
Apartment, completely unused since 1942, discovered in Paris - shawndumas
http://belloblog.com/2013/12/23/1942-time-capsule-apartment-discovered-in-paris/
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ilamont
This story has been floating around since 2010 (1). Seems too good to be true.
Details such as how taxes were paid, utilities were upgraded, and broken pipes
and windows were mended are conveniently missing, and the story does much to
pump up the value of an unknown painting by a famous artist.

1\.
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8042...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8042281/Parisian-
flat-containing-2.1-million-painting-lay-untouched-for-70-years.html)

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seszett
Well, they do say that she kept on paying her rent, so she probably also paid
residence tax (or maybe she didn't have to, since she didn't live there) as
well as utilities, which probably just never got upgraded. Maybe they were
just turned off, if she cancelled her contracts after leaving Paris. The
landlord paid ownership tax.

I'm not sure why the pipes or windows should have broken during this time.

~~~
pmiller2
The pipes bit is actually the thing that seems most improbable to me. Pipes
break when the water in them freezes, which occurs when it gets cold and the
water isn't flowing.

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sliverstorm
It's an apartment building; she shared 5 of her 6 walls with occupied
residences.

Unoccupied cottage in the woods? Pipes will freeze. Unoccupied apartment
sharing 5/6 walls? Plenty of heat from neighbors, pipes do not necessarily
freeze.

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Turing_Machine
Yep. When I lived in a condo surrounded on 5/6 sides by other units, I never
turned my heat on. Ever. My gas bill was about $8/month, as I recall, $5.00 of
which was the service charge for generating the bill. I assume the other $3.00
was what it cost to keep the pilot light burning.

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jeroen
The article makes a mess of some basic facts.

The painting is from 1898, when the woman in it was 24. [1]

Not she, but her granddaughter left the apartment in 1942. The apartment was
opened in 2010, which is 68 years later, not "over 70".

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Boldini](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Boldini)

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ColinWright
The discussion here is covering much of the same ground as one of the earlier
submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622993)

Discussion there is closed and hence can't be further extended, so it's worth
commenting here if you have something to say.

