4 Homeowners With Problems You Didn't Know Were Possible
For most of us, the most dire homeowner problems we'll ever tackle will be leaky plumbing, toxic mold growths, and wacky neighbors who barge in to ask for cheese. But for the people on this list, no homeowner's insurance is ever going to cover the shit that is trying to drag them to Hell itself as we speak.
Hundreds of Snakes and Thousands of Spiders Overrun Homes
Every now and then, you end up living in a witch's cauldron and you don't even know it. For no apparent reason, two of humanities greatest fears infested two different homes. Twice, in one case.
In Regina, Canada, one family, which has asked to remain anonymous so that friends and family will still visit them (seriously), keeps finding hundreds of garter snakes in their house. While it's true that garter snakes are harmless, the longest one measured nearly one meter ... and there were 102 of them. One month later, an additional 119 were removed from the house, and more remain at large. The choice to avoid warning their friends and family about their snake problem? Kind of a dick move.
Pictured: harmless (no, really)
Another hapless couple purchased a house in St. Louis, Missouri, only to discover when they moved in that it was filled with over 5,000 brown recluse spiders. Owner Susan Trost said that they were, in fact, "bleeding out of the walls" and that she had dodged one in the shower. It's like Poltergeist, if instead of an old cemetery, the home was built on a FUCKING CEMETERY FULL OF LIVING SPIDERS.
"Well, duh. Where the fuck do you think the bodies came from?"
The house had to be covered in a giant Dr. Seuss tent and flooded with gas, which was kind of like sending a clown to a baby funeral, in that it was a hilariously inappropriate ending to a horrifying story.
The possibility of clowns in tent scared all the spiders away.
Polar Bears Ruin Halloween, and a Big Mystery Cat Is on the Loose
Arviat, Canada has literally been classified as a town under siege by polar bears for over a year. About 50 bears lumber into the hamlet every season, and as many as eight have been seen in the area every day over a six week period. In fact, the problem is so bad that human/bear conflict prevention measures for Arviat have been approved and implemented, including a giant electric fence to keep them out (their first idea of making the polar bears get passports failed miserably).
They were white, so border patrol agents didn't really care about keeping them out.
This year, though, it was deemed unsafe for children to go trick-or-treating outside because of the risk of polar bear attack. The bright side is that the town hall was decked out as a haunted house instead, so there was at least some Halloween for the kids. The bad news is that the polar bear problem is probably our fault.
Arviat is located in northern Canada, where melting ice is affecting the migration patterns of the polar bears. Because the ice freezes later in the year than it once did, they walk through Arviat on their way to wherever polar bears like to go for the winter.
Pola Raton?
Three towns in France are having their own large wild animal problem, and this one might not be on us. We actually have no idea, because we're not entirely sure what the hell it is.
"For all your safety, a ban on electric can openers in now in effect."
At first, officials thought there was a tiger prowling the streets of Paris. But after further investigation, it has been decided that the animal is not a tiger after all. It is a big cat, but no one has any idea what kind. What they do know is that it isn't safe to wander around outside with a 100-lb. mystery cat on the loose. It has been seen near a grocery store, a patch of woods, and a tennis court, and has still somehow evaded capture despite the efforts of 200 police, military searchers, and a sped-up Benny Hill character with a giant net.
Kangaroos Are Street Fighting in Neighborhoods
Two kangaroos were recently seen throwing down in a New South Wales suburb. A video from an unknown location shows them punching and kicking the shit out of each other in the middle of the street, only a few feet away from front lawns and parked cars.
The winner was Fighter One, with his complex strategy of kick-him-in-the-balls.
The fight, which lasted for over five minutes, was a struggle for dominance between two males, but why they picked upper-middle-class suburbia as the place to settle their differences is unclear. Maybe their highly choreographed musical fight numbers got drowned out in the city?
The absence of a female kangaroo to fight for is also confusing. What we do know is that kangaroos are made almost entirely out of muscles and are not to be fucked with. It should also be noted that these particular kangaroos have learned some Matrix-level fu and are brawling in midair.
Lava Threatens Hawaiian Towns ... for Months
The eruption of the Kilauea volcano has caused slow-moving lava to flow toward the Hawaiian town of Pahoa, causing residents to wake up each morning and ask themselves, "Will my house be destroyed today?" And then they go to work and live their lives because, "Maybe not?"
They don't leave, though. You'd be a fool to leave Hawaii.
It's like living on death row. The lava cannot be stopped (because it's goddamn lava); it can only be monitored. And while it continues to flow, residents of endangered villages must wait for updates from officials, never knowing when -- or if -- the mandatory evacuation order will be given. The lava has claimed one house, which was fortunately empty thanks to the three months it spent sitting around just hundreds of feet away from Pahoa.
Plus, the homeowners had thoughtfully left behind uncooked meats .
Agonizing suspense aside, we have to wonder if this is not the best kind of natural disaster there can be. On the one hand, it's a horrible creeping doom that may or may not ruin your life, but on the other hand, you can literally just power-walk away from the lava.
Be sure to also check out 9 Houses You Won't Believe People Actually Live In and The 5 Most WTF Things Found While Working on an Old House.
