Death after ER paid for?? (cremation/burial)

[friar1610]

I've made no plans for myself.
But I do sometimes wonder: if I die quietly in my home, how long will it be before anyone notices they haven't seen me in a while.

I inherited my parents' retirement home after they both died. I had it rented out for a few years to a "little old lady" who lived alone. One day the neighbor across the street noticed that she hadn't seen her for a few days. Called her. No answer. Kept calling. Still no answer. Called the cops. The tenant had expired within the past several days. The neighbor called me in another state to tell me about it. I called my rental house and spoke to the cop. He said it wasn't pretty.

Unrelated to the above directly, whenever I was in the area where the house was, I would call the little old lady and tell her I'd like to do a maintenance walk-through to make sure nothing was broken that I needed to fix. (Real motive: check up on what she was doing to the house.) I noticed that she had a lot of (Catholic) religious icons, statues, etc. and lots of candles. Apparently she liked to light candles and pray. Only after she died and we cleaned out the house did I find all the empty Canadian Club jugs. Another neighbor whose son worked at the local liquor store told me the little old lady was a regular customer and really liked her CC. Thank God she didn't burn herself to death and take the house with it!

 

[Kroeran]

booze and religion...bring it on...whatever gets you through the night

might take up smoking grass when I'm 70, cocaine when I'm 80, LSD when I'm 90

sort of a twist on no martini's before 5 o'clock

 

[DayDreaming]

Earlier this year for a woman in Edinburgh, Scotland it took 6 years

I found an article on that here - how sad.

I'm still relatively young'ish, healthy, and regularly talk to friends so I'm not really worried at this point. But someday...

 

[freebird5825]

I've made no plans for myself.
But I do sometimes wonder: if I die quietly in my home, how long will it be before anyone notices they haven't seen me in a while.

This is actually a very legitimate concern. Some of us have no close family by circumstance or deliberate choice, and friends of course come and go over the years.
I did my Revocable Living Trust including Final Arrangements instructions back in 2007. I really struggled with this issue, as I am self estranged from a really wacked out set of siblings. So I stuck my Succesor Trustee as bill payer and dh2b as decision maker. Let them worry about it.