As part of a tour my husband and I took of the Tower of London, we were shown the room where the Little Princes last slept. The Yeoman Warder said that the room used to be living space for (modern) Tower residents. I found the idea of living where someone died very creepy. In hindsight, the UK doesn’t have a lot of space and many historical buildings; living where a cadaver once was would be very common. (Maybe it’s my U.S. upbringing. At Westminster Abby I felt discourteous walking on the tombs of Charles Darwin and other notables.)
There was a piece in the news today about the house that Jon Benet Ramsey died in. It was sold a few years ago and is being remodeled. While I understand that life moves on, the article gave me the willies.
Would you live in a place if you knew that someone died there? If you do live in such a place, how to do feel about it?
Absolutely. I don’t have any spiritual or religious beliefs or hangups concerning death, so for me a dead body is pretty much a lump of meat. I see no reason whatsoever to decline to live somewhere because of that.
Of course, if the death was recent and had affected the room in some unpleasant way (smell, disease, etc.) i might have second thoughts, but that would be unrelated to the fact of the death itself, and would be merely a health or comfort issue.
I’ve also never understood people who wouldn’t live in a house where, for example, a murder took place. Unless there was a specific reason to fear that the house’s new occupants might also be susceptible to violence, it wouldn’t worry me at all.
My next-door neighbor, who has lived in his house for almost 40 years, told me that the house where i live was the scene of a home invasion sometime back in the early nineties. I’ve never checked it out, but he has no reason to lie. And it doesn’t worry me at all.
The first apartment we lived in together had its previous occupant die (of old age) in it. My wife swore the place was haunted because she would often be awoken by feeling something running over her feet at night in bed while sleeping (this was before we owned cats, and no–there were no rodent problems in the apt.). Other than that, which we’d joke about so the “haunting” never really bothered her, we never much thought about it.
Some relatives of mine bought a house in Pennsylvania. When they were doing the inspection one of the bedrooms had a freshly painted 1’ x 1’ square on one of the walls fairly close to the ceiling.
Turns out the previous resident had shot themselves in that room and that’s where the bullet went into the wall.
They bought the house and never thought anything of it.
Sure. Actually it might work in your favor since so many people don’t want to live in places where death has occured, especially murders. It could help in negotiations to get the seller to come down on their price.
My mom worked in a nursing home, where many people benignly died. Years after she retired, it was knocked down and a ultra pricey condo block was put up at its location. I have a sick thrill in driving past and hollering "Hundreds of people died there!!! "
Of course. Part of it is that I love old houses, and will live in them for as long as I can do so. Chances are, someone has died in each of them.
Heck, Dad died at home last year. Mom had gotten a hospital bed for him which would not fit in their bedroom, so he was using my old bedroom while he convalesced after a stroke. When I visit home, I sleep in the room where my dad died. It was a little odd to think about the first time, but I look at it this way: he’s my Dad. He loved me his whole life, and I loved him. Something significant happened to him in my room, but nothing unnatural or creepy.
My sister inherited my mother’s house, and sleeps in the bedroom where Mom died.
We still joke about Mom rolling in her grave over the redecorating job my sister did. Heck, we’ve had her rolling over so much for all kinds of reasons that I suggested sticking a driveshaft up her butt and generating electricity.
A normal death is a fact of life, and the idea of sleeping where someone died doesn’t faze me. Even a notorious death can be dealt with by little judicious remodeling.
“…and prior to leaping out of the refrigerator into the former tenant’s pants, we believe the badger slept here in the basement next to the oil furnace in a nest made of old Mad Magazines. The washer and dryer is this way — and in the interest of full disclosure, let me say there’s an amusing story about another former tenant who died in the washing machine under unusual circumstances…”
Heck, a friend of mine was having trouble finding a place to rent in a big-ish west coast city. He specifically read the obits to track down rental property.
One of the previous owners of my house died in the living room and there remained for two days until her daughter found her. Death happens. Doesn’t bother me. In fact, my partner and I have discussed purchasing a home next to a cemetary. Often they are cheaper because many people refuse to live that close to where the dead “sleep.”
The additional bonus is that I’ll be the first to have my brains eaten when the zombies come, thus sparing me the psychological trauma of having to deal with the living dead.
I do live in a house where someone died; Mr. SCL was raised in this house and his mother died here. In the master bedroom where we sleep. The hospital had said there was nothing they could do for Mom, so we contacted hospice and brought her home.
I’ve never really thought about sleeping in the room where she died. I did insist that we redecorate the room; it was painted pink. I hate pink.
Wow…timing. My wife said to me not two days ago “I don’t know if I could sleep in a room where someone had died”. I reminded her that our home is 147 years old, and there was very little chance that in all that time, no one had died here. I couldn’t say for certain whether or not they died in our bedroom, but since it’s the master bedroom the odds are pretty damn good.
Then I realized that sometimes, I talk too fucking much.
ETA: My mom still sleep in the same bedroom where by father died. Same bed, if I’m not mistaken.
Sure, people die all the time. It wouldn’t bother me.
As an aside (but kinda relevant) When I was in the ICU in 03 I was complaining the morphine giving me halucinations and making me hear things. One of the night nurses commented that maybe it was the morphine, after all, many many people had probably died in that bed and maybe it was their spirits… The night nurses were a fun group.
I always thought I’d be creeped out by it, and was unnerved by stories of people who were terminally ill and WANTED to die at home. EEeeek! Death is for hospitals, I’d think!
But when my mom had cancer, she died at home (where she wanted to be). I guess before it happened I wondered if her spirit would be, I dunno, bouncing off the walls in there, or somehow lingering in some creepy way, but after she died I didn’t feel that way anymore. I don’t live in the house where she died, but my Dad still does. I visit, and sleep there, and would have no problem living there. My Dad, incidentally, sleeps in the room where she died.
Before this, I may have been unnerved to learn someone had died in the house were I lived. But now I don’t think it would get to me much, if at all.
The night nurses were a fun group.