Nicole's abandoned house

We received photos from a traveler and compiled them into a historical summary.

Today, we stand at the doorstep of a house discovered purely by chance; it was on our route during a detour. Entering the dwelling, we are immediately struck by the monumental mess reigning inside. Good grief, we are in the presence of a "Diogenes" (a hoarder)! Yet, bit by bit, inconsistencies emerge. The owner of the place was named Nicole; she was a tax inspector. Or, at the very least, she worked for the Ministry of Finance in the inspection department. All of her documents are perfectly filed; she was both a keeper and highly organized. So, why these mountains of trash everywhere?

Suddenly, an old story comes back to me—one that deserves to be told. Traveling from my home in Ardèche to visit my parents in the heart of the Beauce region, I had to cross the Haute-Loire: Pradelles, Landos, Costaros, Brioude. A hitchhiker stuck out his thumb. I picked him up. He was an elderly man, but above all... a tramp in an absolutely deplorable state. He explained that he did seasonal harvests from time to time, wandering from one odd job to the next. Heavily intoxicated even early in the morning—oh boy—he kept grabbing my arm whenever I shifted gears, grunting "Oh yeahhhhh" with breath so potent it made me feel drunk just by proximity—I was going to test positive for alcohol at a checkpoint! He was quite a character, so much so that I still remember him today, four years later.

Suddenly, the old fellow starts gesturing, abruptly asking me to pull over near a roundabout: "I'm going to beg here," he tells me. As luck would have it, I suddenly realize today that this very roundabout is only about fifteen meters from the house we are visiting. The Haute-Loire is simple and straightforward; in reality, it's just one vast village. Should we see this drunken hitchhiker as our resident Diogenes? The suggestion is worth making, with a bit of a smirk. In fact, a year later, I saw him hitchhiking again in the exact same spot.

Nicole originally came from the Castelnau-Médoc area, at least in 1989. She was born in July 1950 and passed away in May 2023, at the age of 72. She had already left her house some time ago. Let’s explore the house now. There is little more to say; we know so little about our host.

Sa maison.

La cuisine. Et ce n'est pas le pire des bazars.

Pourtant, elle classe.

Curieux escalier central.

Sa chambre. Elle comme un refuge de jeune adolescente.

Voilà le réel bazar effrayant.

Tout d'un Diogène.

La cave.