A 92-year-old mother and her 70-year-old son were found dead on 22 October morning at an 11th-storey flat in Block 285 Tampines Street 22.
Here’s what happened.
Stench From Flat Started One Week Ago
Neighbours told Shin Min Daily News that they started to notice a foul smell coming from the flat about a week ago.
However, they thought that it might just be a resident cooking up some particularly nasty dish, so they didn’t investigate further.
However, someone called the police at 11.56am on Saturday, and found the mother and son lying motionless on the ground. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Preliminary investigations do not suggest any foul play. Investigations are still ongoing.
Multiple Cases of Death Without Anyone Knowing
This isn’t the first time that an elderly person has died in their flat without anyone realising it.
In fact, most of them stayed unnoticed in their flat for a week, and one extreme case was dead in their flat for a year.
Despite their remains being found much later, neighbours usually start to notice a nasty smell within days of the person passing away. However, most people just ignored the smell and didn’t report it.
In the extreme case where the deceased’s remains were found a year later, the condominium’s management only discovered the dead woman after investigating letters piling up outside the flat.
The woman actually lived alone with her dog, which then brings up the question: did the neighbours not hear the dog barking?
By the time the management investigated the flat in November 2020, both woman and dog were dead for over a year. For reference, neighbours reported a stench from the flat since February 2019. One can’t even use the excuse of COVID-19 lockdowns to say that they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
In another case, an elderly woman was found dead in her HDB flat a week after passing away. Neighbours grew concerned after not seeing her around for a while, and found the woman dead when they opened her front door in September 2021.
As neighbours, perhaps we should pay more attention to our elderly neighbours, especially those who live alone.
Featured Image: Shin Min Daily News