Local news is just broadcasting the news that the skeleton of an elderly woman was just found in a self storage unit. The BODY had been in "storage" since 1995. So far, NO CHARGES have been filed. Apparently, the family could not afford to bury granny, so they put her in storage.
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Jan. 27, 2012 9:35 p.m. integraguy SuperDork
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Jan. 27, 2012 9:38 p.m. nderwater SuperDork
they've couldn't afford to cremate her, but instead have been paying $25 a month since 1995? calling shenanigans on this one.
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Jan. 27, 2012 9:41 p.m. RossD SuperDork
"Say good bye to Aunt Edna, kids!"
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Jan. 27, 2012 10:07 p.m. integraguy SuperDork
Since I was typing this while it was being broadcast in the next room, I missed a few details. It sounded like they said the lock on the storage compartment/room was changed so that only the renters could access the area...they might also have said the owner of the storage business was the related to the deceased.
Guess I shouldn't try to post while I'm trying to get the details...?
And as I understand it, funeral homes don't usually allow you to pay for their "service" at the rate of $25/month and cremation costs a couple of hundred (my parents have already looked into it).
Finally, some folks let "Grandma" spend time in the basement or in the garden" while they collect her Social Security. In Japan, there is supposedly several thousand "oldsters" collecting benefits that no one has seen in decades.
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Jan. 27, 2012 10:39 p.m. BoostedBrandon HalfDork
I smell a Stephen King plot.
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Jan. 27, 2012 10:40 p.m. DukeOfUndersteer SuperDork
In reply to RossD:
First thing i thought of...
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Jan. 28, 2012 6:37 a.m. jrw1621 SuperDork
I figure they have been still cashing her pension or Soc. Security checks for all these years. Cremation may be cheap but it makes the money stop flowing.
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Jan. 28, 2012 11:10 a.m. SkinnyG HalfDork
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Jan. 28, 2012 11:13 a.m. carguy123 SuperDork
Well since she'd been embalmed and gone thru the system that way it wasn't welfare fraud.
But now we know what happened after Grandmaw got runned over by a reindeer!
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Jan. 28, 2012 2:27 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork
RossD wrote:
"Say good bye to Aunt Edna, kids!"
Somebody owes me a keyboard
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Jan. 28, 2012 3:42 p.m. ditchdigger Dork
This person probably has the same dim view of the "end of life" industry as I do. Like towing companies they prey on people who are in bad circumstances. I would do some crazy things to avoid giving them money as well. $8100 over 25 years sounds pretty good to avoid buying a burial space.
When my mother in law died the best deal we could find for a simple cremation was over 3 grand through a "discount cremations" type place. I will never forget the salesman telling us that while our loved one would be delivered to them in a cardboard crate that it wasn't suitable for cremation and their cheapest option was (a glorified pallet) for $250 but he just couldn't recommend that because it lacked dignity and that "if we really loved her" we would upgrade to one of these $800 cardboard boxes with shelf paper on the outside.
A friend later got a job doing sales in a pre-death planning portion of the "end of life" industry and quit after a year because it was the most unscrupulous business she could imagine.
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Jan. 28, 2012 4:15 p.m. integraguy SuperDork
When my father's half sister died a few years ago, my BIL (who, at the time had just sold his funeral business for a "tidy" profit) went with my father to arrange the burial. My father is fairly savvy when it comes to money (he was the first, and for a time ONLY official property appraiser in his part of the country, and has been instrumental in starting an ambulance service, as well as being a regional manager for a large insurance company) but my BIL all but insisted in helping with the funeral because he was quite sure my father would be "taken for a ride".
In other words, when you work in a sleazy business, one known to you as a member as having A LOT of bad apples...what does that say about you and others in that industry?
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Jan. 28, 2012 4:44 p.m. Wally SuperDork
This like this would make that Storage Wars show a bit more entertaining
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Jan. 28, 2012 7:40 p.m. Curmudgeon SuperDork
Hey, at least they knew where she was. I guess it beats dumping the casket in the Everglades somewhere.
Plus eleventy billion on funeral home practices being downright theft. I have strict instructions in my will for organ donations to come first, then whatever's left is to be cremated at the absolute lowest cost (I don't care if I get cremated in a Campbell's Soup carton) and for my ashes to be scattered on a racetrack. Those funeral home vultures ain't getting any more than the bare minimum.
And I am not going to sit in a damn jar on someone's mantel until the cat knocks it over.
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March 10, 2012 12:42 a.m. Mitchell SuperDork
I want my family to send me out in a burning canoe.
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March 10, 2012 8:30 a.m. wbjones SuperDork
we had my Dad cremated ( ~$500 ) burial was at the state Veterans Cemetery ... don't remember the actual charge if any .... but I'm sure it wasn't much .... Same will be done for Mom .... she will be placed directly on top of Dad ( you can stop with the mental images
) and as a Vet I can be interred there also ... hopefully my executer will do this the CHEAPEST way possible ... if they're smart anyway ... the less the spend on planting me the more they get 
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March 10, 2012 8:37 a.m. AngryCorvair SuperDork
Mitchell wrote:
I want my family to send me out in a burning canoe.
[Robert Plant] Valhalla, I am comiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnggggggggg! [/Robert Plant]
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March 10, 2012 8:46 a.m. EricM SuperDork
my county has a $30 "carcass disposal fee". I have it in my will for my family to do that.
Funeral industry = rip-off. They can do that because they don'/t need to worry about repeat customers.
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March 10, 2012 10:44 a.m. mad_machine SuperDork
there is a company here in NJ that follows the federal guidlines for burial at sea. Anybody can be buried at sea, but you have to be so many miles out and weighted properly to keep you from bobbing back up.
I think it is the ultimate in recycling. I can come back in a can of tuna eventually
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May 8, 2012 4:23 a.m. Derick Freese SuperDork
Another canoe paddler. This time with the prince of darkness' name.
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May 8, 2012 4:45 a.m. mguar HalfDork
As a former Navy man I'm eligible for the Neptunes club which is an absolute nominal cost cremation with the ashes buried at sea by either your family or volunteers.. Technically it's illegal to spread ashes out without a permit. (including pet ashes)
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May 8, 2012 6:05 a.m. JoeyM SuperDork
Derick Freese wrote:
Another canoe paddler. This time with the prince of darkness' name.
Thanks. His account is no longer with us.
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May 8, 2012 6:54 a.m. alfadriver UberDork
So we have 2 canoe revivals of this thread- anyone know if there is a record?
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May 8, 2012 7:35 a.m. Jay UltraDork
Go see the sunglasses thread. All the real people in it finished up the discussion sometime in 2008, and yet it still comes back every couple months.
