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?

Yes.

A great many people cannot even say "died" or "dead".

They say passed, which is very strange IMO.

People die. They do not "pass".

Well they won’t use the restaurant then. What do Yi expect to happen to the premises when the funeral directors moved out, for it to be pulled down?

The bodies were in bags. They werent on open display. You're being unreasonable im afraid

I'm so glad I'm not the only one!

Like this? 😀

I honestly don’t understand what you would expect, you live behind a funeral directors, surely this can’t be surprising?

You've said the building is tiny and the cars park on the street so I assume they don't have a private yard. So I don't see what choice they have and I don't see how they can avoid doing their job when there are other people around, and I don't think they should delay their job for passers-by.
Just because they are in body bags and briefly visible I don't think that indicates a lack of respect, as some pp have suggested.
You feel how you feel though and that's fair enough. Could you keep an eye out and delay leaving for a few mins if you spot it again?

Maybe build some kind of private yard?

As per their professional guidelines, funeral directors are expected to:

Maintain dignity and respect for the deceased at all times.
Use discreet vehicles (usually private ambulances/hearses rather than ordinary vans).
Minimise public exposure when transferring bodies which could include using concealed trolleys, parking right next to the building etc etc!

Planning permission for funeral directors should include the facility to transfer the deceased privately, on the business's property. I assumed it did, as I've never heard of them being transferred on a public road.

This should not be to protect the general public from seeing the body bags, but out of respect for the deceased and their families.

Unbelievably, there are ghouls out their who get their kicks from watching this kind of thing.

Nope, the world doesn’t bend around us

its your job to prepare them for what death looks like and happens after death

it’s a good time to get on with it

Thanks for the replies.

Firstly, I’ve never posted about this before as it’s the first time I’ve seen a private ambulance there, so I’m not sure why that was brought up. Maybe I should find that other identical post as it might have some helpful advice. If anyone could share a link that would be fab.

We usually see hearses with coffins before funerals, which doesn’t bother me as much as I kind of presumed they’d come from the storage facility and were just setting off from the ‘shop’.

Obviously, I communicate with my children about it in a very matter of fact way, I’m not clutching my pearls and shielding their eyes while shouting ‘don’t look children’ at them. We live here and I don’t want them to be scared of anything they may see, of course we talk about it in a mature way if they ask.

The directors has a very large (and more privately situated) storage facility in an industrial estate literally a 10 minute drive away, and I presumed the bodies would be transported there. I’ve been living here for nearly two years and have never seen a private ambulance with body bags in here ever before. So I was a bit surprised to see what I did last night. I’m not sure I’d feel happy about it if that was one of my relatives.

Monitor it for what? Who is OP going to complain too? the council will know what the premises are used for. I doubt they’re breaking any rules.

I'd also have expected them to have a private area for unloading. If they do, they should be using it. If not, I suppose they're unlikely to bother waiting for the road to be clear. To them, it's just everyday business. I understand not wanting to see it, though.

A customer died in the restaurant of the shop I used to work in. Didn't stop me eating in there!

When my parent died and was put in a body bag and taken from home all of the neighbours saw that happen.

How does this differ?

People die every day.

Before I had to deal with that I probably would’ve felt more like you, but having arranged a funeral and prepared for the removal of my parent to the funeral home I now realise what an important job it is.

Every person we dealt with from the home was wonderful, so respectful of those in their care and the families who had lost loved ones. Death isn’t an awful secret, it’s a fact of life.

I think movies/TV have made body bags seem really horrible and unpleasant when they’re no different really to a casket or even the private ambulance itself.

So why on earth live there then?

I think the problem here is that the road is private and presumably a cul de sac so as far as the funeral directors go, they think of it as a private space. I mean you are having to squeeze past hearses and presumably see coffins in those already. I think if you share a private road with a funeral director, there's going to be a lot of dead body related activities, as they don't have another way for the deceased to get into the building. They could have shut the doors to the ambulance though, they could use a concealed trolley, but ultimately this is the consequence of that arrangement. I guess it feels worse to see a body bag than a coffin, but coffins still contain bodies.

Hearses are no wider than the cars from which they were created. I used to work for a funeral director and the hearses were modified Mercedes E Class estate cars. Also, I would be very surprised if they were using a hearse to transport a deceased person in a body bag; hearses are designed to transport coffins.

Wouldn't bother me, but I wouldn't want to be living in your house when the zombie apocalypse begins.

They are going 'no contact' or whatever hip new phrase we have to use

I find this really odd. Likewise many of the comments. Surely they should use a yard? Not normal.

Your are being horribly entitled. I won't use the K word but it would be very fitting.

Funeral directors and anything to do with the disposal of bodies (to put it rather bluntly) as well as the level of grief & upset from families they must deal with, can't be an easy job.

Maybe it would be better to teach your kids about death and the fact that some day, someone will have to haul your body off the back of an ambulance and into a building in order to prepare to give you a decent burial / cremation?

They usually have an above and a below, don’t they? So coffin on top for the formal ceremonial parts, coffin/bag below for the mundane bits.
I know they use black vans as well.

Sometime systems break down and things are done in a second best way. Perhaps this was one Of Those times.

Absolutely this! My dad DIED last autumn. I haven't lost him, he hasn't passed anywhere. He died! I don't get why people can't say it

Why wouldn’t you be happy about it if it was your relative? The bodies are in a bag, they can’t be seen and no one knows who they are.
I mean, maybe I’m less sensitive about these things based on the fact that my brother’s body was removed from a car in front of rows and rows of traffic, but it seems really bizarre to me. No one can see anything, they’re conducting their business.