This 85-year-old retiree lived above the town hall, but only went out very little.
A drama of loneliness. An 85-year-old Dutch pensioner was found dead at his home on January 12 by firefighters in Chéniers (Creuse), six months after his death, reports France Blue. The man, who rarely left his home, obviously had no close family or friends, and therefore died in tragic indifference.
Of Dutch nationality, he had been living in the region for a very few years and lived above the town hall, in an apartment which he rented from the municipality.
“He came, he paid, he left. He didn’t speak French and didn’t try to communicate. As he was a tenant, we thought he might have gone back to his country. It’s sad to die all alone, especially in the countryside”, testifies at the microphone of France Bleu Pascale, a grocer who only saw him once a month.
Last year, the town hall was already worried about not seeing him and called the fire department. “They entered by breaking a window and found him at home watching television in his armchair!” Said Mayor Gilles Gaudon.
Withered flowers and unpaid rent
This time, albeit belatedly, other more alarming signs troubled the mayor. While the flowers at the octogenarian’s window seemed faded, Gilles Gaudon realizes that he has not been paying his rent since the summer, information previously not communicated by the treasury.
The mayor ended up calling the firefighters, who therefore made the macabre discovery on Thursday, January 12.
At the beginning of the month, the association of the Little Brothers of the Poor published an article on the dead of loneliness in France. We learn that in 2022, “a dozen elderly people were found dead in their homes several weeks, months, even years after their death”.
