I was thinking if his wife got it out in the yard the gardeners could too. That’s all.
It seems to be more of an indoor thing, though. Outdoors, the virus-bearing particulates dissipate and become inert (the virus “dies”), but indoors, in an enclosed space, they can get kicked up into the air where they get inhaled. If it was in the house, it must have been in an area into which she went but he did not.
Those are really good points about that virus. At my job, I clean up a lot of mouse droppings inside and outside. When I vacuum or blast them out of a crevice, the sediment does get all over my mask and clothes. I hadn’t yet considered the varied condition of the virus so am glad you brought that up!
From what I read, there was no evidence of rodents in the house, but they had other buildings on the property (garden sheds or whatever) that mice apparently did get into. Considering Hackman’s age and physical condition, he probably never ventured out there, but his wife apparently did.
Many of them do live differently. Some do not.
For an example: Warren Buffet, a billionaire living in Omaha, lives in the same house he bought in 1958. Sure, it’s a nice house - 6,000+ square feet, five bedrooms, 2.5 baths - but it’s the sort of sprawling mansion you might expect from a billionaire, and not requiring a staff of people to maintain (I have no idea if he hires someone to tend the landscaping or whatever, but it’s small enough a person could do it on his own if he wanted to do so). Sure, he owns other properties, some quite fancy, but the Omaha house is where he lives day-to-day.
Not everyone who is wealthy feels compelled to spend compulsively, and no everyone wants a sprawling mansion, or a staff of people in their lives.
Speaking as someone who lost a spouse - even a high-functioning younger person can find that sort of shock quite incapacitating. The first week after my husband died I only ate daily because my sister was there to watch over me. I was a wreck. Now, I was relatively young and healthy and probably would have survived if I had been on my own. If I had been 95, unsteady on my feet, with a host of health problems? Not so much.
Grief can have a truly profound effect on a person, resembling incapacitating mental illness, and/or causing physical effects. People in deep grief are not rational actors, even less so than in normal times.
It’s possible that Hackman was healthy and functional enough that Arakawa could care for him on her own but the shock of her dying sent him into a tailspin.
I do think that, essentially, accusing his wife of neglect and abuse is out of line. Her dying first is not an act of neglect or abuse.
Also:
^ This. There came a point caring for my dying husband when I was, in fact, over my head. That’s why I had to put him in a nursing home at one point - but would I have done that if my sister hadn’t been there to push me in that direction? I felt terrible, I felt like a failure, I felt I was “abandoning” my husband when I did that… because I wasn’t entirely rational. In retrospect it was absolutely the only thing to do at the point but in the middle of the mess that wasn’t so clear to me.
Perhaps Arakawa had been managing just fine, and Hackman was, despite age and perhaps some mental deterioration, not completely incapacitated. Perhaps it didn’t occur to her to make provisions in case something happened to her.
Perhaps she did and those people she asked to act as back up failed in their jobs?
As a widow who lives alone I have often faced the problem of people who STOP calling me if they know I’m not feeling well. They “don’t want to bother” me. NO, NO FOR GOD’S SAKE PLEASE BOTHER ME! I’m not talking 3 hour phone calls, just check in with me for Og’s sake. I live alone. I don’t want to be found after I’m dead because I’m decayed enough the neighbors are complaining about the smell and my poor parrot is also lying dead in his cage. When I had covid the first time I asked three different people to check in with me and, if I didn’t respond within a half an hour, call 911 for me. Two of them did so. The third did not, kept saying how he didn’t like to be bothered when he was sick, didn’t want to “bother” me… well, OK, now I have a better idea who can and can’t be relied upon.
So yes, it can be a problem getting someone formerly independent to accept help. It can also be a problem to get people to do something as simple as make contact every couple days to see if you’re still responding.
I don’t know if the the Hackman/Arakawa household had anything like that. Maybe they did but for whatever reason no one called. Maybe they didn’t, but if they had maybe Hackman would have been found alive a day or three after Arakawa died instead of being found dead himself.
No one is required to have a maid, no matter how wealthy, or aged.
Gretchen Wilson, a country music singer, is a multi-millionaire. During an interview conduction in her modest, 3 bedroom home the interviewer expressed surprised that she was still living in such a small home and asked about her plans to upgrade. Wilson responded that she never wanted to live in a place so large she couldn’t take care of it herself. She’s moved around a bit since then, but apparently has stuck to homes in the 2,000-3,000 square foot range because, I guess, that’s all she feels she needs.
We notice the people living in the big, lavish mansions. We don’t notice the rich people living modestly in middle class/upper middle class neighborhoods. Having in-home help can be quite intrusive. If wealthy people want to live in modest homes and scrub their own toilets rather than have hired help tromping through their homes how would we ever know?
From my own history: my later father-in-law’s hobby in retirement was his house. He spent 8-12 hours a day tinkering with it AND cleaning it. Constantly doing a repair, and improvement, and keeping it immaculate. It’s what he did to keep busy and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Dumping tens of millions of dollars on him would probably not get him to hire help, he’d just use a higher quality of paint on the walls, get a new lawn tractor and hedgeclipper, and buy a new mophead every week. (He sort of did all that already) My mother-in-law sort of had your viewpoint - why do it when you can hire someone to do it for you? - but she let him do his thing and why not? She had a wonderful, clean house to live in and she didn’t have to work at it.
Yep, that’s exactly what happened. A groundskeeper walked by a door and saw Hackman lying motionless in the home. He call 911 to have someone come out and check out the situation.
I’ve previously posted my unpopular opinion that too many old people live longer than they ought to. Sure, Hackman was riding a bike a year ago. But if in the end he was stumbling around a house unable to feed himself or pick up a phone, IMO he had clearly passed his “sell by date.” But I don’t intend to debate that point here and now.
IMO he was also past any date that his partner should have assumed exclusive responsibility for caring for them.
I’ve known a few people whose partners cared for them as they declined in the years before they died. I’m sure many people differ from my sample, but the caregiver I knew became martyrs, giving up pretty much any life other than caring the declining partner. Most of the folk I know waited too long to get outside help - either nursing visits or placing the partner in a home. And each person who did seek such assistance later said what a relief it was and expressing that they should have done so earlier. I’m pretty sure each such caregiver expressed - I don’t think “resentment” is too strong a word - that their life had devolved to nothing more than changing diapers, spoonfeeding, cleaning up messes, managing chronic and emergency healthcare, waking in the middle of the night to deal with another crisis…
If nothing else, this horrible situation ought to inform folk caring for extremely impaired folk of the very real dangers of “going it alone.” If nothing else, just exchange emails or texts with someone on a regular basis, such that if you stop emailing/texting, the other person can check up on things. But better yet, get someone to come into the house for at least a couple of hours a couple of times a week, so you can at least enjoy a cup of tea in the yard without having to worry whether your partner will throw themselves out of their chair, choke on something, soil themself…
Hell, I’m just checking in on my parents (each living alone) and doing the occasional errand, and I’m exhausted. It’s a lot on top of a full-time job. I liken it to being the parent of late teens. Many caregivers are doing the parents-of-toddlers or parents-of-infants routine, without the reward of seeing them grow into the future.
Sufficient care is, of course, beyond everyone’s budget. Even those who can afford it are reluctant (my parents worry about my “inheritance”; I worry about collecting it too soon!).
Perhaps the situation wasn’t abusive, but sufficient help was not beyond the budget in this case. An impaired person who cannot summon help should not be reliant on a single caregiver with no outside supervision.
I was the main caregiver for my disabled parents for nearly thirty years, so I’m not just indulging in some recreational outrage here. I relied on local government programs and Catholic Charities and people from my mom’s Kingdom Hall to assist. When I had to be hospitalized for three days, I arranged for my mom’s JW friend to stay with her until I returned.
I’m sorry, but a main caregiver needs to anticipate declining situations, and provide for them ahead of time, including for the possibility of their own incapacitation.
Was there some sort of legal process whereby Gene Hackman was declared incompetent? If not it was his and his wife’s choice how they would live, and die.
Yes, and that choice led to a horrifying end.
Failure to do so is not the same thing as abuse. The primary caregiver may not appreciate the need for outside assistance, as @Broomstick eloquently points out from personal experience.
And during that week, the dog was starving to death in his crate? Do I have that right? 
I’ve already noted that perhaps there was no abuse involved. I was just speculating whether Arakawa would have any motive to isolate her husband which would be an abusive situation.
Yeah, what possible motive could a celebrity and their spouse have for isolating themselves? 
There’s a lot of speculation going on here. None of us knows what they could afford. It’s possible to look prosperous while having money trouble.
It’s also not true that no one does their own cleaning who can afford not to. Lots of people with money don’t hire housekeepers.
Gross. Yeah how dare she die before him of an extremely rare disease! So abusive.
You know, sometimes bad horrible things just happen and there is no one to blame.
Quoted for truth.
The horror we feel, looking on from the outside, is our responsibility, not theirs. They are not obliged to run their lives in such a way as to spare us from their tragedy.
I willingly clean my own toilets. Through the start of COVID, we had someone clean every other week. That was a few years out of a lifetime. I can afford it, but it’s not what I want to spend my money on. Most people I know make the same decision.
There is no reason to belief that barring her suddenly dying without much warning the circumstance needed any additional help.
Did you arrange to have an additional person check in every day on the JW friend while you were away out of concern that they might have suddenly died without warning?
Seriously we have NO IDEA what his degree of function and incapacity was before he was presented with the shock of seeing her dead on the floor. Some people with dementia decline slowly; some stay quite functional as long as their routine is consistent and their supports are in place … but a sudden stress is not something they can cope with.
We can imagine all kinds of shit. I imagine that she was very protective of him.
While I do a lot of the everyday housekeeping, I have a cleaning service to do my townhouse thoroughly once a month. It’s a bit of a stretch financially, but I’m old and find it physically difficult to do the heavier tasks. If I were younger and in better condition I’d probably not hire it done. Whether to have outside help and how often and for what is going to vary all over the place depending on individual circumstances, and I’m not about to judge anyone else’s choices.