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Mummified man found in front of TV, still on

IJ Reilly said:
It's already been plausibly suggested that he was on an automatic bill-paying plan. That's one of the things that got me about this story. So much of our lives can be put on automatic pilot these days that a person could die or disappear, and still appear to be officially present and accounted for. Sounds like a potential plot for a novel or a screenplay!
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Hard to believe that someone could EVERYTHING on automatic and yet not receive something like the newspaper that would begin to pile up. What about the guy's mail? Someone might want to talk to the mailman unless there was a slot in the door that accommodated a LOT of mail.
 
IJ Reilly said:
That's one of the things that got me about this story. So much of our lives can be put on automatic pilot these days that a person could die or disappear, and still appear to be officially present and accounted for.
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It is an odd thing - like the apocryphal story of the guy who died at his desk at work and people didn't notice for days...

The moral of the story is: If you want an open-casket funeral, don't get automatic bill pay.
 
Swarmlord said:
Hard to believe that someone could EVERYTHING on automatic and yet not receive something like the newspaper that would begin to pile up. What about the guy's mail? Someone might want to talk to the mailman unless there was a slot in the door that accommodated a LOT of mail.
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I expect a blind person would try to put as much of his financial life on automatic as possible. Most utilities and mortgage companies allow (and even encourage) automatic deductions, and Social Security and pension plans can deposit automatically. According to the story, the Post Office had stopped delivering, presumably when his mailbox filled up. I imagine the Post Office has to deal with people moving without leaving a forwarding address quite often, so they probably don't think much about mail piling up.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I think he was probably bored to death...so Regis Philbin becomes the prime suspect. Or maybe he was waiting for Bill O'Reilly to actually enter the no-spin zone. :rolleyes:
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Ya, I went through that mental check off list, but thought of either Dr. Phil or a rerun of fried Oprah, the how to get the right sized bra fit thing.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
It is an odd thing - like the apocryphal story of the guy who died at his desk at work and people didn't notice for days...

The moral of the story is: If you want an open-casket funeral, don't get automatic bill pay.
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And if you don't have any close friends or relatives, at least befriend a neighbor.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Most utilities and mortgage companies allow (and even encourage) automatic deductions, and Social Security and pension plans can deposit automatically.
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I forgot about Social Security - that, coupled with auto bill pay, would keep the cycle going as long as people didn't notice you were dead. :eek:

Those Life Alert things should have an "I'm dead, So I definitely can't get up" feature...:rolleyes:
 
Something very similar to this happened here in Bath. In fact it was someone who used to go to my school, bit of a story behind it.

While he was at school (about 3 years before me), he was very strange. He used to sit at the back of the classroom writing things about people on bits of paper and he never used to talk to anybody. He got expelled from the school after a year or two for being caught with illegal drugs on the school campus.

Anyway, he was 18 or something and nobody had seen him for 3 months. In a row of buildings to the left of the 'Picture Postcard' view of Bath, the Royal Crescent (in fact a few doors down from where I used to live), residents complained of a bad smell emanating from a flat on the third floor. Police investigated and found his body which had been slowly rotting for 3 months. It was assumed he'd died of a drugs overdose, but nobody knew he was there.


Again, nobody turned up to his funeral. It's so sad, all these poor lost people. It's such a waste of human life...
 
IJ Reilly said:
It's already been plausibly suggested that he was on an automatic bill-paying plan. That's one of the things that got me about this story. So much of our lives can be put on automatic pilot these days that a person could die or disappear, and still appear to be officially present and accounted for. Sounds like a potential plot for a novel or a screenplay!
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Next time an MR regular disappears we'll all wonder......

:eek:
 
interlaced said:
:eek: Eek. That is seriously creepy. How could the electricity be on for all this time? Oh and why is he even watching TV if he was blind?
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Every blind person I know watches TV. They listen to the sound. Eastenders and all that are popular. In the UK, blind people get quite a hefty discount on the TV licence fee.

I work in theatre, and we get blind people coming in quite regularly. Quite a few plays are audio-described - someone sits in a box describing whats on stage, and the blind attendees get that feed through headphones, as well as listening to the actors.

I'm deaf and no I can't get any discount at all on my TV licence fee. Huh. Most BBC output is now subbed, less so on other channels.

Oh yeah, a lot of stuff on TV is now audio-described as well as subbed, especially on the digital channels, where you can select different audio tracks.
 
xsedrinam said:
No disrespect intended with the TV programming guesses. I was called in by the City/State to conduct a funeral for an elderly person - no family members, no contacts, no friends, and no one at the funeral but the undertaker. Really sad that there are probably scores if not more of lost souls who take their last breath in obscurity.
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I think it is just an unavoidable fact of being very old -- You out live everyone you know. My grandmother is close to 100 now and all but a few the of the people she's known all her life are gone, except her "kids" (now near retirement age) five grand children and six great grand children. But if you didn't have a family and lived long enough.....

As you get older it gets physically harder to get out and meet new people and if they do they tend to do so with people in their own age group.
 
dllavaneras said:
Or the guy that died in the subway and people didn't notice until hours later (from the movie Collateral)

if you do get automated bill pay, how do you say "hey, I'm dead!"
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Let's say I decided to go sailing after I retire, Just take off and go around the world until I am no longer physically able. Heck it is even something I might really do. Being responsible I'd have expenses paid automatically by my bank. Then let's say I was lot at Sea, never seen or heard from again. How long would the automatic system continue? Would some day a Socal Security worker notice that I was 240 years old. Would they try and sue me to recover 150 years of payments? There has to be something built into the system Lot's of people must just "disappear"

This guy that made the news was easy to find. He lived in his own house. What if the guy was homeless or like above traveling in a remote location? I bet this happens more than we know.
 
ChrisA said:
Let's say I decided to go sailing after I retire, Just take off and go around the world until I am no longer physically able. Heck it is even something I might really do. Being responsible I'd have expenses paid automatically by my bank. Then let's say I was lot at Sea, never seen or heard from again. How long would the automatic system continue? Would some day a Socal Security worker notice that I was 240 years old. Would they try and sue me to recover 150 years of payments? There has to be something built into the system
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That's a really interesting question. I can think of several different answers:

- As long as everyone gets their money, no-one cares.

- If it was detected after 150 (!) years, there's nothing left of you to sue to recover payments.

- Here it's difficult to leave the UK without going through passport control, so I guess an advanced system might register that you had been out of the country for longer than 2 years (or whatever) and hence lost your right to call your UK home your main home, thus loosing local council benefits.

- In other countries with more leaky boarders, it could be possible.


Why don't you make your arrangements and let us know in 150 years?
 
Whatever happened to "I just want to be alone" or "I just don't like hanging around people"?

I get that way sometimes. Somedays, I can't get enough attention, others, I'd be much happier sitting in front of my computer. Maybe for some people, they just get tired of hanging around people. Or like someone else stated above, you just outlive all the people you want to hang out with and it just gets harder to communicate with the outside world.
 
mrkramer said:
so someone like Mad Jew?
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or me? :eek: :eek:


Nice thread to come back and say "I'm here" ;) ...

Where was amigomac? "not in front of TV"

I've been sometimes reading threads and news but because of personal and professional reasons was not really as I wanted. Sorry...

Anyway, I guess not too many people asked about me ... :( ;)


I'll try to be here continuously ...
 
phillipjfry said:
Whatever happened to "I just want to be alone" or "I just don't like hanging around people"?

I get that way sometimes. Somedays, I can't get enough attention, others, I'd be much happier sitting in front of my computer. Maybe for some people, they just get tired of hanging around people. Or like someone else stated above, you just outlive all the people you want to hang out with and it just gets harder to communicate with the outside world.
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Probably:
1. He had only on-line "friends".
2. He was gay as well and he never developed an actual familly.
 
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