The British newspaper "The Guardian" reported that the body of Robert Alton (70 years old), who died in 2017 in Bolton, north-west England, was found without anyone noticing his absence, neither by the landlord nor by the local council. It was noted that the retired accountant's body had not been discovered in his apartment for six years. After housing officials were forced to enter for a gas safety inspection, a skeleton was found.
It is believed that Robert Alton passed away in 2017 at the age of 70, but his death went unnoticed. The landlord was receiving rent automatically through housing benefit, and the local council seemingly failed to investigate Alton's growing tax arrears. Officials discovered a large amount of unopened mail, food with expired dates, and a pair of reading glasses placed on a TV guide dated May 4, 2017, when they entered the apartment in March.
Alton's landlord, Bolton at Home, apologized, admitting that "opportunities to discover that something was wrong were missed," while Bolton Council stated that it would conduct an internal investigation to determine whether it had failed to notice anything and what went wrong. A police investigation concluded that there were no suspicious circumstances, while a separate inquiry conducted this week found that the cause of Alton's death could not be determined.
This case is likely to reopen discussions on how individuals can die at home without neighbors, family and friends, public agencies, or utility providers noticing or acting on their disappearance for extended periods.
