The family of a girl with Down syndrome, who spent nine days in a B.C. trailer with her dead mother, says social services ignored repeated warnings about the girl's grim living situation.

The teen girl was found emaciated and alone with her mother's body by a neighbour in the family's Chilliwack trailer last month. It's believed that the girl's mother, who struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, overdosed in her filthy trailer.

CTV's Rob Brown reported Thursday that B.C.'s Ministry of Children and Family Development is officially probing the case, but he said officials wouldn't speak on the specifics due to privacy concerns.

Though the 14-year-old girl was safely taken into provincial custody after the discovery was made on Sept. 14, brother Mike Prentice says that very little was done to prevent the incident.

"It's traumatic, it's horrible. I get pictures of what my mom looked like, rotting away," said Prentice, the teen's half-brother.

He added that red flags were becoming more apparent, and that the mother's addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol had been getting worse.

"We all saw (her) spiralling, but nothing was done."

The brothers are coming forward now in an attempt to make the case public "so something like this doesn't happen again," said Brown.

During the summer months, the brothers stopped by the trailer home and decided to take the girl away with them because the living conditions were so poor.

But after ministry staff visited the trailer, they said that the teen would have to go back home.

"They were told that the ministry deemed the care acceptable and that the girl should stay there," Brown said.

The mother also said that she would charge the brothers with kidnapping if they didn't comply.

But a few weeks later, a neighbour noticed that the trailer was oddly silent. Peeking through the window inside, the passerby spotted the shocking scene.

Inside, police found that the woman's body was already in a state of decomposition.

"There was excrement from her diapers. There was my mother's pills all over the place, because she was trying to nurse my mother back to health with the pills," said Prentice, adding "I don't think she left her mom's side."

When asked how the girl responded when help finally arrived, neighbour Lawrence Jewitt recalled that the girl said: "'mom's sleeping.' It's all she said."

The girl was fatigued and she had apparently not eaten much – if at all – during the entire ordeal.

The brothers, who live about a 100 kilometres away from the trailer park in the adjacent community of North Vancouver, say their half-sister was told never to leave the trailer herself and not to go to the door alone.

The girl is now living in Chilliwack and is under the care of the ministry. The brothers say that they can't afford to take the girl in, but they hope that she will be housed in a home in North Vancouver, so they can visit regularly.

When asked about the brother's contention that not enough was done to prevent the tragedy, B.C. Minister of Children Mary Polak said that a probe has been launched in the case.

"What I can tell you is that we never ignore complaints by family members, they are always fully investigated."

Toxicology reports on the dead woman's body are forthcoming, Brown reported.