I hope anyone reading this realizes that there will be a time in life when you should call your mother and / or call your father, once a week at least.
And not just to check that they aren't dead :)
In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
21–30 of 56 posts
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
in American it's target is people who will die alone and the objective is cleaning up financially. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderl...
That's one of the most disturbing stories I've read in a while. It's unbelievable, felt like I was reading science fiction. I wonder if there are ways to protect oneself in old age from being a victim of that...
It truly is. I wonder if we're being told the whole story though: some woman shows up at another person's door with no connection at all, but has a signed court order as their guardians? It is mentioned that the couple's daughter visited almost every day. She couldn't find a lawyer to immediately file an injunction?
EDIT: Yeah, looks like the authorities stepped in[0].
[0] https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/grand-jury-indicts-nevad...
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
in American it's target is people who will die alone and the objective is cleaning up financially. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderl...
The main people in that story were a couple that lived independently and had a daughter that lived 10 minutes away who visited almost every day. That's insane that the guardianship happened.
Terrifying. My grandparents live under my brother's care and I became physically agitated reading this, thinking about how vulnerable they are and how easily this could have happened. They lived right around the corner from the couple in this story until a few years ago.
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#24> It was almost as if Hiroaki had never existed. Bullshit. When I die, if all that is remembered of me are the things in my apartment, then it doesn't really matter if I was alone at the time or who cleans it up. I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody . Friends, coworkers, etc. If not, then having kids or someone living with him wouldn't have mattered. I definitely get the feeling the message of…
> I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody. Friends, coworkers, etc. Apparently not enough of an impression to carry on the friendship, though, right? I think the point of the article is that Japanese society has traditionally been very dependent on family and work for all of your social bonding, with much less emphasis on maintaining relationships outside of those two spheres. If he did have kids,…
It's possible relatives live in the countryside and this person outlived geographically close friends and coworkers.
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#25Isn’t there one in America also ? Is the market significantly smaller in America ?
in American it's target is people who will die alone and the objective is cleaning up financially. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderl...
Is this a big government thing that violates individual freedom? I wonder how people handle this successfully and avoid abuses. Which states are better? Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew often mentioned Asian family values. I used to think it’s a joke, but am starting to like it.
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#26Reminds me of this documentary about Sweden. 50% of Swedes live alone, and 25% die alone. Often it takes a long time for someone to notice, as pensions come in to the account automatically, and the rent is also paid automatically. https://www.svtplay.se/video/10458343/the-swedish-theory-of-...
This is why my mother sends me an email every morning. Sometimes she just says hey , but most other times she includes other info about her life or asks me questions. Her reasoning was that because she had a cat (at the time), she didn't want to become cat food should she died suddenly.
> she didn't want to become cat food should she died suddenly.
I had a great-great aunt who lived alone and hoarded cats and dogs (and many other non-living things). She was partially eaten when they finally found her. My grandparents eventually moved in to that property, and now my parents have it as a second property.
Every time I visit, I still get a little shudder when I think about what it must have been like to stumble upon that scene (a weeks dead, partially eaten corpse surrounded by dozens of hungry cats and dogs...) - I'm not sure which neighbor discovered her, but that poor person...
[Edit: fortunately, my parents didn't tell me the story until I was 18, I had visited my grandparents at that property every summer for most of my childhood. I imagine if they had told me earlier, my trips to the basement of that 19th century house would have been a bit more frightening]
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#27Recommend also reading this beautiful and very sad NYT article from a couple of months ago. "A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonely Death" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-d... Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15822064
Glad you posted this. I found the article from November to be quite moving. As someone who knows precious little about Japanese culture, it surprises me that someone would die alone - and then sit alone for a long time before discovery. I had always heard Japan was a very collectivist society. Does that play into this?
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#28> It was almost as if Hiroaki had never existed. Bullshit. When I die, if all that is remembered of me are the things in my apartment, then it doesn't really matter if I was alone at the time or who cleans it up. I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody . Friends, coworkers, etc. If not, then having kids or someone living with him wouldn't have mattered. I definitely get the feeling the message of…
> I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody. Friends, coworkers, etc. Apparently not enough of an impression to carry on the friendship, though, right? I think the point of the article is that Japanese society has traditionally been very dependent on family and work for all of your social bonding, with much less emphasis on maintaining relationships outside of those two spheres. If he did have kids,…
I was struck by this part "They retire from lifetime jobs and lose the only communities they’ve ever really had." I've long recognized that deep friendships are those that transcend the circumstances which brought two individuals into proximity to take a liking to each other in the first place. A friendship that is limited to the circumstances that unite people I call "circumstantial friendships".
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#29"""Fujita and his team had carted away all his belongings, ripped off the wallpaper, checked under flooring, and scrubbed and disinfected the apartment from top to bottom. They left a deodorizing machine to run inside the apartment for a few days."""
Anybody have any idea what sort of device this `deodorizing machine` would be? I'm very curious what sort of technology could pull off such a feat.
Re: In Japan, there's an industry devoted to cleaning up after people who died alone
#30"""Fujita and his team had carted away all his belongings, ripped off the wallpaper, checked under flooring, and scrubbed and disinfected the apartment from top to bottom. They left a deodorizing machine to run inside the apartment for a few days.""" Anybody have any idea what sort of device this `deodorizing machine` would be? I'm very curious what sort of technology could pull off such a feat.
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