It's hard to know what is meant by "some time ago," but several pieces of evidence indicate that the catastrophe happened a few weeks ago at the very least. First, we have a sense that the house has been going through its motions for some time in the following paragraph, which begins with "until this day":
Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace. How carefully it had inquired, "Who goes there? What's the password?" and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.
The house has experienced the stillness of no humans for so long that it has begun to react to the changed situation.
We also are offered the following detail:
The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud.
The dog has obviously been on its own for some time, as it has gone from ample proportions to now being starved and covered with sores. That would take, at the very least, a few weeks to occur. This, in fact, is the biggest clue that the catastrophe happened some time ago.
The dog also dies in the house: another clue that it has been suffering for some time.
In Ray Bradbury's science fiction story, the automated house prepares itself for the day, but the human inhabitants have not prepared themselves at all for (this) day.
(1) In fact, they have not eaten the breakfast, or responded to the weather box or the waiting car. Now, they are mere
five spots of paint--the man, the woman, the children, the ball--remained . The rest was a thick charcoaed layer.
(2) Outside a dog whines. It is shiverying and is "gone to bone and covered with sores." It runs upstairs, "sniffing at each door, finally realizing that only silence was here." Finally, it spins in a frenzy and dies.
(3)At ten o'clock one evening, the house itself begins to die by catching on fire. When the mechanical wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain from the from the wall sprays, the water only lasts so long since
The reserve water supply which had filled baths and for washed dishes for many quiet days were gone.
The house runs for days unitl it finally goes beyond what it should do and dies, but nature survives and lives on.