Why didn't someone help them?

Efforts were made to have them clean up the place, which was done--although they messed it up again.

I have a feeling there would have been issues in actually having them removed from the house or placed somewhere since they were both mentally lucid--they may have behaved strangely, but they were intelligent.

Please watch the show "Hoarders". Or "Intervention". There isn't anything much anyone can do to "help" someone until things get really hairy. If there isn't a threat to someone's life or property, there's not much anyone can do, legally.

The problem is that the Edies didn't want any help. They didn't think they needed it, and the mandated cleanup was useless, anyway.

I don't understand what you mean by help? She's a typical Liberal in the Hamptons. A Conservative in the Hamptons would have: Fixed the plumbing, repaired the plaster walls, had the house painted so the wood wouldn't dry out thus leading to decayed wood which allowed the raccoon infestation and removed the 20 to 30 foot high hedges which also provides protection from the elements for wildlife.
She's a typical Liberal crazy cat lady who sleeps with the flea-bitten strange cats and allows them to go to the bathroom all over the house. Which "Help" would you call first: The hardware store to send over cleaning supplies and cat litter and cat litter boxes, a construction guy to replaster the walls or install drywall, a construction guy to replace the rotting wood on the exterior, and finally painters to repaint every square of the interior AND the exterior. Oh, and a few dozen gardeners with scythes and bramble mowers to remove acres of the weeds.
These two women have a mental disorder and neither sees the reason for maintaining the property both from a health issue or from an economic standpoint, and they are certainly lowering the property value of the neighboring ocean front homes even as the daughter swims or suntans herself. And from the looks of things the house hasn't been painted inside or out in decades, and the hedges haven't been trimmed in 20 years either.