June 16: Who's Gonna Pay For This?

I think about death a lot; probably too much. I live by myself and I often wonder how long it would take someone to find me if something happened. When I had a car payment, I wondered who would be responsible for paying off the loan if I croaked. Now that I own my truck, I often wonder who would be responsible for cleaning up the mess if I were to shoot myself in my apartment.* I mean, it's one thing to have to inform parents or employers, but it's completely different to be the owner of an apartment and have to clean up blood, paint walls, and put in new carpet.

That sort of remodel isn't cheap. That's an expense that the killer should have to pay for, but obviously he wouldn't be able to do that if he were to succeed. It's not fair to ask his parents to pay for it; they have to deal with the loss of a loved one. The landlord shouldn't have to pay for it, but who is legally responsible?

I once knew a guy that was in real estate and I thought, who better to ask than him? I tried to keep the gory details to a minimum because I didn't want him to be concerned for me. I asked him about a landlord finding a tenant hanging and he gave me some kind of simple answer (obviously I can't remember what was said). Because I wasn't getting the answer I was looking for, I gave a more grim example. "Let's say," I started, "that a tenant shoots himself in the head and his brains go all over the walls and he falls to the ground where a pool of blood forms all around his lifeless body."

Surely, I thought this would answer my question. Instead, what I got shocked me and made me feel terrible. I mean, I felt genuinely horrible. "Well that's exactly what happened to my brother," he said before telling me all about the laws and walking away.

I apologized over and over again trying to convince my friend that I didn't have any malicious intent with my questions. He was very understanding and said that it wasn't as hard for him to talk about as it was a few years prior, but I still felt awful.

When you ask a question like that and get that answer, all your memory is able to hold on to is the thought of this kid's brother. You don't remember anything else. You don't remember the guy telling you about the laws involved in these situations. Above all else, you don't go back to the guy the next day and ask the same question to get the information you were originally seeking. Now, I'm stuck back at square one.



*Just because I think about it, doesn't mean I have any real intention of suicide.