Yup - something is wrong with this story. No city was identified as far as I could find. The kids were taken by the State for a month and placed where? More lousy reporting. If everything is true as written, the parents need a good lawyer to sue them all.
When I was 11 years old it wasn’t unusual for my sisters and I do be alone at home for a few hours. We had chores we had to do before our parents got home.