Gene Hackman R.I.P.

[Anonymous]

It’s rats, not mice.

[Anonymous]

They had a pest control company working for them because that's who originally alerted the neighborhood security.

Old article https://people.com/after-mysterious-deaths-gene-hackman-wife-pathologist-wonders-why-wasnt-911-called-right-away-11692694

Authorities were called to the couple’s home after a pest control worker called a neighborhood security officer when he stopped by the couple’s home, and they didn’t answer. The neighborhood security officer called 911 when he saw the bodies through a window.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, it’s really really common to have rodents on your property in the desert. It’s almost impossible not to have rodents in a property that size. Not in the house but very common in the vehicles etc. I know lots and lots of people that had kangaroo rats nest in their car engines and/or their jacuzzi engines. It’s a major PitA because they chew through the wires and their nexts can catch fire when the motor runs. Kangaroo rats are just the worst but they don’t carry hanta as often as deer mice do. Expecting a property that size to be rodent free is like expecting it to be insect free — not gonna happen.
She probably went into the garage to get something out of storage and when she moved it a big puff of dust came up into her face. We’ve all done something like that but most of us aren’t living in places where hanta virus is endemic.
It’s weird to me that there were rodents in the guest houses however. That suggests poor maintenance around the doorway entries or something, or really surprising construction for the area.

This is what I get exhausted with -- the excuses. "She probably went into the garage to get something out of storage and when she moved it a big puff of dust came up into her face." or that "It’s weird to me that there were rodents in the guest houses however. That suggests poor maintenance around the doorway entries or something."

The bottom line is that there were rodents/mice/rat-like creatures, dead and alive, nests also spotted, in 8 of the surrounding buildings of their main area. Not two or 3 buildings, but all 8, including two casitas. Also dead and alive rodents/mice/rat-like creatures were located in two or three of their vehicles/cars, and in several of their garages. You are acting like "yeah, the are present in this part of the country, but not that big a deal, just let them run their course..."

-Didn't Betsy drive vehicles or a vehicle often and ran errands throughout the day to the vet, shopping, her business, the doctors, etc, in her vehicle(s)?

-Didn't they leave doors open around the house that led to the outside of their home, which includes walkways, etc?
-Even if Betsy went into the garage and put her hand in feces or urine by mistake, wasn't their evidence that they existed there and that she had an infestation?
-Is Hantavirus/deer mice new in this area or a pretty common and known occurrence? You said yourself that "Expecting a property that size to be rodent free is like expecting it to be insect free — not gonna happen." So it seems like she knew about the mice, had traps laid out in the other buildings.
-Isn't is also possible that there were mice that managed to get inside of the house?

Any way you look at it, there was a lot of potential exposure to mice and Hantavirus on the property, whether it was in one of the cars, in one of the casitas or other 8 buildings, in the garages, or randomly in the home since they left doors open and the design of the terraces, etc. created openings. It DOES NOT TAKE huge openings for mice to get into a house. They only need an opening about the size of a quarter. They squeeze their bodies into shapes to get into tiny spaces. But like it or not, a full infestation was going on and Betsy and her maintenance guy could not get control over it.
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NP. My guess is she was overwhelmed with the task of taking care of such a large property and caring for her husband. Did you see the photograph of her bathroom? The floor and countertop were littered with debris, mail, bottles, products, medicine, hairbrushes. I can only surmise the rest of the home was in similar condition.

[Anonymous]

How sad.

Also some of you are oddly invested in extent of the rodent infestation.

I think it is interesting they didn't find any evidence of rats in the main house even after a door was ajar for at least a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How sad.

Also some of you are oddly invested in extent of the rodent infestation.

I think it is interesting they didn't find any evidence of rats in the main house even after a door was ajar for at least a week.

Here you go again. The super sleuth who claims that you know mice/rats.

As I said back on pages 29-30s, Betsy did not go into one of the sheds on the property, or some stack of wood in a shed. Nor did she do yo the forest next door to the house and roll around and slept in the woods outside of her home.

This woman sat back and ran errands all day and probably watched tv and Gene the rest of the day.

All of this cooking and cleaning that others postulated she was doing ( I read that neighbors said she loved cooking and cleaning the house). It was all a farce! Just like her being a classical pianist! It was all an act guys.

Look at that bedroom. She was not keeping up the house. Her bathroom and closets were that of a hoarder. That mud room that they found Gene in—again, another room full of stuff. This was just two people, no kids, no visitors living on a 12 acre estate.

Keep pushing your “no rats in the house craziness.” I triple down on the fact that they were in that house, especially after seeing those bedroom photos. She did not keep that place very clean. She probably touched all sort of things with rat poop on them in that house, both in the main house and other parts.

So sad. They were living isolated and junky like this. So very sad also that she probably didn’t want anyone into their lifestyle. Ive got other thoughts on this. But how sad that he was isolated in this environment when he could have been at a facility that would have looked after him properly.

She was overwhelmed alright, but it was more than that. This was their lifestyle. This just didn’t happen overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They had a pest control company working for them because that's who originally alerted the neighborhood security.

Old article https://people.com/after-mysterious-deaths-gene-hackman-wife-pathologist-wonders-why-wasnt-911-called-right-away-11692694

Authorities were called to the couple’s home after a pest control worker called a neighborhood security officer when he stopped by the couple’s home, and they didn’t answer. The neighborhood security officer called 911 when he saw the bodies through a window.

He was a guy who did maintenance around the house, including pest control. Not an official company guy, like an Orkin guy. Just a maintenance guy. A handyman.

These two did not spend money on important stuff. So weird to live with something that most would be freaked out about.

[Anonymous]

I also speculate that both Gene and his wife grew up poor. To them, the mouse/rat problem wasn’t a huge deal.

Remember, he was just an actor, not a scion of industry or a frequent entertainer. Isolation can occur if you have stuff to hide.

Trust me, if his kids or the neighbors saw how they lived, something would have been done or said. She didn’t want that. He was her everything.

I suspect they both had mental health issues. She was attracted by the fame; he was attracted by the young wife who kept life uncomplicated —no kids, subservient.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if she kept his kids from visiting because of the mess?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if she kept his kids from visiting because of the mess?

The fact that he ditched his wife and kids for her, and had no interest in their lives…this is the why the kids weren’t visiting.

[Anonymous]

I saw the pics. It's super messy but I think people don't realize the level of mess many people live in. This is hardly horrific unsanitary hoarding. And I don't like the negative judgmental spin so many are taking. They had been together for decades and obviously loved each other very much and the kids were not close to them. It's too bad the family could not block the pics from being aired out because how they lived is not really any of our business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How sad.

Also some of you are oddly invested in extent of the rodent infestation.

I think it is interesting they didn't find any evidence of rats in the main house even after a door was ajar for at least a week.

Here you go again. The super sleuth who claims that you know mice/rats.

As I said back on pages 29-30s, Betsy did not go into one of the sheds on the property, or some stack of wood in a shed. Nor did she do yo the forest next door to the house and roll around and slept in the woods outside of her home.

This woman sat back and ran errands all day and probably watched tv and Gene the rest of the day.

All of this cooking and cleaning that others postulated she was doing ( I read that neighbors said she loved cooking and cleaning the house). It was all a farce! Just like her being a classical pianist! It was all an act guys.

Look at that bedroom. She was not keeping up the house. Her bathroom and closets were that of a hoarder. That mud room that they found Gene in—again, another room full of stuff. This was just two people, no kids, no visitors living on a 12 acre estate.

Keep pushing your “no rats in the house craziness.” I triple down on the fact that they were in that house, especially after seeing those bedroom photos. She did not keep that place very clean. She probably touched all sort of things with rat poop on them in that house, both in the main house and other parts.

So sad. They were living isolated and junky like this. So very sad also that she probably didn’t want anyone into their lifestyle. Ive got other thoughts on this. But how sad that he was isolated in this environment when he could have been at a facility that would have looked after him properly.

She was overwhelmed alright, but it was more than that. This was their lifestyle. This just didn’t happen overnight.

I have no idea if there were rats in the house or not. I just find it interesting they said there were not, especially with an open door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw the pics. It's super messy but I think people don't realize the level of mess many people live in. This is hardly horrific unsanitary hoarding. And I don't like the negative judgmental spin so many are taking. They had been together for decades and obviously loved each other very much and the kids were not close to them. It's too bad the family could not block the pics from being aired out because how they lived is not really any of our business.

+1. It is not uncommon for house and yard maintenance to decline when someone has to take care of an elderly person with dementia. Your emphasis is on caring for that person and even your own health and hygiene takes a backseat. His kids were living their own lives and everything worked until the caregiver came down with a rare and deadly disease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if she kept his kids from visiting because of the mess?

The fact that he ditched his wife and kids for her, and had no interest in their lives…this is the why the kids weren’t visiting.

The kids were in touch sporadically, which seemed to work for everyone just fine. It did until she contracted a rare disease nobody could foresee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw the pics. It's super messy but I think people don't realize the level of mess many people live in. This is hardly horrific unsanitary hoarding. And I don't like the negative judgmental spin so many are taking. They had been together for decades and obviously loved each other very much and the kids were not close to them. It's too bad the family could not block the pics from being aired out because how they lived is not really any of our business.

Agree. They look like they just accumulated a lot of stuff and wasn’t organized.

[Anonymous]

Nothing like using the Post as a source and then actually contradicting what it said. That guy doesn't understand hanta, doesn't understand life in the west or southwest, probably doesn't understand any kind of rural living, and ignores science.

No one is ever going to know exactly how Betsy was exposed to hantavirus. You can get it inside, you can get it outside. You just don't know. Fortunately, it is exceptionally rare, with fewer than 900 known cases since we started counting in 1993. Most of those progressed to HPS, and 34% of those infected with the virus have died.

I'm probably a bit more interested in hantavirus than a lot of people because I know someone that survived it. Anyway, this has been an ugly end for Gene and Betsy, but the takeaway to me is not really anything about hantavirus. It's about Gene and his kids. I always liked him as an actor and had no idea how he'd treated them. I think the takeaway here is love your people and make sure they know you love them.