Housing horror stories that made the news

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Housing horror stories that made the news

Thursday, December 19, 2002

Inman News Features

Haunted houses aren't just for Halloween. That much can be said based on a

scan of some of 2002's most gruesome real estate stories. Found in the pile

were a couple of corpses, an $820,000 black mold problem, a homeowner who

allegedly helped her children rob a bank and a house that unexpectedly

exploded.

The first case involved a Pennsylvania real estate investor who purchased

more than he bargained for when he placed the winning bid for a condominium

at a county tax sale last year. When he finally managed to get inside the

condo, he discovered the decomposed body of the dwelling's former owner,

according to a news report in PhillyBurbs.com. The body had been lying in

the house for an estimated three years.

The dead man's family-four out-of-state cousins-contested the sale on

grounds that the owner of the home was no longer missing, just dead. The

cousins argued the tax sale was invalid because the condo should have passed

to the dead man's estate, which might have prevented the delinquent tax

sale, according to the news report.

The condo's new owner prevailed. The cousins apparently settled the case

last month because no one had tried to locate the supposedly missing man,

who neighbors described as a " loner, " according to the news story.

Long-dead bodies aren't always discovered only in houses sold at a tax

auction.

An American woman who was remodeling a house she purchased in Italy found a

dead man in a cellar wall. That body had been in the house approximately 44

years, according to an ABC News report.

The man told his family he was headed to America, packed two bags and

disappeared. He never left, but instead built a wall around himself, then

committed suicide. A note stuffed into a bottle, a rifle, the two pieces of

luggage, a trowel and other wall-building materials were found with the

body, according to the news story.

Another family-this one in Wisconsin--didn't find long-dead human remains in

the house they purchased earlier this year, but they did find an

unbelievable amount of the so-called " toxic " black mold that can make a

house uninhabitable, uninsurable or unsalable.

The family won a bidding war for the $557,000 home only to find within weeks

after moving in that the home was contaminated with mold. The family

subsequently moved out and so far has spent an estimated $820,000 on the

house, according to a JSOnline news report.

The family is entangled in legal proceedings with the home's former owner,

but apparently has no intention of giving up altogether on its dream house.

The new owners are planning to raze the mold-contaminated house and spend

another $750,000 rebuilding on the same lot.

Yet another hapless family turned to crime to try to hang onto its home this

year. But robbing a bank to pay the mortgage wasn't a good idea, as this New

Jersey family now knows.

According to the Asbury Park Press, the family's 14-year-old twin daughters

allegedly used a toy gun to rob more than $3,000 from a bank. Their mother

allegedly drove the getaway car.

The family was financially destitute and facing foreclosure on the home,

according to the report. But now the mother and twins have been charged with

armed robbery of a bank and weapons possession. The mother's 16-year-old

stepdaughter was charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery. And the

father of the three girls was charged with receiving stolen property and

hindering apprehension, according to the news report.

And sometimes it just doesn't matter what a family does to protect its home,

it all goes boom! anyway. That's what happened to one Southern California

family after they hired an exterminator to rid their home of termites.

The tented house exploded after natural gas accumulated inside. The

explosion decimated the tented home, damaged another 100 homes in the area

and injured 10 people, according a Los Angeles Times news report.

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Copyright 2002 Inman News Features