Man freezes to death in his home after his gas is cut off

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this happens all the time in my area. so far like 10 people died like this. Even I didnt have heat for this past, hellishly cold week.

Just wow

Tempted to switch back to coal heat, soo much cheaper, specially since all i have to do is make a pit in my yard and I willfind coal.

More reason to f**k Capitalism.

Seriously, we need utilities to survive. Why aren't they socialized?

There is laws here prohibitting the disconnection of gas and utilities in the winter...His gas was cut off in June, but he failed to ask to have it reconnected for whatever reason so the company may have assumed he moved out. Many commenters on the comment section of that article have speculated that it may be because he suffers from mental illness or such and shouldnt have even been living on his own like that and that he should have had someone look after him such as a social worker or a part time personal care assistant to check up on him and help him with some matters.Some people can care for themselves but have issues with phoning on issues like this and handling these type of matters such as in the article due to executive dysfunction.It is possible that he may have been an autie or aspie who slipped through the cracks.

Tory, that's your conservative government at work for Albertans

When I lived in Maine, it was illegal for utility companies to cut off services during the cold season. They had to just let the bill run up (though many made money by charging fees and interest).

Even so, a lot of people chose to provide their own heat sources because it was cheaper (wood stoves, propane tanks, etc). And sometimes landlords did sketchy things like failing to maintain heating systems, or including utilities in the rent, then having them shut off right before the cut-off date in October.

So I heard of things like this happening, even though the local government tried to prevent it.

Um...
Why did he freeze? He didn't have blankets/sleeping bags/warm clothes, or what??
Have people just never been winter camping?
Why didn't he just go to his mom's house, or a friend's or something??
I mean that's too bad and all, but I don't get why he died.

Lots of people like nature in all seasons, including winter.

But you know, it does take some creativity to stay warm when temperatures are truly freezing; and if you don't have the ability to organize yourself well enough to get the heat turned back on for winter even though you have less than $20 to pay, then it is probable you may also lack the problem-solving skills necessary to gather blankets, sleep during the day, go to warm public places during the coldest times, etc.

I agree with the folks saying that maybe he needed help figuring out how to handle this stuff. People don't just die from cold when they could easily get the heat turned back on; there's usually more to it than that. One case I heard of was probably a suicide; others tended to be people with undetected Alzheimer's; yet others, people who might well have been Aspie/autie and no more able to figure out the utility companies on their own than I can figure out a bus system.

Social safety net topic

This is a tragic thing that happens far too frequently, and even if there are agencies that can help a person pay utilities, unless the person is connected to them there will be incidents like this and we will only know about them when we read about it in the news.

The net did not work in this case, and so people learn the hard way.