Authorities raided a home in Houston, Texas on Wednesday after receiving a call to help save a family held by smugglers in the house, and found 110 undocumented immigrants trapped inside.

Authorities describe the house as a putrid, packed "stash house" where smugglers locked the immigrants away, pending payment for their freedom, the Houston Chronicle reports.

An anonymous tipper told authorities the night prior that he was being extorted by smugglers, and that a "coyote drop" of a woman, her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son was supposed to have taken place on Tuesday but didn't happen, and they are now missing.

Authorities set up surveillance Wednesday morning at the house. At 10 a.m., they stopped two men in a vehicle who were leaving the house, and three more suspected smugglers were arrested after attempting to flee the scene.

When authorities opened the door to the house, they saw a "sea of people coming at the officers as they entered," said Houston Police Department spokesperson John Cannon.

Police and federal agents found the immigrants packed into the house, some sitting on each other's laps, hungry, thirsty and tired. The house had been locked from the outside, and the windows were boarded from the inside, authorities said.

The single-story house in south Harris County is 1,284 square feet, although neighbors said an addition had been added on to the structure.

Some of the prisoners said they were in the house for two days, and others said they had been held hostage for more than two weeks.

"The smell and conditions were just awful," Cannon said, adding there were plastic trash bags and clothes everywhere, a single toilet and no hot water. The occupants' shoes had been confiscated so they couldn't run away, and men were stripped down to their underwear. The majority of the occupants were men, and ranged in age from 5 to 47. Seventeen of the hostages were juveniles.

"They just don't care. No decency for humans," said Ellea Johnson, a neighbor who lives across the street. "That's what got to me."

The bust marked the biggest raid in Houston in the last seven years. Houston is a hub for smuggling people into Texas and the rest of the U.S., said Greg Palmore, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations.

"This case demonstrates the human tragedy that occurs as a result of our broken borders," said U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, who represents part of Harris County. "Last year over 100,000 people entered the United States illegally through Texas alone and the Department of Homeland Security has no plan to stop the flow."

Most of the people in the house were taken onto buses to go to a detention facility in north Houston, where they will be interviewed, fingerprinted and medically examined. The majority are likely to be deported.

Most of the immigrants are from Central America, including Honduras, meaning they had to travel through Mexico, which is a notoriously dangerous place for undocumented immigrants.

There are many instances of people being robbed, rapped and temporarily imprisoned before making it to Mexico's northern border.

While the large number of immigrants found in the house does not indicate that more people are being brought through Houston, it shows that one group had the audacity to imprison that many people in one house, Palmore said.