Posted on 07/20/2010 7:31:13 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Yoshinori Ishimi could hear a high-pitched whine coming from the apartment in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, he was about to enter. When he went inside, he saw black "mini-twister" clouds of flies.
The last tenant had been a 60-year-old divorced man whose body was not found until a month after he had died.
"Every time I encounter such scenes, I hesitate to step inside. But someone has to clean up these flats . . . and be professional about it," said Ishimi of Anshin Net, a cleaning service that is part of R-Cube Co. in Ota Ward, Tokyo.
The Nerima man's case was not unique, and such unnoticed departures are only expected to increase.
According to a report by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the number of single-person households is expected to rise from 14.46 million in 2005 to 18.24 million in 2030, or nearly 40 percent of all households.
With the growing number of single households in this graying nation, businesses specializing in dealing in what has been dubbed "lonely death" have become a fixture.
Anshin Net is one such example.
Founded in 2004, the company handles about 450 requests a year, about half of them dealing with cleaning out dwellings after the occupant has died.
The requests generally come from close relatives. But when people die alone and their corpses are not discovered for weeks or even months — the requests may also come from landlords, as well as more distant kin, because many people die childless and without a partner, Ishimi said.
"We receive about four to eight requests a month asking us to clean dwellings where the residents were found a week, a month, or, in extreme cases, a year after they passed away," Ishimi said.
Police process solitary deaths by carrying out autopsies and, if relatives can't be traced, municipalities cremate the body and inter the ashes in a shared grave, Ishimi said.
Ishimi and other specialist cleaners come in afterward and make dwellings clean again.
Although no figures are available, with the increasing media coverage about people dying lonely deaths, both the number of people engaged in this business and job requests have surged in the past two or three years, said Atsushi Takaesu, 38, an Okinawan who has run a special cleaning business in Kanagawa Prefecture since 2003.
"I had only about 10 cases a year about seven years ago. But this year, the number is likely to surpass 400. I received about 40 requests this June alone," said Takaesu, who recently published "Jiken Genba Seisonin ga Iku ("Here Comes a Crime Scene Cleaner"), a nonfiction book on his specialty of cleaning housing where people died lonely deaths, including suicides.
Takaesu said he is proud of his job but admits that at times it is heart-wrenching.
Pointing to a picture of a bathtub one-third full of a dark reddish liquid, Takaesu explained: "This is not ramen. This is a dead lady's body fluid and skin. I actually had to step into the bath to clean it."
Apart from the flies, maggots and pupae, crawling, sticking to windows and flying around, there is the hair of the dead, looking like a wig.
Also, bodily fluids and blood soak into tatami mats, and there is the stench of death that many in the business find difficult to totally remove, according to Takaesu.
"It is hard to pick up someone's hair with my own hands, but if you ask me whether I can do it, I can. But the appreciation I get after I clean up those rooms, totally removing the lingering smell of death, is the biggest thing that keeps me going," he said.
Ishimi of Anshin Net said people who die alone often share the same circumstances, and he strongly believes many can avoid this fate by changing their lifestyles.
"Many were men in their 50s or 60s, divorced, and with no job. They had not been in contact with their friends or families and they often were diabetic," Ishimi said, adding that when he goes inside their dwellings he often finds the curtains drawn and piles of empty food boxes from convenience stores, cans or bottles of alcohol, and insulin vials.
"It's sad. And to be honest with you, I ask them (the deceased), 'Why?' Because (in many cases) if they had changed their lifestyle, they could have avoided dying (in the way they did). They shut out the sunlight and fresh air with curtains, and isolated themselves from everyone," Ishimi said.
After seeing so many residences long after the occupant's death, Anshin Net is now shifting its focus on what it calls "welfare cleaning."
About half of the requests the company receives today are from care managers, helpers or sometimes municipalities asking for help cleaning the dwellings of elderly people who live alone and have huge garbage accumulations.
These people call first because they can't enter the elderly person's house unless the waste is removed, or, in some cases, following complaints made to municipalities from neighbors, Ishimi noted.
"In recent years, the number of elderly who live alone buried under a mountain of garbage has surged. Some have dementia and some are physically unable to take out the garbage. It is these people who are the ones most likely to die alone," Ishimi said.
"We want to minimize cases in which elderly people die alone. I believe cleaning their housing will act as a deterrence."
Sad story and sad job. The worker sounds like a very decent person. The only thing that gets that smell out is coffee beans. It absorbs the smell.
A job that’ll even freak out Mike Rowe.
Man....that is one depressing story. To be sixty years old and die alone because you have no family of friends is beyond sad.
Interesting. Thanks for posting. Saw a documentary, think Nat Geo, about this subject in New Orleans. The guy featured provided his services for murders, suicides, “lonely deaths”, etc. Not a job I could stomach, but I’m glad there are people that can do it.
Very sad. I had the unpleasant task of going into a relatives apt. who had committed suicide and was not found for several days. It is a smell that you never forget as long as you live. It seemed to cling to everything. The guys that came in and cleaned it were so respectful, I’ll never forget them.
It’s going to become more common as people have only one child - or none - and age out alone.
They aren’t having children over there much any more so this is to be expected. Their fertility rate is only 1.34. Even with the government subsidies to encourage procreation it isn’t helping. A friend of mine in Japan is watching the country disintegrate from within. The reason the Japanese are heavily into robotics is because once they are more or less perfected they can be used to take care of the elderly.
This happened to my x brother in law in southern Oregon a few years ago. I am getting old and live alone and is one of my biggest fears in life. That and being a burden on my two daughters. Don’t mean to be so personal here but I have very few fears about life but this one is important to me. As far as my after life, I have no qualms as I love our Lord and know he loves me.
It is sad, but people seem to have a tendency to do this to themselves.
I can’t get my Great Uncle to wear a life alert wristband when he’s at home. He is healthy, but he lives alone and is 80 and could be on the floor for days without being noticed. He does not want people calling him to check. He resists any practical efforts in this area. He acts like we are all stupid to suggest it.
Same with my dad, who at least would get missed by his golf buddies after a while.
I don’t understand it and hope I’m not that way if/when I live alone.
To keep yourself from smelling it, put vicks vaporub under your nose. That smell of the dead causes you to vomit real easy...
There was a story in the East Bay Express (SF East Bay) a few years ago about this very thing. It was a more general story about the indigent who died alone and intestate, and how this woman who worked with the county coroner had to be called in to sort out the belongings and sell them so the deceased could have a proper burial.
There is being a burden and there is being a loved family memeber. Being a loved family memeber means that you help them and they help you. You all stay connected. frequently. And call daily.
That’s because Japanese men are too busy salivating over teen girls wearing school uniforms to worry about marriage and raising children.
He had no relatives that anyone knew of and except for volumes of Hungarian history books, few possessions. I believe the landlord donated his books to a university and his body was cremated.
That’s gonna be me too. Fact. My only real fear is for my cats. I have actually taken the latches off the cabinets where the cat food is kept so they can open it and rip open the bag if they have to. (My calico will do it in a heartbeat. She’s done it before. She’s not long on patience.)
and also do menial labor...someday.
I think japan better form some kind of alliance or merger with korea and taiwan, then pool resources to conquer north korea so they can all import poor north koreans to save their countries.
Those men are pretty creepy
I detailed cars for a small dealer. A man bought a very nice Cadillac Eldorado, all black with a moon roof. He decided to put a gun to his mouth and pull the trigger....still owing money for the car. The tow truck delivered the car to the lot and I was tasked to clean it up. The stench was bad......so bad I am nearly puking as I type 30 years later. I had to remove the seats, seat belts etc. When I pulled the carpet to replace it, underneath was a carpet of maggots feeding on the blood. I lost it, walked away from that task, and the boss hired someone else to clean it out, then sold it wholesale. The smell never went away, it took several runs through different auctions before it actually sold.
Don’t worry about your cats.
They will eat you.
Then there will not be a mess or stench to clean up.
/johnny
Oh God. So sad that people do this. I recall talking to an older gent doing some work for me a few years ago. He said a guy told him coffee beans absorb the smell. The guy he knew apparently cleaned up gouse for the US govt in Iraq after dead bodies had been in there.
This story was about Japan. I think for men when they divorce or lose their job it is crushing. The loss of “face” or honor is devastating. They have had a crushing recession since 1980. We are learning the same horror now. 2007 seems like a fantasy today.
How many cats do you have?
[snip] When he went inside, he saw black “mini-twister” clouds of flies.
People never used to die alone, unless they were out in the wilderness.
Parents had grandma in the house or close by, and checked every day.
This is the fruit of the destruction of the family. People end up alone, because the government can never take that place.
I have three cats.
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