MADISON TOWNSHIP —  A tattered blue tarp hung over a barn door flaps in the summer breeze at the house on Ledge Road.

The barn roof sags and the yard is choked with weeds.

The windows on the white house are covered by sheets of plywood and the expansive back yard is surrounded by a tall stockade fence. The gutters have fallen, the green truck is nearly invisible behind the tall grass.

For Jeffrey A. York and his family this place was home, but neighbors say the “quiet” Yorks lived a lifestyle of seclusion fettered with abundant firearms, ammunition and explosives.

The Madison Township Police Department alleges the home was also a place of violence and rape.

York, 47, was secretly indicted Aug. 31 on two counts of rape involving a female under the age of 13, five counts of gross sexual imposition, six counts of child endangerment, one count of aggravated menacing and five counts of domestic violence, Madison Township Police Detective Dan Boerner said.

Lake County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested York on Wednesday after the secret indictment was filed, Boerner said. York was arraigned on Friday and bond was set at $250,000 cash or surety with the condition that he not have any contact with any of adult/minor victims and is subject to GPS monitoring (if bail was posted),” Boerner said.

Boerner said there was no record of any similar criminal activity in York’s past.

Across the street from the ramshackle house, Allan Smith and his family have watched the York property deteriorate year after year.

“We moved here in 1993 and (the Yorks) moved in about 1995,” Smith said. “The property was always immaculate before they moved in. You could see the fields they own. Now there is a fence and everything is so overgrown you can’t even see that fence. The house started to fall apart, but they would just board up the broken windows and ignore the tall grass.”

And that is when the Smith family started to wonder about the Yorks.

Then, Smith said, came the deliveries of firearms and all day and late-night shooting sessions with loud, high-powered guns.

“He would shoot his guns all day off and on and then sometimes at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. we would hear a gun go off,” Smith said.

Smith said York would also set off large fireworks and other explosives on holidays and would set “huge bonfires so big it was scary.”

York was also fond of building ramshackle, homemade structures on his property, Smith said.

In December Madison Township police officers assisted York’s wife as she left the residence. She accuses York of a sex offense involving one of the victims that occurred several years (prior),” Boerner said.

Boerner said the female caller also requested assistance in leaving the residence with her seven children, ages three months to 19 years.

“Officers arrived at the residence and transported the caller and her children to the Madison Township Police Department. The caller and her children were subsequently taken to a women’s shelter without incident,” Boerner said.

“One of the child endangering counts is based on the allegation that the defendant locked a child in their room, on and off, for a period of one year with limited access to the rest of the family, food, water, restroom and clothing,” Boerner said. He said an 8 by 10 foot room was divided into sections that included two thirds of the room being used for storage, leaving approximately one third of the room for living space.

Boerner said the child was periodically able to leave to go to the restroom.

“By all accounts, the family appeared to have been cut off from the outside world with no real resources to speak of. The children of age to attend public school, were all home schooled, and did not have any friends to speak of,” Boerner said.

Boerner said the rape and gross sexual imposition charges involved the same female child, but refused to identify the age of the victim. He also said there were two girls and five boys among the children.

Smith said he frequently joked about his eccentric, reclusive neighbor.

“I would say, ‘one day they will be able to make a movie out of what goes on at that house.’ Of course I had no idea what horrible things were happening there, but looking back now I can see that something wasn’t right,” he said.

Now the Smith family fears York may post bond and come back to his house.

“My children are scared that (York) will make bail and come home,” Smith said. “We hate what happened to his children and his wife in that house, but we are at the same time so grateful that he didn’t come after our kids. We don’t want him back here living across the street. There is a very real fear in that possibility.”