Posted on 01/07/2009 9:54:12 AM PST by BGHater
A man whose home was so full of rubbish that he had to build an intricate network of tunnels to get around may have died after losing his way in the labyrinth.
Investigators believe Gordon Stewart, 74, died as a result of dehydration, after becoming unable to find his way out of the mass of carrier bags, boxes, old furniture and other junk.
Police had to call in a specialist diving team because the smell from the house, Broughton, Buckinghamshire, was so overpowering.
Neighbours had become concerned that they had not seen Mr Stewart for several days and raised the alarm.
According to witnesses, the officers were faced with mounds of foul-smelling garbage which he had used to construct tunnels around his home.
The smell was so over-powering police had to call in a specialist team - equipped with breathing apparatus - to search the two-storey house. They discovered a confusing system of tunnels networking around the interior of the building, with Mr Stewart lying dead inside.
Locals say Mr Stewart, who wore a pony-tail, was often spotted riding his bike around the streets.
One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "He was slightly eccentric, but very clever. He was just a collector. He came home with a load of cardboard boxes and lived in his own world." A second described his death as a "tragedy".
Neighbours said Mr Stewart's home had been accumulating rubbish for at least 10 years.
A car dating back to the 1950s stands in the garage believed to have been left untouched for years as garbage built up around it.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I saw a few pics from the wikipedia, pretty bad..... People who are pack rats are very hard to deal with. One place I worked at back in 1996, the lead person had the Sun “Pizza Box” computer (Sparc 20) and being a sys admin, I had to replace his hard drives a few times because of the lack of airflow and overheating. After the 2nd hard drive replacement I told him that he needed to make room around the machine. He had stuff piled on his desk 3 feet high and there was no desk surface seen. In addition, there was stuff piled up on the floor as well. Also I was the lab manager as well and there was so much stuff in the lab that we didn’t need and he refused to sign the paperwork to get rid of it. I had to get authorization from the property manager which he was happy to give and I was able to get rid of a lot of junk. We had boxes for outdated software from 1987. After I got rid of the items, there were clean table tops to get some actual work done and people enjoyed coming into the lab because of the cleanliness. Since the lab fell under US gov’t rules concerning property, you were permitted enough items to get the job done and no more. Part of my job was to enforce that rule.
How sad.
ping
I wonder what type of car it was....
A neighbor of a fellow I know died in much the same way - quietly, having fallen asleep in front of the TV. Since she was very reclusive, bitterly estranged from her family, and kept her place very carefully buttoned up for the cooler weather, it was about three months before anyone noticed she’d died. Her dessicated corpse was a withered husk when the police officer brought it out, carrying the bag with one hand.
Very sad.
Thanks for the ping. Reminds me that I need to get rid of a lot of stuff.
Hopefully the specialist team with breathing apparatus will uncover the answer...
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