Funeral directors share our private road - AIBU about what I saw yesterday?

[Habbyhadno]

This is such a random post but…

I live at the top of a private road just off a main road in a small town. At the main road end we have a funeral directors that faces the street, the building is tiny and it’s a branch of another directors in a neighbouring town where the directors is very much a shop front.

I thought this one would be the same, but they do seem to store bodies in there. We’ve had a fair few hearses park on our road as we turn into it (at the side of the shop), I literally have to squeeze my car up the road as obviously hearses take up a lot of space and the road isn’t wide at all, it’s a bit of an inconvenience but whatever.

However, last night me and my three kids 6,8 and 12 were heading out and we were all walking down the road and I spy a private ambulance with the back door open and clearly two bodies were in black bags in the back of the van.

There were two people out there about to start manoeuvring the bodies into the building, but I’m a bit icked out by it all, I don’t really think the kids need to see that and I felt a bit weird about seeing it (there’s not any other way we could have gone as the road is small and there was no getting away from it).

Do you think I should pop in and speak to them about being aware of who is around when they are unloading bodies or AIBU? I just feel like they could make the operation a bit more concealed rather than hoiking them out literally in the street, it seems a bit disrespectful and it’s been playing on my mind. What do I do?

Thank you for recognising your unreasonableness!

In body bags from the street - read the post.

It's not a main street though, it's a private back road. Quite discreet. They're just bodies.

I mean it’s pretty obvious, a body bag transporting someone from their place of death to the undertakers is used for sanitary reasons, containing the body, preventing the spread of infection and forensically seal all pieces, for lack of a better word and ultimately cost and ease of transport.

Once the family have chosen and paid for a coffin they are prepared and placed into the coffin.

For me, in my direct experiences, bodies are in homes in open coffins. There is simply no desire to hide away the person, that is not why they’re placed into a coffin since it’s open anyway.

It’s almost like your opinion is not in fact the only way to do things.

It’s not a back street it’s a side street where it meets the main road - read the post.

Original post: "top of a private road". That sound pretty discreet to me. They have to be somewhere and that doesn't sound unsuitable.

Just posted on this - no, there is absolutely no regulation of how funeral directors handle bodies. No requirements whatsoever for dignity, respect, discretion, privacy. Nothing. You can do what you like ("you" being 'anybody' - as anybody can set up in business as an undertaker, and do whatever they feel like with the bodies).

There must be some sort of regulation and guidelines. I mean - you can't just park a dead person in a warm room for a few days. There's a need for infection control sometimes. There are rules around recording deaths and interacting with coronial investigators, where involved. Need for organising appropriate disposal of remains. Handling of chemicals involved in embalming.

Plenty of people have the body just at home, they aren’t locked in some sort of fridge.

You don’t even legally need to use a funeral directors, it’s an optional private service, not a mandatory requirement.

Yes, I brought my little one home and we had them here for a good few days. However, a condition of doing that was that they had to be embalmed, otherwise it wasn't possible.

“At the main road end is an FD that faces the street” ie not the quiet end - you really should read the OP and not just pick part of a sentence that suits you.

Most bodies aren't embalmed. Its perfectly possible to have a DIY funeral. There are very few rules in respect of transporting bodies.
Most people use a funeral directors because it's easier for them.
In some faiths, coffins aren't used, bodies aren't embalmed as the body has to decompose ( ashes to ashes).
If a doctor certifies death and no post mortem is required the coroners office isn't involved. The death ceruficate is issued and the funeral can take place.
It's not always difficult to arrange a quick funeral. My mother died on a Wednesday and was buried on the Saturday.

I am so sorry. You're very brave indeed to appear on here to talk about this.

But you can't see who is in a body bag.

You can tell who hasn't travelled much on here. In Varanasi India the bodies get carried through the streets in shrouds at times on the way to washing them in the river before being burnt on the pyre. It's an interesting sight but no one seems to bat an eyelid

It’s not required but an undertaker will definitely recommend it!
And perhaps it’s even more important for a baby or small child, they must be more fragile.

I hope those few days back at home helped somewhat with the journey to process it all for you.

Yes, we didn’t with my grandmother. We kept her body at home until the funeral. The undertaker just provided the coffin and hearse to transport the coffin to the church and on to the graveyard. My uncle and I dug the grave (which would not be legal now).

OP, I used to live on an identical sounding street but in Scotland, and the same thing happened. Its scarily identical from your description.

For me I'm not fussed about what they are doing, more that they blocked the exit to our street while loading the ambulance. They parked it right in the entrance to our private road.

I found it very weird because like you I'd not expected this to be done in such a public place and particularly where I had no choice but to sit and wait for them to finish as the road is narrow and I couldn't get out. My kids asked about what was happening and I explained. They were curious but then seemed happy with my explanation and started talking about something else.

To be honest I was more annoyed that the funeral business was using our private road for their business parking and loading, because they don't live or have their business on the private street and just park in the entrance because the main road their funeral home is on is busy. And obviously you can't get out your car and ask them to hurry up as that's disrespectful! So I used to have to sit and wait. We were very late for an appointment because of it once.

We lived next door to a funeral director when my eldest was 4. She asked once when we saw a body being moved into the building and I told her that it was a person but they had now died and the funeral director was taking care of them until they went to heaven*. I think these things should be used as an opportunity to talk to your kids about stuff. Obviously, talk to them in an age appropriate way and answer their questions but death doesn’t have to be scary or “icky”.

*I don’t know if I believe in heaven or not btw.

Recording the death, and either burial or cremation, are in legislation but not much else. The Public Health Act allows a magistrate to order the removal of a body for disposal for health reasons. Plus the common law offence of 'preventing a burial'. is what stops you keeping a body at home indefinitely. What you choose to do with the body before burial or cremation is absolutely unregulated. Anyone can have a go at embalming a body - there are no regulations at all to stop you.

There must be a lot of us with a similar scenario. We too have the issue with them blocking the access road and none of us residents are actually sure whether they even have permission to use the private road as they are not named on our legal pack as road access users/road owners, but I won’t get into that one with them as it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. I wouldn’t say they are particularly considerate to the fact that the road is used as access by numerous others though.

It's really not that important. Death is a reality. It comes to all of us, our parents, sometimes our children, our spouses. A healthy attitude to death is a good thing.

And in our case the corner held our loved one for ten days before releasing the body and instructing us to appoint a funeral director to collect the body so that arrangements could be made. It's one thing is death is expected and you've had time to prepare and think, another if it isn't.

Yikes. Well, I think that's something I'll leave to the professionals. I don't believe in embalming but it was necessary to bring our loved one home, and that was more important at that time.

Same here, it wasn't mentioned as a restriction on the road and their property is listed as being on the main road not on ours, so I don't think they actually have the right to do what they are doing. I did politely ask how long they'd be, and then sat and waited patiently, but it was very annoying.

Whilst I understand that death should not be shied away from, this sounds a bit disrespectful to me, but I am an old lady. Yes, you can give the “wouldn’t happen in my day” quote 😂