I grew up in a house built in Like most old houses, it creaked in the night, was impossible to move around silently, and revealed creepy secrets from time to time, like when my father unearthed a wooden toy boat from the basement rubble that looked like it had been there for a century.
It also had ghosts, or something similar. Not all houses are years old and haunted. Family finds a beautiful house on the market for an inexplicably low price, moves in, things start mysteriously moving themselves, the neighbors steer clear, and then the full-scale haunting happens.
None of that is likely to happen if someone died in your house, but there is a psychological aspect to real estate.
Stigma is real and it often leads to houses becoming devalued. Detailed public records — especially for homes built in the pen-and-paper record keeping era — are not always accurate or reliable. Records have been lost in some areas, or were never recorded in the first place. The simplest way to find out if someone died in a house is to use DiedInHouse.
Built to fulfill a very specific need, this site uses data from more than million police records, news reports, and death certificates to determine whether or not someone died at an address you search. There are very few free tools that offer a similar service to DiedInHouse. Only three states have death disclosure laws. California requires sellers to disclose deaths that occurred in the house within the past three years, while Alaska and South Dakota require disclosure of any murders or suicide that occurred in the house over the past year.
If you find out about an undisclosed death in the home before closing, the deal might fall through. But much of the decrease is probably due to other factors, including:. So more deaths at home may still be preceded by days and weeks in and out of the hospital, with hospice care only at the very end. If most people do not want to die in hospitals, why are so many deaths in this country still occurring there?
There are probably a number of reasons, including:. The dropping rates of inpatient and emergency room deaths are encouraging trends. But if where you die is important to you, plan ahead. We all need to think about end-of-life care, especially if we want to avoid dying in the hospital. I think hospital deaths will continue to fall.
Increasingly, doctors and patients are recognizing that more care is not always better care. Most hospitals have active error-reduction programs. And medical care continues to improve thanks to cutting-edge research. All of these developments should lower in-hospital deaths further.
As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
It may also be because hospital stays are shorter—due to insurer decisions. Some hospitals discharge patients who are not well, have not recovered or stabilized, because they have poor or no insurance. Regardless of your reason, pursuing one or any combination of these six options should help answer your questions:. The Newspaper or Local News. Archive Facilities. Government Records. Arguably the best way to find out whether or not someone you know has passed is to begin an online search.
There are several ways to do this:. A General Search: To start a general inquiry, collect any identifying information about the person you believe to have passed. Another useful piece of information to include in your general search is the name of the decedent's church if you have those details. Church websites will often have a list of congregation members who have died or held their funerals at that church.
Obituaries: Online obituary finders — like for example — will reveal recent as well as historical deaths. All you need to navigate an online obituary finder is the full name of the deceased although other criteria, like birth date and location, can help narrow down your search. Genealogy Websites: Genealogy websites can be especially valuable if the person whose death you're inquiring about happened many years, even centuries, ago.
Many genealogy websites are free and require only some basic information. Keep in mind that it will likely take more than a quick internet search to find detailed information about a decedent. Want more tips? Keep reading.
0コメント