I can give that a pass. I delivered convalescent supplies to patients. I drove a cube van to deliver adult diapers, IV supplies, urine collection bags, and related items. Those that did not have V.O.N. or some other nursing service come once a week could have homes that were truly, horrifically rank, depending on their mobility and whether or not they had any help at all. Usually it was due to rotting food in the garbage, or bins full of soiled adult diapers because they had to wait until their “helper” came to take it out. I was often late on my runs because, as a small woman, the little old ladies didn’t find me intimidating, so they would ask me to do little tasks like changing light bulbs.
It IS a stretch to think the landlord never noticed, but I don’t think it’s totally impossible. Especially if she never really went in close to inspect the state of the place or got much beyond the front door. I’ve made deliveries to places where it ALWAYS smelled like the person had just pooped their drawers. Some were well-known enough that dispatch would warn me ahead of time. More often than not, these were male patients. The women seemed to have better support networks to look in on them. I really, REALLY developed a lot of respect for home health care/nursing services like V.O.N. because it was so obvious how significant a difference was to have them helping people out.
I used to go inside many of the places though to put the supplies away. I probably would have noticed if someone had been stuck in the same place. For the places that never let me in past the front door, there could have been their room mate’s mummified remains on the living room and I’d never have known.
And certainly after two days, the roommates should have been deciding whether to call 911. If a guy can’t get out of his chair even to take a shit, I don’t care what he says: he needs help.
I hope the police check this out. I’m wondering if these “roommates” were cashing his social security disability checks? Milking a cash cow for as long as possible.
There’s no way they didn’t notice the smell and maggots.
Yeah, if someone can’t manage to get up, even for a quick trip to the potty, in two days, I’d say that it’s time to call in medical help. Not necessarily 911, because the person isn’t actually in an emergency (that is, the person won’t die without immediate treatment) but this is an URGENT situation, and needs to be resolved.
The saddest part is that this isn’t the first time this has happened. Good grief people, get off the sofa!
FWIW, I know a woman who was VERY large who spent a crazy amount of time on the sofa because she couldn’t walk. She lived with her brother who would bring her food, fresh diapers, etc but she NEVER just went to the bathroom on herself. I think that’s a completely different level of unwell.
FWIW, she eventually got some mental health care and began taking an antidepressant which helped her a great deal. She lost close to 200 pounds - here’s the kicker - she still couldn’t walk, despite losing about half her person, because her knees had atrophied in a bent position - she spent months with a physiotherapist and was never able to get more than about 120 degrees straight. She was eventually able to move about with a walker but she certainly didn’t have the mobility she had hoped for.
But that’s what I was wondering above. The news link in the OP made it seem as if there wasn’t necessarily any health agency that had any kind of responsibility/jurisdiction to do anything if the guy was conscious and lucid saying: “Leave me alone! I’m fine.” Clearly he’s not fine, but I’m kind of wondering if they tried to get help earlier on but got hamstrung by bureaucracy or something.
You’d figure that the call would go to “social services”, but the article made it sound like there is a failure in the “social services” system if you’re not a child or elderly.
I probably would have called the cops at some point just saying “Something is really wrong with my room mate” and then let the cops see for themselves. Surely somebody would be able to figure something out.
I think that if someone is soiling him/herself on a regular basis, then a doctor needs to be called. This guy was clearly a danger to himself, even if he wasn’t actively endangering others. If nothing else, the accumulation of human waste is a health code violation.
I’m wondering if there wasn’t some serious dementia, maybe frontal lobe atrophy, at play here.
And, yeah, if someone has not moved from a chair in two days and is sitting in their own waste, you call 911. You won’t be able to tell if it’s a stroke, sudden onset of dementia, drug overdose, or some other issue, but the person is in need of immediate medical care and clearly cannot make the decision themselves.
There’s gotta be more to the housemates’ stories. And the girlfriend. *WTF? Nobody saw anything wrong with his armchair having been converted to a commode without the conversion? *
That was no blanket. That was an invisibility cloak.