On 4/2/2023 0:07, Thomas Joseph wrote:
> Michael Trew wrote:
>
>> Heh... I almost spit my coffee out. I didn't notice any fewer responses
>> on John threads... he was gone?
>
> Interesting topic - at what point do people become missed.
Core posters like Sheldon are noticed missing within days. I go out of
my way to avoid Kuthe posts, but I'll read subject drifts on his topics,
which tend to roll on and on... hence why I didn't notice his absence.
> I remember years ago reading about two elderly brothers who
> shared a large home in the L.A. area. One of them died and
> his brother never knew it. Only after a friend of the one who
> had died started asking questions did the cops become involved.
> It was an interesting story. The living brother was not arrested
> or even a suspect. All I could think of reading the article was,
> "Man, what a great roommate that would be - someone who
> could die and you don't even know it because he was so quiet
> when he was alive." LOL.
I was touring the USA's first housing development, all solid concrete
row houses built circa 1915 for Youngstown (Ohio) Sheet & Tube as
company housing. By "touring", I mean exploring abandoned structures,
because 90 per cent of the hundreds of concrete homes are totally
abandoned in a now bad neighborhood. The few remaining inhabitants were
an odd, unfriendly, and trashy group, probably basically hobos living in
these run-down homes for free.
Anyway, talking to the "historian" (kinda wacky guy) who owns several of
them, he bought one row house for a five hundred dollars, which
literally hadn't been painted or touched inside since it was built. Two
dirt-poor immigrant brothers working for the company lived in it since
new, and bought it cheap when the company went under. Guy told me that
they literally just existed in there -- lived for decades with no water
or electric -- these guys didn't spend *any* money. Original fixtures,
peeling lead paint, and wood/coal cook stove.
Years ago, someone noticed a terrible stench, and it was found that one
brother had died and was decayed to an advance state inside. The other
brother, now elderly, continued to live with the dead brother just
laying in one of the bedrooms, as if nothing had happened. What a
bizarre group... the other is now long passed. The guy who bought the
house for $500 found *thousands* and thousands of dollars stashed away
inside, which he used to buy a bunch of the concrete homes and materials
to repair them, to try to save some of them.
Sorry for the TJ length story ;)