Anyone Seen Charlie?

Do they know the meaning of the word neighbor in the UK?

Last April I posted a story about a man whose skeleton was found in his apartment after the poor sod had been lying there dead and unnoticed for six years. I made a comment then about the apparent shortage of community spirit in UK towns.

Even as I was writing the story, it was happening again. A guy in Wolverhampton UK, was lying dead in his home and by last April had already been lying there, unnoticed, for four months. This guy's caring neighbors didn't get concerned until about a week ago, seven months after he died. The week before last the police broke his door down and found his decomposing body and estimated that he had been dead since the end of last December.

Seven months before neighbors register their concerns is a considerable improvement on the six years it took the caring folk of Walsall to raise the alarm but it still doesn't sound like old fashioned neighborliness to me.

The whole thing just sickens me. How long would it take you to notice that one of your neighbors wasn't around?