A home deemed uninhabitable last month has been cleared by the Department of Health, but several dogs taken from the residence were still with Westport animal control as of Friday.

Board of Health agent Joseph Reis received a complaint from a dog sitting company about unsanitary conditions in a home at 81 Benoit St. An employee of the firm check in on the dogs while the owner was away called the town after reporting what he’d found to his supervisor.

Westport police obtained an administrative warrant to go in and search the property, and found extensive amounts of dog waste in the basement but also in other areas of the house. Company officials told police that the owner had only been out of town for a few days, and Reis told the Board of Health earlier this month that it was clear that the unsanitary conditions in the home predated that.

The house was subsequently declared unfit for human habitation, and the owner was told upon her return to Westport that she could not come back until the property was cleaned and the dogs taken care of. Several days after the order was issued, Reis said, he drove by the house and found the woman’s car there. When he found her on the property, he reiterated that the home was not safe and had been declared uninhabitable.

Subsequently, the woman hired a cleaning company to come in and sanitize the property, and also hired an attorney to act as a go between between her and the town.

At a recent board of health meeting, the board’s Donna Amaral was so taken with photographs of the property submitted by Reis that she asked for permission to hold one up in front of the camera — it showed the basement with a large amount of excrement on the carpet.

She wanted to show them “so the public is aware of some of the conditions the board of health is called to and responds to,” she said. “If they don’t see hat we’ve seen, they might question our response. It’s also important that the community sees what we do.”