Hoarder dead in apartment for 2 weeks
Man dead in Hoboken apartment for weeks
Early this morning, Hoboken Police made a grim discovery at 84 Bloomfield Street. A man in his 60’s had been deceased in his apartment for several weeks.
Residents of the building began noticing a foul order earlier this month, and contacted the building’s management company who originally presumed that it was likely a dead rodent. As the smell got worse – and residents became concerned about the older man who lived in the building, the management company said that they’d knock on the door, and call police if they couldn’t contact the resident in question.
They tried reaching out to the man with no success, and instead of calling the police, the management company sprinkled scented carpet powder down instead.
Last night, the odor became so unbearable that residents called police to investigate.
Took Hoboken Police over 10 hours to locate the dead body
It turned out that the man living in the building was an extreme hoarder, and his apartment was packed to the gills with papers and junk, so much that HPD had to CRAWL through the apartment.
About 10 hours later, authorities finally located the body.
No foul play is suspected in this death.
An environmental cleanup company is expected to begin work decontaminating the apartment once county officials have completed their investigation.
A neighbors watch can be very useful and also help keep the mgt. co. on the ball.
I am not surprised at the management company’s unbeleivably inept response – given it’s La Barbera on Washington Street. I have heard nothing but complaints about this management company since my 12 years here in Hoboken. So the next time your condo association takes a vote to hire a management company, kindly cicrculate this article to them.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty a dead body DOES NOT smell like a dead mouse or rodent and a box of Carpet Fresh in the hallway will not dampen down the stench especially of a body in advanced decomp. I been around my fair share of decomp and in fact you can smell a rotting body from a building lobby at least 5 floor down in the right conditions. No doubt the cops had to get new uniforms because that smell will not come out and remain in their nostrils for at least a day or two.
Big credit to the Hoboken Police, Fire and EMT for doing what nobody else would have done. They really earn their paychecks when they have to deal with a situation like this!
owen ..thats the police and firemans job. fireman pull floaters from the water as well.
They don’t look to good after they rise to the top with baby crabs in their mouth or cut by props from passing ships on the hudson..river..The isssue here is no different than what happened in marineview towers 20 years ago..People were spraying the hallway unbknown that a person was in an apt for weeks. It’s always good to check on a neighbor once in a while..wheather you like him her or not.[quote comment=”209531″]Big credit to the Hoboken Police, Fire and EMT for doing what nobody else would have done. They really earn their paychecks when they have to deal with a situation like this![/quote]
So sad. I walked by there last night around 9 and Newark Street was blocked off with a firetruck parked and yellow police tape was up. Windows to the apartment were open and I figured maybe it was a small kitchen fire. Cop car there this morning and yellow tape still up.