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93-year-old froze to death, owed big utility bill

As best I can tell from what I am reading it is public, but I am not 100% sure.

Regardless, as it is a government granted monopoly, whether public of private, considering the service it provides, it should be held to a higher standard.

That's what I thought too.

It's sad this guy died. However, sine it was a public operation they should have a system for contacting other government entities to help in these situations.
 
That's what I thought too.

It's sad this guy died. However, sine it was a public operation they should have a system for contacting other government entities to help in these situations.

Sad is losing in seven games in the ALCS to the Rays. Sad is losing the Super Bowl after going 18-0 then losing your star quarterback in the first game the next season. Sad is losing your kitten.

This is a tragedy. A mite above simple sadness.

However, you are right that there SHOULD be a system to cover situations such as this. Someone SERIOUSLY dropped the ball on this. It still does NOT relieve the electric company of at least moral (and perhaps legal) culpability for his death.
 
I'm sorry, but that is not their job. His family should have been more responsible. Don't lay the burden on a company with thousands of customers. Where were his children checking on him, and see if his bills were paid. Obviously something was wrong with the man if he couldn't handle his own bills and so his children should have known.

Schur, who had no children, owed more than $1,000 to Bay City Electric Light & Power, the city's municipal power company, City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press Monday. Schur's wife, a retired school teacher, died several years ago.

I don't know, I think the only way to ensure that this doesn't happen is to have the utility be responsible. They are the only entity that we know is in contact with the citizen.
 
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I have to say tough luck to this old guy. Why the hell should the company have continued to supply him with electricity when he was more than $1000 overdue in payments? The company knew he wasn't going to pay for it so he deserve to be cut off. I don't care if it was freezing cold, pay your frigging bill and you'd have been okay.

This old man died because from pride. He could have picked up the phone and called someone to help, the police, an ambulance, a charity. He could have called on his neighbours for help, instead he chose to freeze in his house, and died because he didnt pay his bills.

If you dont pay the bill, you get cut off, it matters not how old you are. Being 93 doesn't make you exempt, and being cold doesnt make you exempt. Pay the bill and this wouldn't have happened.
 
In many states, it IS their job. Do we know the family situation of this man? Amazing you can be so callous about a 93-year-old man who was a WWII vet.

The fact this man was a WW11 vet is irrelevent. WW11 vets have to pay their bills and the fact they faught in a war does NOT entitle them to special treatment.
 
This makes me mad and so very sad. Disgusting!
 
I have to say tough luck to this old guy. Why the hell should the company have continued to supply him with electricity when he was more than $1000 overdue in payments? The company knew he wasn't going to pay for it so he deserve to be cut off. I don't care if it was freezing cold, pay your frigging bill and you'd have been okay.

This old man died because from pride. He could have picked up the phone and called someone to help, the police, an ambulance, a charity. He could have called on his neighbours for help, instead he chose to freeze in his house, and died because he didnt pay his bills.

If you dont pay the bill, you get cut off, it matters not how old you are. Being 93 doesn't make you exempt, and being cold doesnt make you exempt. Pay the bill and this wouldn't have happened.

This is a municipal company with a monopoly on the provision of electrical power. Perhaps there was a reason he couldn't make a phone call. Perhaps he had fallen or fainted. 93-year-olds do things like that. This is criminal (at least morally) action by the power company.

You can get on your high horse, but the US has a TERRIBLE record of taking care of its elderly.
 
I have to say tough luck to this old guy. Why the hell should the company have continued to supply him with electricity when he was more than $1000 overdue in payments? The company knew he wasn't going to pay for it so he deserve to be cut off. I don't care if it was freezing cold, pay your frigging bill and you'd have been okay.

This old man died because from pride. He could have picked up the phone and called someone to help, the police, an ambulance, a charity. He could have called on his neighbours for help, instead he chose to freeze in his house, and died because he didnt pay his bills.

If you dont pay the bill, you get cut off, it matters not how old you are. Being 93 doesn't make you exempt, and being cold doesnt make you exempt. Pay the bill and this wouldn't have happened.

He had the money stapled to the bills....They couldn't have known he was not going to pay the bill if they never made any contact with the man. They could have only assumed. A letter is not sufficient. Otherwise debt collecters would never call you.
And when it is cold, no one should be able to take away heat. The fact that the man was 93 has a lot to do with it. You don't know the mentality of the person. You can't expect them to be responsible like a younger person should be. The fact he had no family and no one to check up on him should be a big eye opener for many companies providing such services. And maybe it will make them think about the person they're taking the service away from. I think it's pretty sad, I know here, when they're going to shut off your power or restrict it, they will try one last time in person to collect payment.

I think it should be mandatory everywhere that a worker be sent out to the address to make sure someone is actually living at the residence. Because there are a lot of elderly people without family to check in on them. And there are a lot of people who do not have the means to make their payments because of vairious reasons. You cannot pay your utility online. Some people do not have cell phones, and we don't know if this man even had a phone.
The fact that he had money stapled to the bills shows you he intended to pay. And it shows you that had someone gone out to his residence as a last resort to collect payment, they could have had their bill paid and this man would still be alive.
 
The fact this man was a WW11 vet is irrelevent. WW11 vets have to pay their bills and the fact they faught in a war does NOT entitle them to special treatment.

I would expect a Liberal to have such lack of respect for the fact that this man was a WWII vet.
 
I would expect a Liberal to have such lack of respect for the fact that this man was a WWII vet.

So break out the violins why don't you? Being a war vet does not entitle you to special treatment. It does not entitle you to run up a debt and expect to stay connected with your electricity company. Pay the bill.
 
So break out the violins why don't you? Being a war vet does not entitle you to special treatment. It does not entitle you to run up a debt and expect to stay connected with your electricity company. Pay the bill.

No but being human should grant you the right to be warm during the winter months, no matter what age you are, or the reason why you cannot pay your bill.
 
So break out the violins why don't you? Being a war vet does not entitle you to special treatment. It does not entitle you to run up a debt and expect to stay connected with your electricity company. Pay the bill.

He should pay the bill, if he can. However, electric power is one of those necessities of life that should have restrictions on cut offs. A person had to go to his home to set up the limiter. Did anyone actually think to knock on his door when it was being installed? I mean if a company installs cable or any other service, they have to verify that I am actually there. Why shouldn't the same be for a "limiter" that would cut off electricity in the middle of the winter.

This guy served in WWII and helped save us from facists in Europe and Asia. Certainly, this deserves a little extra sympathy, given that he is NINTY-THREE years old!
 
If he had money stapled to the bills you got to figure there was dementia involved. Probably the guy had the money all along and confusion kept him from paying his bill. Maybe when the power went out he decided not to mail the bills with stapled money on them. Old age really mucks up the mind for some.
 
I don't always remember to do it but we can add a dollar to our energy bills every month for "helping hands" which helps your neighbors pay their bills if they can't. I can't even imagine going through a summer without air conditioning. Remember all those old people in Chicago died and then there was that summer that thousands of old people died in France.

And there is some sort of law that you can get $150 help once every 5 years or something like that.

I think of the mountains and mountains of trees that just got thrown into dumps after Katrina. There were literally millions of pine and oak trees that could have been used for firewood for heating by the Northerners for years. Not a single thing about Katrina made a lick of sense.
 
I don't always remember to do it but we can add a dollar to our energy bills every month for "helping hands" which helps your neighbors pay their bills if they can't. I can't even imagine going through a summer without air conditioning. Remember all those old people in Chicago died and then there was that summer that thousands of old people died in France.

And there is some sort of law that you can get $150 help once every 5 years or something like that.

I think of the mountains and mountains of trees that just got thrown into dumps after Katrina. There were literally millions of pine and oak trees that could have been used for firewood for heating by the Northerners for years. Not a single thing about Katrina made a lick of sense.
Shame. Perhaps he wanted it this way? Nobody knows.

He could have put his house up as collateral for paying future bills.

Out of this all sazerac, you have come up with the only free market solution... tacking an extra dollar onto the bill for use by those in need. The hope would be utility companies would actually set such "charity" aside.

This scenario is tailored for another layer of government. Someone in the state legislature, or worse the federal government latches onto the story, writes a bill in the name of the deceased to personalize the cause... with the result being people not having to pay their utility bills. If it passes... watch chaos ensue.
 
No but being human should grant you the right to be warm during the winter months, no matter what age you are, or the reason why you cannot pay your bill.

I suppose if it were summer he should be able to get free electricity because he couldn't survive in the heat?

Excuses, excuses. He would have been sent letters stating the companies intention to cut him off, the old man is not entirely blameless and could have called someone to help him. Pride killed him.
 
I suppose if it were summer he should be able to get free electricity because he couldn't survive in the heat?

Excuses, excuses. He would have been sent letters stating the companies intention to cut him off, the old man is not entirely blameless and could have called someone to help him. Pride killed him.

Give me a break. Does Detroit get that hot? I live in a hotter place than ANYWHERE in the 50 US states and I RARELY use air con in the summer time. Detroit cold can kill. It should not be hot enough there in the summer to kill. If it is, step outside under a shady tree rather than stay in your stuffed up overheated house. Really stupid.
 
If he had money stapled to the bills you got to figure there was dementia involved. Probably the guy had the money all along and confusion kept him from paying his bill. Maybe when the power went out he decided not to mail the bills with stapled money on them. Old age really mucks up the mind for some.

There's a lot of assumptions in your post. We don't know how long the money was attached to the bill. Maybe he just got a pension check and cashed it. Maybe it was only a partial payment and the utility company wouldn't turn his power back on without full payment. There's dozens of reasons why the money could have been on the bill but not yet paid. We don't know the details yet.
 
WBBM 780 - Chicago's #1 source for local news, traffic and weather - Cook County Money For Your Heating Bill

Cook County Money For Your Heating Bill

CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Cook County still has 40-million dollars left to distribute to folks unable to confront sky high heating bills from this unusually chill winter.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Paul Volpe says 2/3rds of those federal dollars will be allocated to Chicago, the rest to The County.

Volpe also says Chicago and the State of Illinois have increased from 750 up to 1000 dollars the size of grants for families to reconnect after being disconnected for non payment.

And volpe says the city will also help 40 cash short homeless shelters pay their heating bills this winter.

Oh. Federal dollars are available to the states to help out the poor in the winter. Hmm...
 
There's a lot of assumptions in your post. We don't know how long the money was attached to the bill. Maybe he just got a pension check and cashed it. Maybe it was only a partial payment and the utility company wouldn't turn his power back on without full payment. There's dozens of reasons why the money could have been on the bill but not yet paid. We don't know the details yet.

It's not overly presumptuous to assume dementia in a 93 year old. Most 93 year olds are ill equipped to completely care for themselves in isolation - without supervision by friends and family. If he died of hypothermia due to his heat being turned off while money sat in the house stapled to the bills he needed to pay dementia seems rather certain IMO.
 
WBBM 780 - Chicago's #1 source for local news, traffic and weather - Cook County Money For Your Heating Bill



Oh. Federal dollars are available to the states to help out the poor in the winter. Hmm...

Money available to the poor only helps them if they're mentally sound enough to access it. I imagine applying for aid would be near impossible for a 93 year old. They'd have to know where to go, who to talk to, what to fill out, how to fill it out, etc. Besides the guy had money.
 
You don't have the right to take away a service that could kill that person. I don't know about Michigan, but in many places, electric services are considered a public trust and is a government granted monopoly. With that comes certain responsibilities to the public. Cutting off power to anyone, much less a 93-year-old man, in the middle of a Michigan winter, is an abrogation of that responsibility.

Exactly.

His family is going to be very weathy very soon.

The utility company is guilty of negligent homocide.
 
I suppose if it were summer he should be able to get free electricity because he couldn't survive in the heat?

Excuses, excuses. He would have been sent letters stating the companies intention to cut him off, the old man is not entirely blameless and could have called someone to help him. Pride killed him.

My grandfather lives in Philly. A few years ago he called me to demand that I come over immediately and fix his tv. I lived in WA at the time and had lived here for 5 years. I use to live right down the street from him. As far as he's concerned I still do. Old people simply can not live in isolation. I don't know how they manage without family.
 
It's not overly presumptuous to assume dementia in a 93 year old. Most 93 year olds are ill equipped to completely care for themselves in isolation - without supervision by friends and family. If he died of hypothermia due to his heat being turned off while money sat in the house stapled to the bills he needed to pay dementia seems rather certain IMO.

I'm not claiming that dementia is out of the question, I'm simply saying that we don't know that dementia was the problem with this gentleman. My first post had a couple of examples of why the bill might not have been paid, and there are probably dozens more scenarios that could have been the case in this situation.

I didn't think any utility company cut off heat in the middle of the winter, so I'm quite shocked by the actions of this one.
 
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