For 23 years, Janice Blazek lived in a non-descript second-floor two-bedroom apartment in a rental community near the Bell Tower Shops where rents go as low as $1,500 a month.
Her neighbors were dumbfounded when they learned that the 88-year-old recluse who died in January was a multi-millionaire.
Just as stunned was staff from Lee County Animal Services and the Harry Chapin Food Bank when they were told that Blazek, whose body was found in her apartment on January 13, left $2 million — to each of them.
Harry Chapin President Richard LeBer said Blazek wasn’t a volunteer and he never met her. She’d made small donations before but nothing to indicate that a multi-million dollar donation was coming.
Animal services staff didn’t know her, nor did Lee County Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass, who advocates for animal services. Commissioners will vote to approve the record-breaking gift at Tuesday’s meeting.
“I don’t think she wanted recognition, but I’m going to talk about that on Tuesday, how great this was that she did this,” Pendergrass said.
Not even AI could sift through Blazek’s biography. She left no clues in her home or on social media how she accumulated her wealth. She never married, had no children, no pets, never owned a home and lived in the same Ashlar apartment, one of 16 in her gray and white cement-block building, since 2003. Her online obituary is a single sentence listing her age and the date she was pronounced dead. Nobody offered a tribute.
Lowell Schoenfield, her attorney for several decades, said there wasn’t a picture in her apartment when he went in after her death.
Milton Landau is the only name attached to her life. She left her estate, in her 2015 will, to him, if he survived her. He didn’t; he died in 2022. He was 95.
Records show they lived together in Brooklyn, New York from the mid-1970s until they moved to Fort Myers around 2000. No record could be found of a marriage license, but neighbor Stephanie Pierre assumed he was her husband. Blazek was cremated and her ashes are next to Landau’s at Fort Myers Memorial Gardens.
Neighbor Loren Merrigan also assumed Landau was her husband. He said she took care of Landau, who was 10 years older and used a walker, for years, helping him up and down the stairs to their second-floor apartment.
Pierre described Blazek as petite, not even 5 feet tall and barely weighing100 pounds.
But she was a strong woman, Merrigan said. He would offer to help carry her groceries up the stairs and she would decline.
She didn’t look like she was in her 80s, he said. She looked 10 years younger and she drove everywhere.
She was a walker, too.
“She walked constantly,” Merrigan said. “She was out at nighttime. She would walk during the day.”
Merrigan was surprised of her millionaire status.
“Some millionaires are humble,” Merrigan said. “She was one of them.”
She didn’t dress in expensive clothes, he said. She drove a Honda.
Merrigan said most of his conversations with Blazek were "hello, how are you" types.
Pierre, who has lived at Ashlar for six years, said most of their conversations were small talk. Landau once mentioned something about the military, and in a rare fit of anger when the apartment complex was going to put electronic locks on their door, he yelled that he was a veteran, Pierre said. But most of the time they would ask her about her children.
Pierre became suspicious something was amiss around Christmastime of last year because she hadn’t seen Blazek for a while, but Pierre had been in and out of town taking care of her father.
She called police January 13 to do a wellness check after noticing Blazek had not taken out the trash and saw a notice on her door about not paying her rent. Pierre watched police maneuver the door open to get past a safety bar. Pierre didn’t need to be told Blazek was dead.
“You could smell it because she had been there for a while,” Pierre said.
The death certificate did not give cause of death or when she died. Authorities ruled out foul play.
The county commission agenda item hinted there could be additional money coming.
The food bank will use the money to help with operating expenses unless there are specific instructions, LeBer said.
“We distribute millions of pounds of food every year and that costs money for diesel fuel, power to run our freezers and refrigerators, to pay staff, so we probably will use some if it in that direction,” he said.
The $2 million won’t be part of Animal Services’ $9.1 million operating budget, Pendergrass said.
Animal Services will use it for life saving programs, sterilization and free or low-rate adoptions.
“She could have went and bought a $2 million house or a million-dollar house, but she probably was very happy the way she loved her quality of life, and she was probably very content with that,” Pendergrass said.
“It’s just so nice to know that she was thinking about … when she was gone the animals and the people of Lee County would be taken care of. And she did that.”
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