The woman (61) lived alone and had no friends or family. At first she paid her rent monthly with cash, but she stopped doing that 2.5 years ago. Her landlord then made a request to use part of her benefit for the rent. This request was approved.
Based on the receipts and food items that police found in the house, it appeared that she must have died around August 2019. Her neighbors complained that something must clearly be going on, but got zero on the petition. The police, the gas company and her landlord were unable to contact her, but that did not lead to action from any of these authorities. Due to a clerical error by the police, the service thought they had spoken to the woman, which was not the case. The woman was eventually found dead after neighbors alerted the police about damage to her home, after which the police forced her door.
An investigative report into the incident states that the landlord had failed to be “humane and kind” to the tenant of the business. After all, neighbors had complained several times about odor nuisance from the house. In October, a neighbor even reported that the stench smelled like a “human body.” “Confidence in Peabody (rental company ed.) has been seriously damaged,” the report said. The company has apologized for the incident.