Funny you should ask that....About 8 years ago I was working for a national UK charity who dealt primarily with the care and rehabilitation of offenders (You work it out...!), although we also did an awful lot of work with the unemployed and people deemed to be 'special needs'...having read all this thread, I'm sure most of you will be familiar with at least one of the above....
Amongst the projects we ran in our area, was a housing scheme. One of these houses at the time had three guys living in it, who, for the sake of argument, we'll call A, B and C. Both A and B had been in prison for a short while for minor offences, while C came under the 'special needs' umbrella...
We employed various people to run this project, one of whom, Jack was a general co-ordinator, and another, Alf was a qualified joiner, builder, and basically a jack-of-all-trades. Two nicer blokes, you couldn't hope to meet.
Anyway, getting to the point....one day we got a call saying that nobody had seen A, B or C for a week or two, and there seemed to be a funny smell coming from the house. So, off trot Jack and Alf to check things out. They get to the house, and to all intents and purposes it seems that everyone has done a runner (with most of the fixtures and fittings too, which wasn't unusual - some people have some VERY strange habits to fund...), but they just can't seem to track down the source of the smell....
About a week later, we get another call from one of the neighbours, again complaining about the smell. Once again, Jack and Alf are despatched to investigate. This time however, they manage to pinpoint the source of the smell...a feat made easier by the number of flies emanating from a footwell in the hallway providing access under the floors for electrical work etc.
Upon removing the cover of this footwell, they can see a black bin liner about 2 or 3 feet below the floorboards. As they can't quite reach this with their arms, they have a look around and manage to locate an old walking stick with which to have a 'bit of a prod'. Upon doing this, an even greater number of flies appear, and it was at this point that the contents of the aforementioned bin liner reveal themselves to be the body of C....
It transpires that after some argument with A and B, he had been beaten to death by at least one of them. Obviously, they were both aware of what had happened as they both did a runner fairly pronto. The police picked both of them up in a relatively short space of time, and I know one of them is currently serving life at Her Majesty's pleasure, but I'm not sure whether the other one was convicted or not, as the last thing I heard, he'd been remanded for psychiatric reports....
Aside from the obvious, the other really sad outcome of this whole sorry tale was the effect that the discovery had on the guys who found his body, particulary Alf, who was still off with post-traumatic stress when I left months later.
I appreciate that this isn't strictly MY housemate from hell experience, and to be honest, most of mine pale into insignificance when measured against some of the others here, but maybe it will serve as a reminder to anyone who's thinking of nicking someone else's milk from the fridge......
(,
Sun 23 Nov 2003, 17:41,
archived)
Amongst the projects we ran in our area, was a housing scheme. One of these houses at the time had three guys living in it, who, for the sake of argument, we'll call A, B and C. Both A and B had been in prison for a short while for minor offences, while C came under the 'special needs' umbrella...
We employed various people to run this project, one of whom, Jack was a general co-ordinator, and another, Alf was a qualified joiner, builder, and basically a jack-of-all-trades. Two nicer blokes, you couldn't hope to meet.
Anyway, getting to the point....one day we got a call saying that nobody had seen A, B or C for a week or two, and there seemed to be a funny smell coming from the house. So, off trot Jack and Alf to check things out. They get to the house, and to all intents and purposes it seems that everyone has done a runner (with most of the fixtures and fittings too, which wasn't unusual - some people have some VERY strange habits to fund...), but they just can't seem to track down the source of the smell....
About a week later, we get another call from one of the neighbours, again complaining about the smell. Once again, Jack and Alf are despatched to investigate. This time however, they manage to pinpoint the source of the smell...a feat made easier by the number of flies emanating from a footwell in the hallway providing access under the floors for electrical work etc.
Upon removing the cover of this footwell, they can see a black bin liner about 2 or 3 feet below the floorboards. As they can't quite reach this with their arms, they have a look around and manage to locate an old walking stick with which to have a 'bit of a prod'. Upon doing this, an even greater number of flies appear, and it was at this point that the contents of the aforementioned bin liner reveal themselves to be the body of C....
It transpires that after some argument with A and B, he had been beaten to death by at least one of them. Obviously, they were both aware of what had happened as they both did a runner fairly pronto. The police picked both of them up in a relatively short space of time, and I know one of them is currently serving life at Her Majesty's pleasure, but I'm not sure whether the other one was convicted or not, as the last thing I heard, he'd been remanded for psychiatric reports....
Aside from the obvious, the other really sad outcome of this whole sorry tale was the effect that the discovery had on the guys who found his body, particulary Alf, who was still off with post-traumatic stress when I left months later.
I appreciate that this isn't strictly MY housemate from hell experience, and to be honest, most of mine pale into insignificance when measured against some of the others here, but maybe it will serve as a reminder to anyone who's thinking of nicking someone else's milk from the fridge......