Firefighters recovered the lifeless body of a 40 year old man on Wednesday morning from inside a house in Torrevieja. The Civil Guard and the Torrevieja-Vega Baja Sur fire consortium attended an apartment, located on the first floor of la calle Bella Antonia in the city, about nine o’clock in the morning after being alerted by residents who complained of a strong and decaying smell.

Firefighters managed to access the property through a window using a ladder truck.

Inside the house they found a man in his 40s in an advanced state of decomposition. They said that he had been dead for 6 or 7 days. Firefighters were required to use their bacteriological protection suits to carry out the recovery of the body.

Local residents say that the deceased person suffered from a mental illness. The house was extremely untidy, unhygienic, full of waste and in an extremely unsanitary condition. The Civil Guard is investigating the cause of death although they say that everything points to a non-violent death.

In Torrevieja there are between 20 and 30 interventions of this type every year, people who die alone inside their home but whose death is notified days or weeks later. They are usually older people who live alone and are without any family ties.