Each week, AOL Real Estate probes the corners of the Web to bring you offbeat dispatches from the world of real estate. This week, events took a morbid turn, what with a landlord setting a tenant on fire for being late on rent, an investigation into the frequency of injury by falling air conditioners, and the discovery of a recluse’s skeletal remains.
Hot Pants, Part 1: A fed-up landlord in Boynton Beach, Fla., reportedly lost his cool and set a tenant on fire for being late on rent. Police say that following an argument with his tenant, the landlord left and returned to the tenant’s room with rubbing alcohol. In an ensuing scuffle, the tenant reportedly cut the landlord’s back with a screwdriver but then was one-upped big time — getting his boxer shorts doused with the rubbing alcohol and set afire. Perhaps the landlord thought his tenant, who was able to remove his underwear swiftly, was such liar that he deserved to have his pants on fire.
Hot Pants, Part 2: Combustion is being used in a more benign way in the case of a fire-breathing dragon sculpture that complements the “Redwall” house (after the abbey in the fantasy book series of the same name). Curbed reports that the house in Boyds, Md., on the market for $ 1.2 million, was a contender for the “I Love My Home” contest organized on Facebook by Zillow. It’s unclear whether the mythical beast comes with the place.
Dead Silence: What happened to a recluse in Sydney who dropped off the radar for eight years is now abundantly clear. Police discovered the skeletal remains of the woman, who would have turned 87 in August and had no living relatives besides her sister-in-law, on the floor of her home last month. The woman’s sister-in-law, with whom the deceased had a falling out in 2003, called the police to report that she hadn’t heard from her since their disagreement. The Huffington Post has the story.
The Big Chill: But we should look on the bright side — at least the woman didn’t meet her end by getting flattened by an air conditioner. The Village Voice investigated how often air conditioners plummet from windows and kill pedestrians. What the publication found is reassuring — such fatalities are exceedingly rare, if not unheard of. Nonetheless, people do occasionally sustain serious injuries from such incidents, the investigation learned.
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