For years I lived alone in a brick house that was a story up from street level. Most of my neighbors were home-bound, and some I never met in 20+years. I too, was fiercely private, almost all my yard was cement, and my only bills were utilities and they were on auto-pay. If she was making a house payment that included the taxes, I can totally see how this could happen. There were times that I would have had to deplete $20–40,000 in savings before anyone really came looking.