Body of woman missing 7 yrs found in her home (hoarding story)

hoppyfrog

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http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/national_world&id=6731875

27 March 09

There was a disturbing discovery made in Oakland. A woman thought to be missing for seven years was found dead in her own home. Everyone is asking how she could be there for so long and never found.

The remnants of a life were sitting in boxes piled up in front of an Oakland home. It was a life that appears to have ended unnoticed by the world, family, friends, or neighbors.

and

After the city notified Ms. Workman's family it was going to take over the abandoned property, relatives and a private contractor began cleaning out the house. On Wednesday, Workman's daughter went upstairs and began to clean the place out.

Police say they were called about 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday when the body was found in a second-story bedroom. Apparently newspapers and other items were stacked from floor to ceiling, and the remains were found amongst the clutter.

more at link

pics and video at link
 
A sad story and one thats hard to understand. Did the family ever report her missing? If she was reported missing, then why didn't someone ever check her house?
It does sound like she had a bad hoarding problem and may not have let other people inside, I hope when she passed that it was fast and she was not up there suffering and didn't call for help due to not wanting anyone to come into her home.

Maybe after reading this story someone else will be more apt to seek some help with their hoarding problem, many people do have it.

VB
 
Oh this is sad.

recently a woman and her husband died in a fire hear locally do to hoarding. The boxes of paper made the fire so bad they couldn't get it out. if i remember correctly oneof them was a doctor and they lived in an upscale neighborhood.
 
I'm confused - the article said the house was abandoned. Had it been abandoned for 7 years or did someone actually live in the house? If they did then how in the world did they not know she was there. If they didn't live in the house and she was missing did the family not look for her? She was in her home - you would think if they couldn't find her and they couldn't get in the house they would bust out a window or call the cops.
 
I think she died when a pile of her belongings fell ontop of her. I used to work for a property management company and have seen many bad hoarding cases. One i remember the person had empty beer boxes and newspapers stacked from floor to ceiling in every room including the bath tub. There were small passageways and tunnels through it all. She probably bumped into one of the stacks and it crashed down on her killing her, her family probably did go looking for her but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary since there were probably piles of stuff everywhere. Very sad but unfortunately this disease is more common than most of us know.
Hopefully she didn't suffer it is too painf ul to think she was buried alive under her own stuff and passed slowly :(
 
Ok if I am missing I HOPE someone checks my home FIRST. Really this is sad. Mess or no mess inside did her kids not check on her at all before 7 years ago? Crazy really. And if not the family, why didn't the police find her? I don't know perhaps if I had more details (was she really buried under a stack of stuff) I might feel different but for now shame on anyone who didn't really "look" for her.
 
This is why I am a minimalist. I can't handle having too much stuff around my house. It really puts a light on those people who are out there that do not have anyone in their lives. Very sad.
 

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