GR translation: smells of long illness and terminal occupation

[Mike Jing]

V154.12-17, P156.36-157.4   They are shivering and hungry. In the
Studentenheim there’s no heat, not much light, millions of roaches. A
smell of cabbage, old second Reich, grandmothers’ cabbage, of lard
smoke that has found, over the years, some détente with the air that
seeks to break it down, smells of long illness and terminal occupation
stir off the crumbling walls. One of the walls is stained yellow with
waste from the broken lines upstairs.

What does "terminal occupation" mean here?
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l