I've been meaning to write about this for some time as it regularly crops up in conversation with friends.
My neighbour has disappeared. Not seen since last November time, her flat has been abandoned in a state which suggests someone just upping and leaving - food half prepared on the counter in the kitchen for example.
OK so there has been a little bit of a development since November. We know she's not dead. In fact she is alive and well and living not far away in some sort of weird, oblivious, parallel life.
It was rare moment of detective acumen on my part that discovered her existence via the power of Twitter and naturally my fellow neighbours and I were relieved to know that nothing dreadful had happened.
But the discovery of her existence doesn't make the story any less perplexing. The red bills have been piling up although recently she was persuaded, via Twitter, to return to check on her flat. She collected the bills and closed the living room curtains before disappearing once more.
And we understand that repossession is a threat which begs the question, why let it get to that stage and risk having your credit rating decimated and all the future difficulties with finances that that engenders? She's rented her flat out before so why not do that again if it's a matter of finance?
What sort of state of mind would you have to be in to be living in apparent denial of the flat you've owned for 9/10 years? This is someone who is intelligent and has or at least had a good career.
It is all most bizarre.