Sorry...the link didn't post.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--long-deadman0217feb17,0,5099428,print.story

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to story

I saw this on the TV--what a sad way to end your life and no one cared enough to check on him

How are you Wendy???

Florence

Yikes! That is sad.

MichaelAT

Well, it sounds sad, but 'TV still on' as in operating?

Who was paying the power bill?

If this is true, I agree the neighbors should be whipped. Right along with the mail carrier, public utilities who should have noticed the lack of payments etc.

Mine must be one nosy neighborhood, anything that appears to be out of ordinary with even a loose schedule is checked on. DH thought an older neighbors house looked too quiet, too dark, too early one night after we hadn't seen her outdoors in ONE day and called....woke Catherine out of a sound sleep at 8 PM, she'd gotten bored with television, turned off the lights and gone to bed :)

It's sad.
But there's another side to it. There wasn't anyone he was checking on...who would have noticed his inaction and would have done something about it.
If he had family, they didn't make an effort to know his neighbors...or to give phone numbers to call.
It's only a two way street if people want it to be. If one wants privacy, there is a price.

The print edition story gives more details about him and his neighbors. The poor guy was a long-time resident with long-time neighbors:

Mail had piled up, but then stopped being delivered. Neighbors said they had tried to keep an eye on Riccardi, who had diabetes and had become blind in his 50s... Next door neighbors said they never noticed the mail piling up. Another neighbor saw the mail pile up and thought he was in the hospital. Riccardi lived in the home for decades. He built the two-story house after he emigrated from Italy and worked in construction. It's not known why power wasn't shut off or mail stopped being delivered.

Oh, here it is:

Here is a link that might be useful: More detailed news story

One of her neighbors found my mom. She had a massive brain anyurism(sp?) while she was apparently taking in her trash barrel and collapsed on the driveway. Since she was so petite no one noticed she was behind the barrel for 2 days. Then one neighbor noticed the newspaper not taken in and the normally closed garage door open a long time and went and checked around and found her.

We'd just taken her out for breakfast the day before she passed away. She said she was going to go to the dentist and do some stuff with friends so don't bother calling for a few days, so I didn't go over like I usually did.

It was just awful. The police called me. It was a terrible shock. The county coroner had to do an autopsy, which determined an anyurism (sp?) said that she was probably gone within a minute or so...was probably unconsious within seconds...

There was messages on the phone from the Dentist and her friends, saying, 'hey, did you forget your schedule?'

Several of my Mom's neighbors and my Mom had all lived there 40+ years (my Mom and Dad were "the new people"--only 33 years) and they all sort of watched out for each other. They had all informally agreed to keep an eye out for each other.

It is baffling that they did not notice the NY gentleman had gone missing. But what I hope is that he passed away painlessly in his sleep, without suffering. That is really what matters, that he was not there helpless in need of care, and ended up dying before he should have.

We are just all in such a hurry these days, tangled in our own little webs.

Neighbor April Cowden said she would occasionally read Riccardi's mail to him, pay his bills and buy him groceries. When he began to demand more of her time in the summer of 2005, she said, they had a falling out. "I needed to go to work [one day] and he wanted me to stay," said Cowden, 37.

About a month later, Cowden said, she saw an ambulance at his house. When she saw the mail pile up, Cowden thought he was in the hospital.

Geeze, she must feel bad.

It would have been a hell of a lot worse if family members lived in the house with him and just got so used to him watching TV all the time...

I should be beaten for writing that.

LIR - very sad that a person can die and no one even knows they are in the house.

Are we sure this story is really for real? It sounds vaguely familiar to me - like something that has gone around before some years ago. Plus, would anybody's home be dry enough even in the dead of winter to preserve him like a mummy? I know that my in house, even dry as it gets in our COLD winters, meat that I put in my garbage still rots. And even if it did manage to keep him through the winter, what about when summer rolled around - the humidity would kick in. I know truth can be stranger than fiction, but I'm not sure this story really flies with me.

Yes, I agree, this does sound unbelievable. But I swear it's completely true! (This is a local event here with lots of local news coverage.) Apparently the guy's body mummified *before* the summer humidity set in. Imagine that!

LIR

definitely real...the news crews, police tape, etc. were all over it just a few weeks back. On the local news. I don't get the mummy part, him having gone through the summer, but I won't go down that road right now....