I mean, they might, but in my house at least you can’t see the mail piling up - there’s no glass in the door, and you could put an awful lot of mail through. Packages left might get noticed, but who’s ordering packages to you if you’re dead?
The postal carrier or someone from the utility company would likely see there is no activity there, mail isn’t being picked up, and there is no reply for unpaid utility bills. Unpaid utility bills usually cause the service to be cut-off and they would unlikely do that without contacting the owner. Especially during winter, I don’t think they would cut off utilities to deny someone heat because of an unpaid bill.
The surroundings would get attention if the lawn isn’t being cared for someone might complain to the city and they would check things out.
I read a story of a guy who lived alone and retired. He passed away in his home and it was about a week until the death was discovered. I think a family member was trying to get in touch with him and couldn’t.
You can’t always rely on the neighbours though.
This happened with a guy from work. He failed to show up, they went to check on him and found him dead from a heart attack. It was a couple days (over a weekend).
Wow. That’s a wild six degrees kind of thing.
My parents’ elderly neighbor had one of those, and they were on the contact list from the company. They had to go over a few times and help her up.
I’m recalling a Lake Woebegon story where a man, who’d been meaning to fix the latch on the inside, got stuck in a shed when the wind blew the door shut on him. His adult son opened the door and entered the shed to find out what the pounding was – and shut the door behind him. They busted out the small window in the door but couldn’t reach the outside latch. About then the wife/mother got in her car to go to work. One of them frantically waved through the window; she waved back and drove off.
Like pkbites I’ve had multiple calls like this over the years. Its the logical things that most have mentioned. Mailman, Meals on Wheels, neighbor who realizes they haven’t seen neighbor in a while, family member not in the area calling it in, flies on the window…
There is no specific time limit. There just has to be enough exigent circumstances to make it an exception to the fourth amendment.
At least as often, probably twice as often, instead of finding a dead body what we find is that they were out at the store, were visiting relatives for a week or in the hospital. We have to look at all the circumstances and not just kick in the door right away.
Yeah, we’ve had a couple of times where things looked bad and it turned out to be something else. We went into a guys house where he didn’t show up for work or return calls for almost 2 weeks. He wasn’t there. Turned out someone screwed up and forgot that months prior he had requested and gotten approved vacation time.
He actually came back from Hawaii while we were in his house. No joke.
He was annoyed at us and his coworkers but it was still a happier ending than the several times we went in and the dude was dead from doing the c & s. People be surprised what a common form of accidental death that is.
What the heck is “the c & s”?
I’m assuming autoerotic asphyxiation.
Yep. Choke and Stroke.
Whenever one sees an obit for a realitevly young guy who “passed away unexpectedly” it could be a heart attack or suicide. But sometimes the guy was found with a clothes line stretched across his bed posts and his junk in his hand. One guy had made a weird contraption with weights that was supposed to prevent his full weight from hanging himself.
It failed.
The lack of oxygen is supposed to heighten pleasure. Guess these guys never heard of poppers.
And it’s always a guy. In 36+ years I’ve never been to one involving a woman.
My cousin’s husband was concerned about my aunt, who lived on her own. He made an autodialler triggered by the toilet cistern. If the toilet wasn’t used for over 12 hours, it would dial a programmed number and play a recorded message. I think he initially had it call their number so he could check on her if it was triggered.
The call button on a lanyard is reasonable common around here. I believe there are several organisations who operate a service for people who may need it. As others have said, you need to still be aware to be able to use it, so mostly for falls or other reasons that you can’t get up.
There’s a period of time in both the Spring & Fall where my HVAC is off as I need neither heat nor A/C. If one were to die either overnight or during the day (when no lights were on) I’d assume it would take some time for the utility bills to run up enough of a balance for anyone to notice. No one in the house would be using water or gas & there’s only minimal electrical usage from things like the stove/microwave clocks, the computer, etc.
With more & more people doing electronic bills it would even take some time for the mailbox to overflow. We have one of those community mailboxes & it’s around the corner, I only get the (junk) mail about once a week; it would take the mailman a few weeks to notice something.
Just after I posted the above, I got an email from my Ye Olde House of Worship about a member who had died. The standard - funeral arrangements, next of kin, etc.
While I don’t know who it was by name, it sounds like he was never married. Siblings living in other states & was old enough to have numerous grand nieces & nephews. Given the subject of this thread, one has to wonder how long until someone knew he was deceased.
As it happens, the French mail service is now offering a regular check on isolated elderly people (for a subscription):
Though one does wonder whether the concerned relatives mightn’t just pick up the phone once in a while.
Not everyone has relatives.
Not everyone’s relatives give a damn.
Also, the in-person postal employee might see things (particularly if they actually interact with the elderly) that a distant relative may not pick up on.
The bar I frequent would notice a drastic fall in sales.
I’ve had calls like this as well. One thing I have noticed is that neighbors don’t always talk and get to know each other like they did years ago. Even though they don’t talk, people still seem to notice their neighbors habits and will call when those habits aren’t happening. A couple of years ago we had a person call because their neighbor hadn’t put out their trash for several weeks. The callers concern was that the smell of un-picked up trash would attract vermin. Fortunately, the person in question had called the dispatch center and told us they were visiting family for a month, (PD provides an out of town watch service) so nothing was wrong. The thing that got me was that the caller noticed no trash can at the street for three weeks, but didn’t notice a police car stopping by and walking around their neighbors house three times a day.
We also get a lot of calls from the Post Office when they notice mail piling up, some of them have been dead, but we have had several where they have fallen and we were able to save them. We have given awards to the mail carriers for their efforts. In this area, word seems to spread and all of the mail carriers do a great job of paying attention.
I go to dialysis three times a week. If I were to miss a session, the staff would become extremely concerned and undoubtedly would call the Sheriff’s Office to do a welfare check. I wouldn’t wish dialysis on anybody, but they do take it seriously if you don’t show up.
When I worked in real estate, we got a call from the daughter of the owner of a house we had listed. She hadn’t heard from her father in a week, and could we check on him.
The agent and I took the key, opened the front door, and got an unbelievable stench. He closed the door, and asked me what to do. I called the police, and they came over and went into the house.
It turned out the owner had been dead for about a week, during a July heat wave.