Tuesday 19 July 2011
hypothetical
this morning I inspected a very lovely house on a half acre plot of old gardens with dry stone walls and such. big house, built in late teens, wide oak-ined hallway, immense rooms with fireplaces, original casement windows with window seats. totally a-mazing. thing is, as required by law, the listing agent was obliged to disclose that the last occupant was murdered - in the house. yep. murdered. in the house.
your thoughts?
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Get a priest in to perform a ritual. Not sure which one. Good luck. It'll be cheap for a reason.
ReplyDeletemy thoughts:
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in my 20s, a group of fellow students rented a house near me. Cheap rental. Homicide stickers still on the windows of the room the body had been found in. It had been a brothel and someone had been shot there. I suppose that the owners decided it was easiest to rent the property out cheaply for a few years, then sell it without having to drop the price. Anyways, my friends lived there most cheerfully for about 2 years, and would tell people their home's history with great relish late at night at student parties...'Archie sleeps in the murder room; he drew the short straw when we moved in....his bed's right where we think the body was...this was a brothel you know...'
Scariest thing that happened there was late one night after a party- when there were about 10 of us left, we lured all of the guys down into the cellar then locked them in and ran upstairs. Then we took all our clothes off and ran around the house yelling loudly and taunting them about all the naked women. When we finally let them out (having gotten dressed) they'd found a dead mouse in the cellar so they chased us around for a while to make us scream.
Moral of the story being: they'll find someone to live there sooner or later and students are mad so they make good tenants for houses with dodgy histories.
If you're asking me if I personally would buy an beautiful house going cheap that had been the scene of a murder, my answer is that I'm glad i dont have to decide :)
ps oh yeah. They were waving the mouse at us. Gross.
ReplyDeletethat's a great story, wilms! I smiled and chuckled to meself :D.
ReplyDeletemeanwhile, dead mice and nudey runs notwithstanding, the house isn't actually cheap! I mean to say it's sorta cheap expensive, but only cheap because it's not been touched for about 40 years. really really run down, but intact. price is pitched at run down masterpiece level, not murder level. besides, the murder was three years ago and was only JUST murder, if you will. the very elderly woman in question surprised a junkie in his quest for loose change and went at him with a stick. he pushed her to avoid being walloped, she fell and bumped her head, goodnight irene. does that change things, because it's not as graphic and improbable as your murder?
wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteIt's a killer of a question...
ReplyDeletesnorffles with snorts on top, betty. if only someone would answer ...
ReplyDeletehold on, BIQ did! yay BIQ! my sediments precisely. I mean to say, if your buying houses of a vintage, folk are going to have keeled over in 'em. no avoiding it. births and deaths, the rich patina, etc. it's why we love our old piles so .. all that life! and death :p I put the question forward because I've had mixed responses. from total aghastment, to 'who gives a fuck'. wanted to get a few more opines.
a sensible answer? surprised you'd ask that of me.
ReplyDeleteOk.
- resale value: it's sure to be a deterrent to a number of prospective buyers
- is that the real story of the "murder" as detailed by News of the World, or is it the interpretation from a sleek real estate agent?
- why not take along someone more "sensitive" to these matters eg a dog, toddly, or mother-in-law
- things which aren't scary in broad daylight can be petrifying at 3am when Tooly is out of town on business, and the power goes out.
- there's no use spending man hours & dollars improving the value of a property, when it has a drawback
- keep in mind that your kiddies will soon be of an age where they can be left home alone
- don't watch Poltergeist
- stay away from the light
- even if the nanna was hanging around in the afterlife, I think she'd be glad of the company (but would react badly to being ousted by a cross wearer)
ah .. now there's the thing you see. resale values, that is. the law obliges agents to reveal only the immediate previous occupant's hastened end. any and all bloody massacres prior to that are allowed to remain incognito. interesting law, eh? dodgy as hell, too, but there it is. as regards the slick sales pitch glossing over the gore, nah. it was as reported in the local press. junkie is still serving time for his loose change gone wrong enterprise.
ReplyDeleteas for tooly's out of town on biz, that's what dogs are for. hello! what I meant was, dogs are much MUCH better at responding instantly to foreign noise or movement - unlike husbands. who are more likely to respond to nocturnal disturbances with "I'm not going out there! you check it out if it worries you so much"
I've never had a moment's night time ill ease since becoming a dog fancier, betty. and when you have two or more, there's not a snowballs even the most brazen bandit will take the risk.
They do say to find a market niche.
ReplyDeleteAnd as you say, it's not likely the local rag would have understated the facts. More likley to have beat it up as the juiciest news all year.
(Our lads are SO peas in a pod.)