Police found the body of the Swedish man after neighbours noticed a growing pile of uncollected mail and a strong smell coming from his house.
“It’s tragic that someone should have to die alone and lay there so long,” said Louise Wåhlén, the neighbour who alerted the police, to the Aftonbladet newspaper.
“I noticed that his mailbox was full of six-week-old post and I called the police.”
The man, Berndt Bodin, was found at home in Söderfors, eastern Sweden, in one of his three houses, which were filled with bric-a-brac he had bought in various charity stores.
Local police broke into the house and discovered Bodin, but no relatives were able to identify him.
“Finally, we got one of his cousins and were able to compare their DNA,” explained Lars Lindgren of the Tierp police to the paper.
Bodin was a hoarder, and neighbours reported that they had tried to look through his windows to check up on him but were unable to see through the piles of junk.
Furthermore, they had suspected he was on holiday as they had reported seeing him with a suitcase at a bus stop. Bodin was known for taking trips, and well-liked by his neighbours, despite being somewhat of a recluse.
“He was kind and social and we invited him for coffee a few times. But he never let us inside his house. Afterwards I understood that you couldn’t even move around in there with everything he had collected,” Wåhlén told the paper.
The money in the man’s banks as well as the money from his three houses, which have now been sold, has been donated to the Swedish Inheritance Fund (Allmänna Arvsfonden).
Police do not suspect any foul play in the man’s death.
The Local/og
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