“This is tragic, but there isn’t any social supervision anymore, people don’t care about each other in big apartment blocks,” southern Stockholm police spokesman Claes Björnefelt told the MittI newspaper.

“This man wasn’t missed by anyone. He didn’t have an employer and lived a spartan life.”

MittI reported that the man, who was in his fifties, lived alone in his tidy apartment. The police said he had no close family in Sweden. His landlord did not notice anything out of the ordinary, as his rent was paid by direct debit every month.

But when the property management company Stockholmshem decided to renovate the plumbing in the building, workers ended up making the macabre discovery. Police said the man has likely been dead since 2011, judging from the letters found in the flat.

Björnefält said it was unusual for a dead person to lie so long without being found, although older people without friends had been known to lie dead for a few months before someone found them.

“If we weren’t doing the plumbing in our house, maybe he would have remained there for another ten years,” neighbour Åsa Jarra told MittI.

“One wonders how many dead lonely people are lying around across the city.”

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