Five Stories of Stupid Home Owners

By: Melanie Speed

Questions these people should have asked themselves about before they took on their houses and made their idiotic decisions:

1. Is this home going to be a foreclosed grow-op?

The San Bernardino County Sun reported that a Fontana, CA man was arrested after an employee of the bank handling his foreclosed properties tripped over approximately $4.5 million worth of drugs. Apparently, he had enough business acumen to amass this much in illicit materials, but wasn't clueing in that failure to pay the mortgage would bring people knocking on his door.

2. Do you feel compelled to clean your garage with fire?

Inman news reported in 2006 about a strange insurance case. It all started when a man was in his garage. He saw a strange wet spot on his garage floor.

Did he

a) mop it up with some rags?
b) smell it to find out what it was?
c) try to take a sample outside to see if he could recognize it?
d) set it on fire to see if it would burn?

The answer... d. It burned, all right, because the liquid was gasoline. In fact, it burned so well that it caused major damage to his home and its contents. The insurance company denied his claim. A judge upheld it. This homeowner was obviously too stupid to own his home... in fact, I wouldn't be eager to rent him an apartment, either.

3. Are you hoping to keep a wild animal as a pet?

In Miller's Creek, North Carolina, there is a family missing their son because he got too close to the cage housing his aunt's pet Bengal tiger. The boy was shoveling snow around the aunt's home and the tiger reached through an opening in the chain link fence and dragged him under it. If you are planning to get a tiger or an anaconda for the kids, you are definitely too stupid to own your own home. Whatever happened to Labrador Retrievers?

4. Are you an advocate of unusual pest removal methods?

A Brushy Fork, West Virginia man found that he had a termite infestation in his house. Natural gas, he knew, was hazardous to human health. He figured that it would be just as hazardous to the termites. To make a long story short, he opened the front door the next day and a spark from the latch ignited the gas. The general consensus is that he no longer has a termite problem.

5. Are you completely sure that you don't need a professional to help you renovate?

A Granite Falls, WA couple found themselves homeless after a simple renovation. They had installed a wood stove and chimney, but it malfunctioned and burned their house to the ground. The reason? They hadn't built the chimney up to the roof and all the heat, sparks and cinders were happily swirling around the attic which inevitably caught fire.

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