gone through everything," she said. "There are Wiis and Gameboys missing, too."

Friday, a team of workers from Graystone Construction Corp. started scraping paint off walls, cleaning carpets and disinfecting surfaces. Cleaning up the mess "could take awhile," a worker said, and Agosto is hoping her insurance pays for the work, which she was told would cost "way over $15,000."

"They even took a dump in the toilet, then shut off the water valve so it would smell more," Agosto said.

While the house is being cleaned, Olivia and Agosto's 13-year-old daughter Katelyn are staying with relatives.

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is investigating.

"We aren't releasing any information about that case right now, but we're following up on leads," sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said. He declined to say what the leads are.

Until this week, deputies hadn't been called to Agosto's normally quiet suburban street since 2004, records indicate. Agosto said her neighbors told her they did not hear anything suspicious.

Carly Hobbs, who lives nearby, said she had heard kids "running through the woods" near Agosto's home, but nothing more.

"I don't know if they're just trying to take a shortcut through the conservation area or what," she said.

Agosto works as an emergency-room nurse through a local medical staffing company that sends her where she is needed. She is scheduled to return to Fort Eustis on Sunday.

A native of Puerto Rico, Agosto said she grew up poor and knows how to overcome adversity. She joined the Army because of the opportunities it offered.

"I was pregnant at 17, and the Army offered me a way to get an education and a career," she said.

Another single mother who'd recently lost her house to foreclosure was supposed to be moving in to the house.

"If I see someone who needs help, I help out," Agosto said.

She had an alarm installed Thursday.

"I didn't really think I needed one before," she said. "I live in such a nice neighborhood."