Is it bad form to keep using a relative’s Netflix account after they’ve died?

My wife’s grandmother died recently and we’ve been using her Netflix account. Is it uncouth to keep doing so?
J.L., Clayton, Vic

A: Just how soon after she died did you start using her account again? Because it could be considered slightly uncouth if five minutes after hearing the bad news, you were plonked on the couch with a packet of Cobs Popcorn watching Cooked With Cannabis, Episode 2: Delicious Weed Cuisine from Austria, West Africa and Mexico.

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Ideally, you wouldn’t be watching any streaming services for at least a day or two after hearing about the loss of your wife’s grandmother. That time should have been spent quietly grieving, reflecting and reminiscing about what a wonderful woman she was, particularly in the way she shared her streaming-service account or chose easily guessable passwords so that you could hack into it without her knowing.

Which leads me to my next question: did your wife’s grandmother even know you were using her account? Because it could also be considered slightly uncouth if you’ve been stealing from a dead, old lady. She might start haunting you from the grave, punishing you with annoying buffering issues and the occasional network outage where you have to reset your router by unplugging it for 30 whole seconds.

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But if your wife’s grandmother happily shared her account with you, then her streaming service becomes a form of your inheritance (unless you re-subscribe using her credit card, and then it becomes a form of identity theft and punishable by up to three years in prison).

So until the subscription expires, enjoy her generous gift, and make sure you honour the woman by remembering her kindly nature, her generous spirit and her twinkling, grandmotherly eyes, as you sit down to watch How To Build A Sex Room, Episode 2: Transforming a Basement Into a Steamy Spot for Shower Sex.

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