A man who told the rest of his family he wanted to be left alone lay dead in bed four years – without anyone noticing, the Leeuwarder Courant reports on Wednesday.



The man, who was 50, apparently shared the terraced house in the village of Minnertsga with his sisters aged 71 and 44 and brothers aged 61 and 67.

In 2006, he told his family he wanted to be left alone in his room and no-one disturbed him until this week.

But when one of his siblings went to tell him about renovation work being carried out on their home, they found he was dead in bed.

The family’s doctor alerted the police but foul play is not suspected, the paper says.

Minnertsga is a village of some 1,800 inhabitants in the north west of Friesland province.