Coffin Photo: IC

For two months, Vienna's funeral services "forgot" to pick up the body of an elderly man who had died in his apartment, a city official told AFP Tuesday. 

The 66-year-old man had been living alone and had been ill for a long time, and was found dead in his flat on 

November 11 by a neighbor who had been helping him.

The neighbor told Austrian broadcaster ORF that she notified the police about his death as she was unaware of any friends or family.

She assumed afterwards that he had been given a proper funeral - but suffered a shock when she accompanied a notary to help look for his will and found the body was still in the same spot.

The director of the city's sanitation center, said he had launched an internal investigation into what he called an unprecedented case.

Contacted by AFP, the municipal funeral directors said they were yet to set a date for the funeral.