While it does not answer your question about this couple, I do have some experience of living next door to a couple who are very strange and treat their children rather weirdly.
I live in a nice area, in a street of decent semi detached houses, where most of the families are what you may call "professional" people (middle class without being "rich").
But this couple next door just don't fit in to that bracket at all.
When my wife and I moved in about 20+ years ago he worked for an electronics company (fairly well paid I think) and they had two young children.
Neither parent knew how to look after their children so if it was cold with snow on the ground they would put them in back garden with no shoes or socks on and flimsy summer clothes.
We had to phone social services a number of times and also the NSPCC. My wife even videoed it and when Social Services came round to our house they watched the video. Even the school contacted social services as the parents were sending them to school in cold weather with no gloves or winter clothing.
Those children are now grown up (early 20s) but still live at home.
When we moved in there was an old Vauxhall Astra on the drive, plus a large Range Rover. The Astra is STILL on his drive, over 20 years later, and he has never driven it. He goes out in the Range Rover about once a month (if that).
He was a little strange, he was a "radio ham" and he used one of the large upstairs bedrooms as his radio room, leaving the two young children in the small "box" room.
Even though he has not done radio ham for years the family have NEVER used that large back bedroom and it is still full of his radio ham stuff, but covered in dust.
Meanwhile the two children went through their teens and early 20s both sleeping in the box room (about 8 foot by 6 foot) while this huge back bedroom was sitting there empty.
He was a hoarder, both inside and outside the house. Anyone who was having work done in the street (extensions, new drive etc) he would go there and collect any bricks they had left at the end and put them in his back garden.
He had a plan to build an extension on the side of the house with these assorted bricks but he has never done it and these hundreds of bricks are still sitting in a pile in his back garden.
About 15 years ago he had a load of sand and gravel delivered to the front of the house so he could build this extension. He got all his family to move all this sand and gravel to the back garden using a wheelbarrow (it took them ages).
But that sand and gravel is STILL sitting in his back garden after 15 or more years.
About 15 years ago, to build the extension, he moved a large greenhouse from near their house to the back of the garden. He took all the glass out, moved the greenhouse, but never put the glass back in.
They now have a huge greenhouse at the back of the garden with no glass in it.
He was made redundant about 15 years ago but has never had another job. He claims he has a bad back, but we have seen him in the garden climbing trees to curt down branches.
He now spends most of the day playing "war" computer games (we can hear the explosions and gun fire through the wall).
In fact he uses the main front living room as his "computer" room, even though he still has this huge empty bedroom upstairs with his radio ham stuff in it.
My wife has asked his wife why she does not ask him to get rid of all his old radio ham stuff but she says she is scared to bring the subject up.
Because he does not work they have very little money coming in. His wife does part time jobs here and there to bring in some money, while he sits at home playing on his computer.
Even when she is at work she always rushes home every day to make him his lunch, even though he is in all day doing nothing.
Their house is now a mess, they have not changed their curtains since we have lived here (over 20 years), never decorated the front of the house, they still have the Astra and Ra