The mayor of Chéniers, a village of 600 souls in the center of France, is still unable to reach it. A Dutch tenant (85) lay dead in the apartment on the first floor of ‘his’ town hall for no less than six months.
If Gilles Gaudon (69) had not become suspicious because of the withered flowers in front of the window, the remains of the Dutchman might have been in the apartment much longer. After that first signal that something might be wrong, the mayor inquired at the grocer where the eighty-year-old bought his groceries once a month. After the grutter told him he hadn’t seen the man in a while, Gaudon started an investigation.
He went from one surprise to another. It turned out that the Dutchman had not paid rent for the apartment of the municipality since July 2022. “Without the municipal treasury giving us a signal,” Gaudon told regional radio station France Bleu on Sunday. Neighbors also stated that although they had not seen the man in his eighties for quite some time, they did not find that strange because of the reclusive life that the man led. In addition, they had not smelled any abnormal odor.
Hermit life
Because it didn’t sit well with him, the mayor eventually called the fire brigade. On January 12, he made the macabre discovery in the apartment of the Dutchman. How could his death go unnoticed for so long, even in a house above the town hall? According to the mayor, this has not only to do with the hermit life that the eighties led. “Last year we were concerned about him, but when firefighters entered the apartment after breaking a window, they found him watching television in his easy chair,” Gaudon recalls.
Last year we were concerned but then firefighters found him watching television in his lounge chair
In the 35 years that he has been mayor, the sixty-year-old says he has never been confronted with such a situation before. According to him, it ‘sometimes’ happens that deceased residents are found, but that only happens a maximum of 72 hours after their death. “There was always a neighbor or acquaintance who alerted us.”
Social drama
According to deputy mayor Claude Auger, the Dutchman never opened the door when Gaudon or himself knocked on his door. “Not even when he was alive,” the deputy mayor told France Bleu. That, he says, explains why they didn’t act sooner. In retrospect, he finds that incomprehensible. “Why didn’t we say to ourselves: we’re going to check on him more often.”
Auger labeled the macabre case of the Dutchman as a ‘social drama’. “It is the death of a lonely and forgotten person and the grief of people who have broken ties not only with their families, but also with their communities.”
An elderly American woman, who, like the Dutchman, came to the village in the Creuse department to enjoy her old age, said she could not believe that the eighty-year-old had been lying dead in the house unnoticed for so long. “Six months, can you imagine? It’s awful,” said Maggie. The New York woman said she did not understand how the deceased could live so socially isolated. “I have great neighbors. Everyone takes care of me, I feel safe here.”
Grocer Pascal reacted with mixed feelings to the death of his Dutch customer. According to him, the eighty-year-old made no attempt to communicate. “He didn’t speak French, did his shopping, paid and left. Since he was a foreign tenant, we said to each other that he might have gone back to his country of origin. It’s sad to die alone, especially in the countryside,” said the grutter.
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