The Mystery of the Millionaire Hermit | Hacker News Reader

The Mystery of the Millionaire Hermit

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92 points80mph55 comments

There was a homeless person who was well known in my home town (not a town that you'd typically find homeless people living in. In fact I think in the couple of decades I lived there, he was the only one I ever saw). He never seemed to beg, always politely refused any aid. He was so well known, people had offered him beds for the night, but no. He liked being outside in the fresh air.

Eventually he passed, and of course it was mentioned in the local newspaper, along with the revelation that he was, in fact, wealthy. He just chose to live that way.

Someone I know IRL told me a similar anecdote about a guy sleeping in the bushes in front of a building. People periodically called the cops on him but to no avail because he owned the building.

I really envy someone with the creativity and self confidence to live life how they want it, no matter how the rest of the world views it. Your story is how a lot of playing characters end up in elder scrolls games.

I sleep outside on my property all the time, it's the bestest.

I have a condition that makes me prone to getting really badly shocked from static electricity. This stopped while I was homeless for several years.

Then I tripped across research about how direct contact with the ground may be beneficial to your health due to grounding you and discharging excess electricity. Suddenly, it made sense that I was no longer getting horribly shocked on a regular basis.

I hate camping. I've only ever done it while homeless.

But if my tendency to get shocked ever returns, I may need to make an effort to camp occasionally so I can sleep outside with little between me and the ground.

Did you try different footwear? I went through a period of this as a child but it completely went away when I got my next pair of shoes.

I do generally live in cheap rubbery sandals these days. It has crossed my mind that might be a factor.

IIRC, leather shoes are recommended for grounding purposes. So if I ever do get a real job, I should be able to meet dress code without sabotaging my health by getting leather shoes appropriate for the office. I currently work from home and don't need to meet any kind of dress code, which has been a godsend for dealing with my health issues.

But it's actually a known and documented side effect of my condition. In fact, when I brought it up on a support list, I was told that one obscure test for my condition involves measuring electrical potential in the body or something arcane sounding like that.

Dietary changes are likely a factor as well. But I haven't specifically seen research saying "Thus and such dietary changes are known to improve grounding." whereas I have seen research concerning walking barefoot on the ground (or otherwise having contact with the ground) and wearing the right shoes.

An old trick learned in Denver: if you think you might get schocked by a light switch (or other object), touch it first with a key. The discharge is spread over the whole of the area where your thumb and finger touch the key, and you don't feel it.

What do you hate about camping? It's kind of surprising considering you seem to prefer sleeping on the floor.

but do you shower and make sure you enjoy life, right?

I ask this out of curiosity and to try to understand your motives. If you just happen to like to be in the open for a while, I totally understand.

Sleeping outdoors someplace where the climate makes it perfectly comfortable and the environment perfectly safe is a luxury, it's the ideal IMHO.

Sleeping indoors is a compromise made because it's too unsafe and/or uncomfortable (or socially unacceptable) to do it without shelter.

Think about it. People generally love the seasons when they can sleep comfortably indoors with the windows open all night; fresh air, no blankets or at most a clean linen sheet.

Well, given the right environment and season, doing it outside is a notch better than indoors with the windows open.

My property is in the rural Mojave desert. There are no Mosquitoes and rarely > 30% humidity, and much of the year the night climate is so perfect you can sleep outside with no blankets or anything, even clothing optional. I prefer a mesh tent to keep scorpions and snakes out when on the ground, optional on the deck. All this with a sky so clear and free of light pollution I can watch the Milky Way until passing out.

With regards to showering and enjoying life... I don't think those are really relevant to my comment and don't know how to answer them other than the obvious "yes, I bathe when necessary. Yes, I enjoy life."

Many people in India in the rural side sleep on the terraces. It becomes too hot and stuffy to sleep indoors and also if there are power cuts. Generally they sleep on a "Charpai".

When I was young we had a lot of power cuts in India and we used to head over to the terrace to sleep in the summers. For mosquitoes we used to coat our skin with an insect repellent cream called "Odomos".

Sleeping on the porch was actually quite common in the US not that many decades ago.

http://gothamist.com/2016/07/22/nyc_fire_escape_summer_flash...

https://thecraftsmanblog.com/the-amazing-sleeping-porch/

You definitely enjoy life.

I have been a few times to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. One of the few times I ever saw a perfectly clear sky (others were during a trip to Big Sur and in Iceland). Mojave is still on my TODO list. I hope I can go there next year.

And I would sleep outside too if I had property there (but in a hammock :)).

Outside you get to enjoy low-CO2 air of 415ppm.

Inside, in an 'insulated' and sealed apartment, CO2 levels will exceed 1000ppm in a few hours, which has negative consequences for human cognition and sleep quality.

I'd recommend buying a CO2 monitor for your home and keep a window slightly ajar permanently, and at least airing out your house/apartment for a few hours each day.

This is another major problem with fossil fuels - with higher atmospheric CO2 levels, it becomes harder to ventilate buildings. We need to bring more external air in to achieve the same effect, which also means higher heating/cooling costs.

There was a documentary about people who road freight trains illegally, basically hopping on them as a means to of transportation for the poor, run aways, etc.

Several people they interviewed did it even after they settled down. Something just drew them to it. They seemed to love the adventure, seeing the country, not knowing where they would end up or what they would see.

The randomness of the adventure sounded appealing.

I saw something similar covered on CBS Sunday Morning, with one older married guy that did it for about a month every year. His family just accepted that it was something he liked to do.

Lots of punks in the crust and anarcho scenes do this kind of thing. I knew a couple back in the day, and watch a former one and her husband on youtube.

To be honest I wish I'd done it in my youth. It's way too risky and the legal consequences are dire. I know better now.

In your youth you had a lot more things ahead of you. If anything doing it when you are older is probably better.

Society is more willing to forgive youthful indiscretions than adult flights of fancy. And it takes a certain kind of youthful spryness and daring that I've got less of an ability and appetite for as I've gotten a bit older.

We've wandered for the largest part of our existence and just recently settled down. We're still hardwired for that and some of us find immense joy in that.

I may live like that if I knew I had a fallback. Homelessness sucks mainly if it's your only option.

What infuriates me is the sleeze ball firms like Brandenburger & Davis who aren't even satisified with extorting 30% of an estate from relatives, but then also resort to illegal collusion.

Yah, let's keep reducing regulations so that these kind of scum bags can keep doing their thing.

A regulation is what entitles them to take the 30%.

And seriously, what do you think the percent should be? It's not that simple.

> It's not that simple.

The combination of money and family never make things simple. Not sure if you watch the movie "Million dollar baby", the back story of the inheritance/power of attorney in this movie really make me sad for our human race and our behavior.

I met someone like this once, he used to hang out under the overpass near the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. He liked to joke that he had "Very strong opinions about very unimportant things." He was often reading a book and I talked with him about some of them. He lived the way he did because he felt that the human body was made to be nomadic rather than sedentary. If you asked if he was homeless he would say, "Nope, I live right here on this planet."

> Brown didn’t have a bed, just a foam bedroll tucked into the corner of one bedroom and a military duffel containing an old uniform and medals.

I understand being frugal and admire it, but this level of frugality is harder to understand. I would hope he was at least comfortable on his bedroll. Based on what I could gather from the article, he seemed like a wonderful man.

FWIW, I have serious health issues and simply feel better sleeping on a wood floor with a couple of blankets than in a bed.

I'm actually given a very hard time by a lot of people for being willing to talk about such choices. So I think it is understandable that most frugal people don't bother to try to justify it. Most of the world isn't interested in understanding. They are only interested in treating people who aren't "like" them as freaks so as to protect their right to live "normally."

I slept on the floor like this too. I read about why we invented beds and it was to lift ourselves up away from insects on the ground.

Then we invented floors. Then carpet and only poor people had wood floors. Now rich people have wood floors and carpet is cheaper so "less high class."

Point is: A lot of our style/design choices are made with the explicit intention of costing more money as a way to separate the financial classes.

Thus, it's not just to protect their right to live normally, but to protect their status in society.

I think your overall point makes sense, but most people I talk with prefer wooden flooring due to carpet's links with allergies, respiratory conditions, dust/mould/bacteria etc.

I'm sure some people link it with a rustic, wealthy style or so, but I would hazard a guess to say most people are choosing it due to health reasons. I certainly always have been.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Maybe that's your reason for preferring wooden flooring, but I know me and most of my circle prefer it because it's seen as higher quality and more sophisticated than carpet. It's like the exposed brick of suburbia. I've also got no allergies.

Another datapoint checking in for choosing wood floors for the health and easy cleaning.

I find polished/varnished concrete floors really nice too but with those I'd be worried about hitting my head if I fell over - even wood is relatively softer.

With hard floors, you need to sweep/vacuum pretty much every day, otherwise settled dust just gets re-circulated back into the air. Meanwhile, carpet holds the dust in place, and it stays there until it's sucked up with a vacuum cleaner.

you have nearly all the benefits of wood, without the costs, from lvp/lvt. wood is still about status.

No health issues here, but have been sleeping on the floor since my teens and now whenever I sleep on a bed or anything similarly compliant I wake up with back pains.

The only time it's an issue is when it comes to dating, since practically noone here (CA) wants to sleep on the floor and I have no interest in sleeping on someone's bed.

The other benefit to using the floor is it preserves one's ability to get up and down from the floor into old age. The Japanese got this right, and it's actually had me considering learning Japanese and relocating there multiple times. I presume the aforementioned dating issues would be far less of a problem there.

Well, Japan differs from the ex-British Empire areas in many other ways in addition to sleeping habits. Some might appeal to you but some might not. :)

I also like a really firm sleeping surface — I don't have any particular health problems, I just feel stiff and sore if my bed is too soft — and right now I sleep on a typical raised bed but with a very firm futon. It satisfies me, and if my date doesn't especially like it, she at least perceives it as an odd preference, rather than as a sign of poverty or despair.

Tatami is quite a nice surface to take a nap on. Cool and breathable.

I think there is honestly very little difference between a bedroll and a bed. As soon as you have any kind of separation between you and the floor you’re pretty much good.

>>> I would hope he was at least comfortable on his bedroll.

Most humans on this planet don't sleep in the big fluffy beds that are the norm in the USA. Many, myself included, find them too hot and generally too soft to be comfortable. An inch or two of dense foam over a hard floor is fine for me.

He experienced the Great Depression. That's why, if you read about the Great Depression, you will be hard pressed to spend a dollar.

I think there's something more to it than that. I would think that knowing he had assets in excess of $1MM that he could rationalize that a mattress was affordable to him. Old habits die hard though.

Most people in USA have read about the Great Depressed and are not hard pressed to spend a dollar.

The difference is in living through it vs just reading about it in the past tense. For example, my grandmother grew up in it and had all sorts of money-related neuroses for the rest of her life. Maybe that was just her, but many Americans of her generation and background lived their lives as if it was going to happen again any day now, apropos of nothing. Just raw fear from terrible memories.

Most people in the US today have no recollection or even second-hand awareness of it. If anything, people today seem far too willing to take on debt for non-necessities that they couldn’t afford otherwise, and far too unaware of how interest accumulates.

Reading about something and experiencing it firsthand are not really the same. But I think it is safe to say that he probably had more going on that just that.

I'm not even old, but a mat on the floor has given me the soundest sleep.

YMMV if you're not an on-the-back sleeper.

Probably just what he was comfy with.

> The neighborhood mail carrier was the one who’d called the police. Every day, Brown would wait for her in a chair by his door, and the two would exchange pleasantries. But for the past five days, there’d been no sign of him. Police did a welfare check and discovered his body in a pool of dried blood by the toilet. Members of the coroner’s office who were dispatched to the house determined that he died of a stroke, but not before breaking his nose in a nasty fall.

Another example of how elder falling is responsible for an astounding amount of morbidity & mortality.

Is it certain the stroke came before the fall? It may have caused the fall.

That’s how I read it. He had a stroke, fell, broke his nose, and then died of the stroke.

The nose just sucks, but if you’re already having a stroke...

I don't think there's any way to know for certain post-mortem; but at least in all the descriptions I've read of strokes, causing a sudden fall within a split-second seems unusually abrupt, while falling is an extremely common and ordinary event in the elderly and having a stroke after hitting your head so hard as to break your nose doesn't seem like too surprising a thing.

I know this once homeless, childless, single, middle-aged guy who works as a manager at a storage facility who has quite a portfolio but has all-but retreated from society.

A bit upsetting that the Catholic Charities never got that money. Surely, they could have done better with it than "a Cadillac and three or four motorcycles."

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