How do you know if a previous occupant in your home died whilst living there?

[SundaySimmons]

An unemployed mother has demanded to be given a new council house after she discovered that a man died in her current home.

Lisa Bowden insists that her traveller beliefs mean that she cannot live anywhere where someone has died.

And the mother of four says her local council has a duty to provide her with a new taxpayer-funded home.

Former heroin addict Ms Bowden, 40, moved in to the two-bedroom flat in Dartford, Kent in October with her nine-year-old son.

But she was soon horrified to learn that the previous tenant, a 64-year-old man, had died in the property, and called in a priest to bless the first-floor flat.

However, she says that she still believes she can sense the man's spirit moving around her home, and has applied to be moved by Dartford Borough Council.

According to traveller tradition, when someone dies at home their caravan should be burned in order release the spirit of the dead person.

'It is forbidden for us to enter somewhere where someone's died,' said Ms Bowden, who has not worked since 1998 because of ill health. 'It's not good for us.

'I can feel the man's spirit and it gives me the shivers. I can't live here. I always sleep with the light on and would never stay here at night on my own.

'The council need to give me a new home - one with a garden and three bedrooms so my daughter can visit.'

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I'm not going to debate Gypsy tradition, being on benefits or whether she has the right to insist on being moved or not.

I am wondering how you would know who has previously died in situ in your home?

Especially in old properties where someone could have died in their sleep forty years ago?

It does sound a bit like this particular individual is trying to pull something, though there are dozens of ways to find out about a death in a place.

It is an old Pavee (Irish traveller) tradition, it should be noted that there are dozens of ethnic groups that come under the term you used (some of which view it as a slur) and obviously all have very different traditions within an ethnic group, let along among all of them.

Mine was built in 1860. There must have been deaths in it.

In order for me to move into an adapted house that fitted both mine AND my DC's needs, I had to wait 5 years for someone's son to die. Feel (and felt) like a fucking vulture, knowing that the woman would be unable to afford the bedroom tax on here and would only be given 8 weeks after her DS died to move out, but it's the ONLY suitable property in my entire Council area.

And this is OBVIOUSLY just a ruse to get the house she WANTS rather than the one she has - or she would be happy to move into the flat next door, or in the next block over.

Still feels odd, knowing that the previous tenant's DS died in my bedroom, and that she had to move so soon afterwards, but needs must, and that was the Council's and the Government's doing, not mine.

I know that I am now VERY lucky to have a home that suits the complex combined needs of me AND all my DC's, especially after waiting so long for it whilst living in a house totally unsuited towards living with our different disabilities.

Poor woman, though, she had moved out so quickly that she had mistakenly left a box of photo's in the loft. The Housing Association had told her that they had emptied the loft, taken everything to the tip. But my Ex found the box of photo's tucked into a corner of the loft, and I reunited her with them via fb.

This quote is from where? Given it is intended to make a political point, it seems only fair to acknowledge the source.

Due to lifetime tenancies a lot of council places only become available when someone dies.

The council would have no records of who has died in a house. The only way she could stay totally true to her beliefs is to have a brand new house, which would be unreasonable to demand from the council, or a brand new caravan on a site.

My parents found out because the council kindly left the outline of the woman's dead body on the bathroom floor. If that hadn't given them a clue the angry relations egging the house and getting their children to pick on DSIS and I because they thought they should have inherited the council house did.

it's forbidden for us to enter somewhere where someone's died so that's hospitals out then

My cousin was murdered in the kitchen of her council house. I suppose the people who moved in afterwards must have known, but I wonder if they found out before or after they moved in? I mean it was in the papers at the time but they didn't print the actual address and the people wouldn't have known the neighbours to chat to until after they'd settled in I wouldn't have thought.

I'm not sure how you find out but I do think estate agents should tell you. I once bought a beautiful old place over 300 years old. I'm sure many people were born and died there but when we came to sell it after 5 years the surveyor (v spitefully I thought) told me that the previous owner had hung himself from the loft hatch and wasn't found for three days. The estate agent (and all the village it turned out) had known. I was very pregnant and had a panic attack as DH was away and there was only me a DS (aged 1) stuck out in the country. I cried all night with fear.

I know that the previous two tennants of my bungalow died in situ ( neighbours told me). Doesn't bother me, people die, life goes on.

We live in a semi. The woman next door was killed by her partner, who is still in jail for murder. Apparently there were police cordons around the house etc. This is a 1950s house, and happened about 6 years ago (both we and the next door neighbours moved in within 6 months of each other, 5 years ago).

I'm not sure how you can guarantee a house hasn't had a death in it, particularly if you aren't in a position to actively chose the accommodation yourself.

death is part of life, if you see what I mean.

worrying because someone has died in a house is a childish thing, no adult should be bothered. Unless the house was the cause - so buy a CO detector.

so someone killed themselves in the house. Very sad, but of no relevance AT ALL to new owners. Why should anyone mention it, or care unless they knew the deceased?

and yes, if you don't like places where people die, stay out of hospitals.

Balance of probabilities says any permanent dwelling of a certain age probably will have had someone die in it. Most of us still die at home, and in the past it was more common. My house is well over 250 years old. I don't sense dead people in it but I like knowing that many people will have died here and been born here and I'm just passing through like them.

So on the one hand we want to respect this person's religious/spiritual beliefs. We don't have to debate how significant they are to her just that they exist at all. On the other hand we have to acknowledge that we can't guarantee freedom from the presence of spirits of previous occupants in a permanent dwelling - unless we guarantee new builds for travellers which is probably an unreasonable burden to place on local authorities.

Leaving two options - the council assists her to find a non-permanent dwelling like a caravan. It isn't clear why she has moved into permanent accommodation. Or Ms Bowden accepts the inevitable compromises that come with living in permanent accommodation. Just as Jewish people may want to live in an eruv but I'm not aware of any caselaw saying they have a right to expect local authorities to meet the costs of creating one (but it would be in conflict with rights of religious freedom for a local authority to just block planning applications for one without excellent grounds).

special well the suicide had relevance to me because apparently noone wanted to buy the house locally and it was on the market for ages - we were incomers and thought we'd grabbed a bargain (it being way less than it should have been). The whole hamlet kept quiet too and said when I finally confronted them they had been told to by the powerful landed family that had owned it to keep quiet. So they must all have agreed it had some relevance. Personally I think it is the misery associated with the act that causes the problem not so much that someone died.

You'll probably think I'm quite mad but lots of things used to go on round our loft hatch. A plumber fell out of it one day (missed the ladder?), once inexplicably two tins of paint came down and ruined our carpet, my mum hated the bedroom directly adjacent and always asked to sleep somewhere else, I once looked down the corridor in the dark and thought I saw someone. In retrospect............

I agree that the misery caused by suicide is horrific. But you did indeed get a bargain because you weren't superstitious primitives.

so don't start now..there are no such things as ghosts, luck or god. A lot of trouble would be saved if the world woke up to this.

hope the painter was ok, and that the ladder was checked.

In our case, our new neighbours fell over themselves to tell us that the previous owner had died in the house!

My FIL died in his house ten years ago. None of the subsequent tenants either asked, knew or cared.

Interesting discussion - houses that have seen dreadful acts are often pulled down, aren't they? I'm thinking Fred West's house and the like.

Do you think that's because it is so notorious it is unsaleable? And if so, why, if so many people are not superstitious and don't believe in anything?

I know someone died in our house and it's only a late 1960s build. I know because I used to live next door as a child! They had an old lady tenant and she died in her bed one night. I suspect in DD1's room.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. The house is ours now, feels like our home. What happened here before (and I know it saw a lot of unhappiness, domestic abuse, bitter divorces, all sorts) is completely irrelevant to our lives. We have been very happy here for 12 years and that's all that counts.

Our current house is two hundred years old, so I'm sure several people have died here down through the years. We even back onto a graveyard. Shrug

As for the custom, I grew up in Ireland within a stone's throw of a massive Traveller halting site and never heard of or saw anything like that. Irish travellers have very big elaborate funerals, but caravan-burning is new one on me! The majority of Travellers in Ireland are now 'settled', and I've never heard of this being an issue back home.

...which reminds me, there was a murder in the bog standard council house next door to us when I was a child (man stabbed to death in a domestic - we lived in a classy area ). I doubt if anyone moving in there now would know - it was thirty years ago and most of the original families on the street have moved on. As far as I know there has been zero woo.

You could search public records, I would presume, to some extent.

In this case, it would appear the tenant is trying to get another home - who wouldn't want a three-bed house with garden? But even with her cultural beliefs, she is not eligible for more than a two-bed.

I'm fairly certain a man called Kenny hanged himself off the long light fixture in our stair in the maisonette where we live and know for certain an older lady passed away in the back bedroom of our last home.

CouthyMow My daughter is also severely physically disabled with Cerebral palsy. She would like the opportunity to live independently (aged 25) and has also been waiting a long while on the H.A. list in our borough. I was told by a certainotherBorough that to qualify for an adapted property she would have to have lived in other neighbouring borough for 2 years at least! I was hopeful that she may qualify for one of the lovely new builds that have/are going up in the other neighbouring borough, which just happens to be......Dartford!!!!!! could it be that this woman in the article has also got wind of the lovely new houses that are going/gone up on her doorstep???? I suppose that if she moved into a new build she could be absolutely sure nobody died in the property...I think she's trying to pull a fast one to get a brand new home! I'll maybe ask that my daughters new (but not new) fixed abode has an extra 2 bedrooms for her DB and SIL and myself and DP (just in case we visit)...and a garden for imminent DGC to play in! wish me luck!!!!!

P.S. My lovely next door neighbour had cancer...she passed away in Jan 2013. There is a lovely family who have moved into the house and they are very happy, they have teenage DDs who I know can be a bit spooked by things. I have chosen NOT to tell them my lovely neighbour died in the bathroom simply because they may not want to be upset by it and they are happy I'm sure the curtain twitcher over the road will mention it in passing though

Expat, have you been told about these deaths or had contact with their spirits?

Not pisstaking, genuinely interested....

I knew about the caravan burning thing, it was in Rumer Godden's book Diddakoi about a Gypsy girl called Kitty (I think) that I read when she was a child. Not so sure she should get a new house though.