A question that came to me after reading the sad story of Joyce Carol Vincent.
Apparently Ms. Vincent lay dead in her apartment for more than 2 years before being discovered. Her body was too badly decomposed to determine an official cause of death, but foul play wasn’t suspected.
I live alone, don’t have an SO, have little contact with my mom or my sister and have a very small circle of friends. But having said that, I think that if I suddenly passed at home, it might be a week at most before someone found me. Someone at work would question why I haven’t shown up for several days, but never called in. And I live in a small, 6-unit apartment building, so one of my neighbors would certainly notice the smell as I lay rotting.
How long do you think it would be before someone found you?
When I take time off of work, I tend to go into hermit mode, and usually after three or four days, someone ends up doing a welfare check on me. (I’ve learned to make Facebook posts every few days to avoid that.) So, I’d say half a week or so if I simply disappeared while not scheduled to work.
A day or less if I was scheduled to work. Two coworkers live in the same apartment complex, and we carpool with a couple of other coworkers. They freaked out one day when I accidentally forgot to set my alarm, and an hour after I was scheduled to work, I had a coworker banging on my door and calling.
I’ve wondered about this myself. I work from home and I’m not sure my friends and family would worry much if they couldn’t get in touch with me for one or two weeks.
I’m pretty sure that after a month or two the landlord would want to know why I wasn’t paying the rent, though.
I also live alone without a significant other or many friends (sob!) but the landlord would probably break in after a month or so of unpaid rent. Work wouldn’t care, they would probably enjoy the peace and quiet
I have mobile meals delivered five days a week. If I didn’t answer the door, the driver would probably be concerned and call 911. So, a day at the most. If I croaked on a Friday, I might lie there until Monday.
If my wife is out of town (and I’m on a regular work schedule), she usually calls me every night. If she can’t reach me for two days in a row, I suspect she’d get worried. So three days tops I’d say.
I live alone, but probably someone would get concerned enough to come over to my house within a few days. I work, have an employee, and several people I communicate with or see on pretty much a daily basis. Plus my dogs would probably start raising a ruckus about not being walked, let out, fed…on the other hand… <shudders>
I have a wife and kids, and I travel on public transport to work in an office, so I would expect my death to be noticed within minutes. It might stretch to hours if a) I’d taken a day off work because I wasn’t feeling well or b) I died in my sleep.
However, recent sad local news has shown that a determined murderer can hide a body in my neighbourhood for a month, despite significant police efforts to find the missing person. So that would be the far end of the curve.
This happened to someone who lived in my apartment building in Florida.
Anyway, I also live alone and don’t have an SO. So it made me think.
So I’ve asked my boss to try to reach me if I don’t call in. If he can’t, he has my permission to call the apartment management to come check on me. If they can’t rouse me and the car is in its space, they have permission to come in. (They know I have a couple of health issues, and have been generally lovely helping out on occasion if needed.)
So, if it’s a weekday, less than 1 day.
A weekend…ehhhhh…
I take vacation with people, so no worries there. Someone would notice when I didn’t wake up when the bacon was frying and the coffee perking.
I don’t think I’ve been alone for longer than 12 hours at a stretch since I became a parent, so my body would be found somewhere between 0 and 12 hours after I vacated it.
Probably towards the lower end of that scale, unless I kicked the bucket (a) soon after going to bed on a Friday or Saturday night, or (b) early in the day on a day that I took off from work, but my wife was working and my son had school.
I live alone with no SO, and I basically work alone (work from home with just periodic contact from business partner) so I am alone a lot.
I used to go to my parents’ house every day to drop the dog off while I went out to the gym or grocery shopping or whatever, but the dog died so now I hardly see them.
Thankfully, I guess, my folks still check on me every other day or so via a call. I think they’d wait 3 days until realizing something was afoul.
Although…it might make a difference if I died with my office light on or not. My mom seems to notice the light when she drives by, and comments if I am working weird hours. If I died with the light off she might get suspicious sooner that I am not at work than if I do not answer the phone.
I live alone in a house far from neighbors I do not get any deliveries. I do have a dog*; but I do not think the neighbors would hear him barking in the house unless the windows were open and even then if they saw my car in the driveway they would not investigate. I get very little mail (hooray for paperless billing) and it is delivered to a PO box in town. It would be months before I got enough to fill the box and even then I doubt the PO workers would notice or care.
I do not have friends or family in this state and do not regularly correspond with anyone. I admit I am a hermit, recluse or whatever you want to call it. Oddly enough when I took the Meyers Briggs I was tested as an extrovert. I am very friendly when I am with people. I used to be a workaholic and did not devote time to maintaining relationships. I have been unemployed/retired since '08.
*This bothers me. He is smart enough and strong enough to tip over his large bin of food; but I know eventually he would get hungry enough to eat my body. And eventually he would starve too.
Not too long. I do spend my evenings in my subterranean lair while my father lounges upstairs. On a weeknight he would probably come see what was up if I didn’t come upstairs around my bedtime. On a weekend it could take a little longer but not more than a day.
On a weekday, my body wouldn’t make it to 10:00 am. I’d be missed at work and someone would come looking for me. On a weekend, probably late afternoon or early evening.
