Man's body lies undisturbed for 20 years

[benburch]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Japan%20Skeleton

Man's body lies undisturbed for 20 years

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOKYO -- The decomposed body of a man dressed in pajamas was discovered in an abandoned Tokyo apartment building 20 years after he is believed to have died, police said Thursday.

A Tokyo Metropolitan Police official said construction workers were preparing to tear down the building earlier this month when they found the man's skeletal remains laying face-up on a mattress on the tatami reed mat floor of a second-floor room.

The morning edition of a newspaper dated Feb. 20, 1984 was on a table nearby and a calendar, opened to the same month, hung on the wall, said the official, who refused to be identified.

<SNIP>

Ewwwwwww!

[Zen]

1. LOL - somebody was handing out a copy of this story at work today!

I guess it pays to have at least one friend!

[loftycity]

2. Talk about being alone in the world- Ewwww!

[LittleApple81]

3. I thought this was Reagan...Didn't he also start dying mentally 20 years

ago?

[benburch]

4. What is so odd about this...

I thought land in Tokyo was hellishly expensive? How can a building sit vacant and abandoned since 1973 in an environment like that? Or, are there undesirable parts of Tokyo?

[JaySherman]

9. Tokyo definitely does have it's seedier parts.

I'd be interested to know what district he was in. When I stayed at a ryokan in Minowa, I remember walking one block the wrong way and literally stepping over bums sleeping in the street. Surprised me at the time, because it didn't expect to see that in Tokyo either.

[UpInArms]

5. does this paragraph

apply to before or after his death:

Police believe the man had been unable to repay bank loans and had stopped showing up for work, according to the newspaper reports.

Well, duh - he couldn't show up 'cause he was dead!

Dead men do not pay bills!

Yeeeeeeee.....

[JaySherman]

10. This is not uncommon.

A large portion of the homeless in Japan are salarymen like this guy who have quit their lives over the shame of a divorce, losing a job, or even not being able to pay a bill. They're too embarrased to face their family, so they give it all up and choose life on the streets. Sounds like that's what happened with this guy.

[JayS]

14. "Dead men do not pay bills"

True, but in my state they do vote. :)

[unblock]

6. the OFFICIAL refused to be identified?

to embarrassed to be associated with this story?

[PartyPooper]

7. I wonder what was in the fridge?

I'll bet it was a toxic nightmare.

:wow:

[shraby]

8. LOL!!

[Unperson 309]

11. Can I Have The Car? eom Pt II

[are_we_united_yet]

12. You of thought

the landlady would have become suspicious when he stopped paying the rent

[Gregorian]

13. Wow

He was dead two years before the Challenger exploded.
He was dead during Reagan's second term.
He was dead during Bush's presidency.
He was dead during both of Clinton's terms.
He was dead while I went to college.
He was dead during The Monkey's reunion "Here we come again."
He was dead while the Berlin wall came down.
Wow, this is weird. What did he do, pay his rent in advance for eternity?
I love shit like this. The guy was in bliss while the world was in turmoil around him.
He was dead when that shitty new Coke was put on the market.
He was dead when the cold war ended.
He was dead when the internet was invented (by Al Gore, I might add).
He was dead during the Waco seige
He was dead while OJ killed people.
Darn, I wished I could have met him.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Here's what the Japan Times has to say about it:

"The apartment building was built in 1973, but no one had ever lived there because the real estate firm managing the building went bankrupt immediately after its construction, the police said.

"They said the man used to work at a Tokyo-based construction company that owned the apartment, and believe he was living in the room without the firm's knowledge.

"The man, then 57, suddenly stopped coming to work about 20 years ago. And although he had a wife and children, his relatives apparently never asked the police to search for him.

"In May, the apartment was sold to a company in Saitama Prefecture that later discovered the skeleton rolled up in a futon in a room on the second floor."

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040610a8.htm