Squatting a grave for a few years or until the hour of the Last Judgement (with a bit of luck)

@topffer (42156)
France
March 18, 2017 1:13pm CST
I mentioned in another discussion that a French mayor wrote a bylaw forbidding to people to die in his town if they had not a grave in the local cemetery. Many French cemeteries are overcrowded. Even if it is no more possible to buy a concession in perpetuity since many years and the communes can decide to regain abandoned concessions, there is not a place left for a new grave in many cemeteries. Let me tell you what happened to Raymonde Issartel. She was an organized woman and she had prepared everything for her funerals with a notary, to make sure that her family would follow her last will. She was owning a family vault with six spaces ; five were already occupied, so there was a space left for her in the cemetery. Easy maths. This done, she died, if I dare say this metaphor, "with peace on mind and on both ears." But, when the tomb was opened on December 26th last year there were... six coffins in the vault. Everybody has heard that cuckoo birds are laying their eggs into the nests of other birds, but a tomb squatter, WTF ??? I do not want to enter in technical details a bit too macabre, but I have to tell to make you understand the problem that there are mainly two kind of vaults, one with individual spaces above the ground and a funeral tablet on each occupied space, and another one with a common compartment under the ground where all the coffins are put together. The first kind is not the best one if a bombing occurs, but it is easy to identify a squatter. The second kind behaves better under bombs, but how to identify a squatter ? Bad luck, Raymonde's vault is of the second kind. France is an administrative country where you cannot do a move without 3 or 5 copies sent to the right administration, but apparently we lack a regulation that will probably come soon, because we love regulations : it is not mandatory to put a plate with a name on a coffin, and there was not a plate on any coffin in this grave. Indeed, the solution would have been to "reduce a grave", i.e. to open a coffin, collect the bones and put them in a smaller box to leave some space for Raymonde, but a regulation forbids to do it for somebody died since less than 30 years, and several people in this tomb are died since less than 30 years, how to identify the "good" ones when you know that in a hermetically sealed vault, a 100 year old coffin looks exactly as new as a coffin made yesterday ? The family could have also asked to open the coffins, but to open a coffin of somebody died since less than 5 years you need a special authorization given by a judge, and nobody can tell when the tomb was squatted. Actually Raymonde is in a temporary resting place pertaining to the commune... and the commune is asking 50 Euros a day for this resting place. I hope that for this amount, the price of water and electricity is included. The family refuses to pay and brought the story to the local newspaper (I give a link to it (in French)) on Thursday because France is an administrative country where you cannot do a move without 3 or 5 copies sent to the right administration : you have to send one of these copies to the mayor of the place where you want to bury someone, and he has to check that the burial is done in the right vault. Small cemeteries have often no employee on the spot to do this check, but you are not supposed to enter in a vault like in a mill to drop there surreptitiously a new coffin ! The mayor asked to the commune archivist to work on that, and he found nothing... The stowaway is undocumented. The commune will certainly be held responsible for this squatter if the family sues it in an administrative court. It will take 2 or 3 years... Before the police and the justice will have perhaps identified the squatter. DNA can do miracles today. And finally a new funeral will be done, to comply with the wishes of Raymonde. May she rest in peace. Do you own a vault with a space left for you in it ?
Raymonde Issartel, 67 ans, décédée le 17 décembre, avait préparé ses funérailles auprès d’un notaire. Le 26 décembre, jour de l’enterrement, le marbrier annonce à la famille que le caveau familial situé à Saint-Symphorien d'Ozon est plein avec la présence
9 people like this
6 responses
@MALUSE (69413)
• Germany
18 Mar 17
I didn't know that the French are so in love with bureaucracy. I thought it was a German trait.
3 people like this
@xFiacre (12597)
• Ireland
18 Mar 17
@maluse You should have seen the rigmarole I had to go through getting my son's birth registered when he was born in Paris!!
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
18 Mar 17
It is a necessary evil, and we love to make fun with our bureaucracy : I prefer Courteline "Messieurs les ronds-de-cuir" (A translation would be something like "The Pen pushers Gentlemen"), to Kafka "The Castle" (I know that he was not German, but he was writing in German).
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
18 Mar 17
@Maluse the clue is in the word - Bureaucracy!
1 person likes this
• United States
18 Mar 17
There is an easy way around that ... just get cremated and put on the mantle.
2 people like this
• United States
18 Mar 17
@topffer For her yes, but she thought that she had a grave to go to already. I am saying for the person who does not have a grave but still wishes to die at some point, he or she could just be cremated and put in a pretty urn on the mantle.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
18 Mar 17
@purplealabaster 3/4 of archeologists are asking to be cremated, and, having excavated a lot of graves, I understand that. I would not like to have my bones numbered and put in a plastic bag, but personally I am hesitating.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
18 Mar 17
@purplealabaster I am not an anthropologist and I always disliked to excavate graves, but I have had to do it a few times. I am not sure that it has always a real scientific interest, especially for "modern" (16th C and later) graves, but you have often to excavate them to reach older graves. Speaking of modern cemeteries, at least 0.5% of people have been buried alive. There is not a lot of oxygen in a coffin, but they had the time to move in the coffin and/or to scratch the wood. It is perhaps more rare but it still happens today, including in crematoriums.
A 'dead' teenager woke up in her coffin and screamed for help one day after she was buried – but died again before desperate relatives could save her. ------...
1 person likes this
@sabtraversa (12952)
• Italy
20 Mar 17
All these selfish people willing to own their own grave. I don't care about having space, you can feed the wolves with my corpse, I don't care.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
20 Mar 17
You, perhaps, but your family ? It will be difficult for them to do a grieving process. Maybe they can adopt a wolf that will remember you to them : - Wasn't she a good girl Wolfie ? "Woooooo "
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
20 Mar 17
@sabtraversa You perhaps noticed it, but this discussion is a bit macabre.
1 person likes this
@sabtraversa (12952)
• Italy
20 Mar 17
@topffer That would be lovely! Macabre, love it!!!
1 person likes this
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
18 Mar 17
I must say it is quite sad for the person being kept in limbo whilst bureaucracy is holding up their burial. Imagine having to pay 1,550 Euros for being held in a temporary vault!
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
18 Mar 17
It is approx. 1500 Euros/month ; there are quite 3 months now and the DNA can take a few months more, it is not a priority for the police because the squatter will not flee. I would have already started a trial against the commune : they are responsible for this situation and they should never have asked the family to pay.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
18 Mar 17
@garymarsh6 And they are also supposed to have a list of all people buried in a given vault... I do not see what can have happened. The most likely would be a mistake between two vaults owned by people wearing the same name, but the archivist would have found it quickly. It is incredible to think that somebody can have been buried "clandestinely" in a vault in France, with all the formalities needed to move a coffin from a place to another place and to bury someone, and that nobody noticed it.
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
18 Mar 17
@topffer yes they should be responsible because someone must have signed off for that person to be buried. Sad situation!
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (18923)
• United States
21 Mar 17
That's terrible for the family to have to pay. We have a family plot in a cemetery that is near the house I grew up in.
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@topffer (42156)
• France
21 Mar 17
It is wrong to make them pay. This kind of temporary housing does not cost anything to the commune, and the commune is administratively responsible of what happened. It is nice to have a family plot. The vault where are buried my parents is full now, and I have not yet decided where I want to be buried.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325854)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Mar 17
Goodness me, what a mess! I've never heard of 'squatters' in a tomb before. What a nightmare.
1 person likes this