Craig's List woes.

April 5, 2007 8:16 AM

Craig's List ad causes woman's home to be destroyed. We have all heard about the numerous Craig's List scams and pranks, but this one takes things to a new low. Vandals ripped apart Laurie Ray's house after an ad posted on Craig's List invited people to take anything, and everything, they wanted. From the light fixtures to the hot water heater, everything is gone - including the kitchen sink.
posted by rodo (79 comments total)

lol internets
posted by wfrgms at 8:19 AM on April 5, 2007

When Raye contacted Craig's List, she received an email back saying they can't release information about who posted the ad without a subpoena or search warrant.

It doesn't seem like it would be hard to get in this case, but was the person smart enough to post the add via some anonymous method?

I can't believe people were dumb enough to go through and take all that stuff though
posted by delmoi at 8:22 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah, right, the other users were "scammed into" taking part. There's no way a person walks up to a house and finds it filled with regular house-type stuff (including appliances running, one would assume) and think "she must just be tired of owning these things and didn't want the hassle of selling them", no matter what some craigslist posting might seem to indicate.
posted by DU at 8:23 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

DU it sounds like it was a rental home that was empty of stuff like that. It all still sounds fucked up.
posted by chunking express at 8:25 AM on April 5, 2007

" Raye recently evicted the tenant and cleaned out the rental, but she would soon be the one taken to the cleaners."

This sentence is out-of-place in that article. It seems like an editing mistake. Maybe the article originally included an implication or accusation that the former renter was responsible for the ad.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:27 AM on April 5, 2007

Feeling a little conflicted about my new hot water heater. I knew this was too good to be true!!
posted by hermitosis at 8:27 AM on April 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

Oh oh oh, the "evicted the tenant" referred to the house's previous occupant. I thought "the tenant" was the person who pulled the scam and this was her own house.

OK, I can see how this could happen now.
posted by DU at 8:35 AM on April 5, 2007

Okay, this totally sucks.

Having said that, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. I can imagine jilted ex-gfriends and ex-bfriends craigslisting all of their exes stuff, before they give the key back.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:42 AM on April 5, 2007

*remembers to lock door even if living in idyllic, crime-free paradise; considers mining yard*
posted by grobstein at 8:42 AM on April 5, 2007

Raye believes the unknown person who posted the ad carries a personal grudge against her, but that person also conned unsuspecting people into taking part.

Oh those poor, poor people who were "conned" into gutting a house. I feel for them, how they were so innocently taken advantage of. Between this and the evil mortgage predators, it's a wonder an honest person can even make their way through this cruel world anymore.
posted by Brak at 8:44 AM on April 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

I'm not saying I'd ever do it, but if your landlord pisses you off, this is pretty much the Best Prank Ever. I award it 5 stars.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 8:45 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

it sure sucks for her.

but for the rest of the world, it's ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HILARIOUS.
posted by quarter waters and a bag of chips at 8:49 AM on April 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

Yeah, right, the other users were "scammed into" taking part. There's no way a person walks up to a house and finds it filled with regular house-type stuff (including appliances running, one would assume

When the target store in my town moved to a new Location, they first had a clearance sale and later had a couple "free retail supplies" where they gave away all their shelving and so forth. They weren't going to use it, and didn't want to pay to haul it away. It does happen occasionally when people don't want to dispose of things.
posted by delmoi at 8:50 AM on April 5, 2007

Glad to see that whole "internet bringing us together as a village" thing is working out. Unfortunately, it's a village full of idiots.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:52 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well that seals it. I'm finally going to dig that moat.

Her neighbors later reported seeing strangers hauling stuff away from her home, seemingly looking for salvage material.

This says as much about the decline of the American community as the people tromping through her house. What a terrible story.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 8:53 AM on April 5, 2007

I was thinking about doing something like this with this broken down car (Mazda RX-7) that some schmuck has left in front of my house for the last year. It has collected a zillion tickets, but the police won't come and tow it because we're not in the fancy part of town.
posted by Mister_A at 8:54 AM on April 5, 2007

Still my fav prank ...
posted by homodigitalis at 8:57 AM on April 5, 2007

I'll bet Craig did it. Vandalizing bastard.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:01 AM on April 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

"Raye recently evicted the tenant and cleaned out the rental"

"Raye believes the unknown person who posted the ad carries a personal grudge against her."

I have a theory about where the police may want to start looking.
posted by aubin at 9:02 AM on April 5, 2007

I saw this on the news last night. People didn't just take stuff from inside the house, they literally took parts of the house itself away. The owner had recently put in new windows, somebody actually pulled the windows out of the frame & walked off with them.

Craigslist was not the cause of this but they were the vehicle that enabled it to happen. I think they need to turn the situation around & call on their users to help make the situation right by returning whatever they stole & also set up a renovation fund to cover her losses.
posted by scalefree at 9:05 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I would think after evicting someone from your home, changing all the locks would be the first order of business.

Of course, there's no evidence that the former tenant is behind this, but this does sound like a disgruntled post-eviction burn.
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:06 AM on April 5, 2007

"Raye recently evicted the tenant and cleaned out the rental, but she would soon be the one taken to the cleaners."

A professional journalist wrote that sentence?
posted by gurple at 9:08 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Biarre. Hopefully they catch the person.

Reminds me of when a MeFite posted to CL that people should come to one of the meetups and punch Wendell in the face. Boy, that one sure was a laugh. Ha ha!

I had a happy CL experience last week. Saw a cool girl at the grocery store, posted to Missed Connections... she emailed me! :>

Still my fav prank ...

Oh yeah. Freaking HIGH-larious! I'm rolling in the aisles.
posted by dobbs at 9:11 AM on April 5, 2007

*throws up Z* ^^^
posted by dobbs at 9:12 AM on April 5, 2007

This would absolutely suck to have to deal with. And it will change Craigslist for the worse.

Damn.
posted by fenriq at 9:12 AM on April 5, 2007

This is going to be an awesome episode of Law & Order.

Or maybe it'll be a Chris-Hansen-Confronts-Douches episode of Dateline?

Either way, NBC is lookin good!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:21 AM on April 5, 2007

video here. (oops - no sorry: here.)
posted by progosk at 9:25 AM on April 5, 2007

This is pretty common. You should always confirm with a CL poster before removing anything from the property, except in the case of totally obvious, small-value items left curbside with the garbage.

However, I'm not entirely ashamed to say that I did something like this once.

To a particularly vile internet marketer. Who spammed/self-linked Mefi. Who was idiotic enough to make their phone numbers and business address available.

And then even more idiotic that they were entirely hubristic enough to be entirely unapologetic and unsympathetic when I personally called them up on the phone and described their crimes of marketing, asking if they felt they owed MeFi an apology.

They were idiotic enough to say that, no, they did not believe an apology was in order.

I have a feeling they experienced a very large call volume that day, and entertained a large number of rather interesting visitors. A "free" ad for a dozen skids of old Pentium-3 machines tends to do that.

You like spam, spammer? How do you like that spam? Tasty, yes? Eat! Eat faster, bub! I'm making more!

Granted, my faux ad was specifically *designed* to harrass and annoy, not cause property loss or damage. The size of the fictional "free" item - several cargo skids worth - was designed to prevent that sort of grab and dash mentality.

Footnote to idiotic internet marketers: Such splendours too can be yours if you ignore the "no self linking" rule displayed on the post a link page here. Make sure your domain admin contact information is up to date and valid!
posted by loquacious at 9:30 AM on April 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

I once made an enemy on these interwebs, and he got a hold of my cellphone number through my AIM profile, and posted it to craigslist, offering my car for $100 and a room/roommate basically rent free.

I got one polite interested caller before I had Craigslist take it down.
posted by chlorus at 9:30 AM on April 5, 2007

I would think after evicting someone from your home, changing all the locks would be the first order of business.

Dude, they took the windows. What makes you think a little deadbolt would be a deterrent?
posted by Rock Steady at 9:37 AM on April 5, 2007

Craigslist was not the cause of this but they were the vehicle that enabled it to happen. I think they need to turn the situation around & call on their users to help make the situation right by returning whatever they stole & also set up a renovation fund to cover her losses.

That's like saying that if this person made a bunch of flyers and posted them on telephone poles to advertise "free stuff", Kinko's and the phone company should make it right.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:44 AM on April 5, 2007

"Ten minutes after the ad was posted a light straphed across the sky in the shape of a glass pipe alerting the local meth addict community..."
posted by The Straightener at 9:48 AM on April 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

Obviously, the person who posted bears the responsibility for it, but can anyone explain the actions of the takers? It's just so wildly implausible that someone would want to give away pieces of their house.

There's the occasional person who doesn't want a junked car and lets someone haul it away for free, but no one would actively want a property they owned to be ransacked, leaving them with a now worthless house they have to clean. I think there's an element of willful ignorance here, on the part of the people doing the taking, that should not excuse them from blame.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:49 AM on April 5, 2007

but for the rest of the world, it's ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HILARIOUS.

If you're a 3 year old, maybe.
An emotionally stunted 3 year old.
posted by signal at 9:49 AM on April 5, 2007

Craigslist had nothing to do with this. No one sets up to gut a house because you saw an ad on Craigslist.

In fact, if someone posted an ad on Craigslist and tomorrow you came home to find your house gutted, how would you even know there had been an ad on Craigslist?

The whole thing is fishy. I'd think it more likely that the owner had this done, got paid for what was taken as salvage, posted the ad herself to cover her tracks, and is now submitting a hefty insurance claim.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:50 AM on April 5, 2007 [4 favorites]

> When the target store in my town moved to a new Location, they first had a clearance sale and later had a couple "free retail supplies" where they gave away all their shelving and so forth.

That's bizarre. The CompUSA in town is closing right now and the fixtures are all price-tagged, many of them marked 'sold'.

We've had a lot of store closures here in the Rust Belt over the years, and I've never heard of a store giving anything away. When Builder's Square shuttered, the last evening of the last day involved bottom-feeders crawling over welded steel warehouse shelving for cleaning supplies and collecting bolts off the floor, and the cashiers were told to collect a dollar from anybody leaving with anything in their arms. But nothing went for free.
posted by ardgedee at 9:50 AM on April 5, 2007

scalefree : Craigslist was not the cause of this but they were the vehicle that enabled it to happen. I think they need to turn the situation around & call on their users to help make the situation right by returning whatever they stole & also set up a renovation fund to cover her losses.

I agree completely. It really wasn't their fault, but they could use this as a great opportunity for public relations. It might cost them some money, but I'd bet they would make it back in terms of enhancing their reputation.
posted by quin at 9:54 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I haven't seen the ad in question, but the idea of it isn't all that implausible, and wouldn't necessarily raise a red flag in my mind (until today).

If you are tearing down a house, you can call Habitat for Humanity and have them haul away everything of value—and get a tax deduction for it. This ad could well seem like a "freelance" approach to the same thing.
posted by adamrice at 9:54 AM on April 5, 2007

> In fact, if someone posted an ad on Craigslist and tomorrow you came home to find your house gutted, how would you even know there had been an ad on Craigslist?

Passive neighbor: Hey, what'cha doing?
Enterprising looter: Crazy ad on Craig's List said I could take this shit.
Passive neighbor: Cool. Wild. Whatever, man.
posted by ardgedee at 9:56 AM on April 5, 2007

ikkyu2 : In fact, if someone posted an ad on Craigslist and tomorrow you came home to find your house gutted, how would you even know there had been an ad on Craigslist?

Perhaps someone asked one of the people who were doing the gutting why they were doing it. That person explaining that it was because of an ad they read would point you directly to Craigslist.
posted by quin at 9:58 AM on April 5, 2007

"It's just so wildly implausible that someone would want to give away pieces of their house."

Is it? I wasn't aware of this until recently, and I don't know how accurate it is, but supposedly it's pretty common to demolish structures without any attempt whatsoever to salvage anything from them. For instance, if you by a property and decide to build a new house to replace one that's existing. It costs money to dispose of the demolished structure and it costs money to pay workers to dismantle it in an effort to salvage part of it. Therefore it makes sense in that situation to offer to let people come and salvage stuff from the structure for free.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:01 AM on April 5, 2007

We have kitchen sinks.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:06 AM on April 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

Dude, they took the windows. What makes you think a little deadbolt would be a deterrent?

True enough. But in that situation, I would at least have thought something was amiss with the "everything's free" house if the door was locked. Would this have stopped what happened? Hmmm..... not sure about that.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:07 AM on April 5, 2007

The "posted on craigslist" aspect of this strikes me as about as relevant as if they'd reported "printed on xerox paper" or "tacked up on Safeway announcement board" if the note had been via flyers. So what?

As far as Craigslist taking action... does there need to be a special addendum "if you respond to an ad that says come take anything you want please make sure there's someone there giving you permission when you show up?"
posted by phearlez at 10:09 AM on April 5, 2007

Sure, people demolish properties, but they don't do it via mob. Inviting a mob to come take your windows and pieces of the wall doesn't help you any if you want to demolish the property, you've still got to demolish the rest of the property, having pieces of the wall missing doesn't make it any easier.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:10 AM on April 5, 2007

At least they didn't say "Come take my house and rape me while you're here." she'd have an endless stream of psychos thinking that it was real.

(Yes, people have pulled those kinds of stunts with Craigslist before too)
posted by drstein at 10:16 AM on April 5, 2007

But wait, there may be more to the story. (Isn't there always?)

According to a post in the Feedback Forum, the owner may not be as much of a victim as she appears. Or maybe she is. You know, you really can't believe everything you read on the internets:

you don't know the whole story < nohandle1122> 04/05 09:56:57

all the belongings in it was garbage the so called owner had taken all the stuff out of that house and moved it to her own house (but the stuff she took was not hers anyways. besides all that she claimed in open court that her mother was dead to her well over a year ago. her mother died 2/3/07, the so called owner preyed on a sick elderly women who confieded in her daughter about being worried she wouldn't be able to take care of herself so whats the daughter do she talks her mother into signing the house to her and that she would take care of everything including her. well she didn'tt take care of her mother and she considered her mom dead long before she died. she's also on welfare and owns five houses

http://forums.craigslist.org/?ID=61166981
posted by ereshkigal45 at 10:19 AM on April 5, 2007

ereshkigal45 :
Whatever the owner may or may not have done to her mother is immaterial in this case. And semi-literate people called "nohandle" are not necessarily reliable sources. [NOT SEMI-LITERATIST]
posted by Mister_A at 10:29 AM on April 5, 2007

Maybe the article originally included an implication or accusation that the former renter was responsible for the ad.

Doesn't the concept of 2+2 suggest the former renter was responsible? Who else besides the lady who owned the home would know it was abandoned, and who else would have that immediate a malicious desire to have everything inside it destroyed?

This isn't Columbo-level suspense here, folks. If the former renters aren't in a questioning room as we very speak by now I'm ashamed of the state of the Takoma Police Department.

When Raye contacted Craig's List, she received an email back saying they can't release information about who posted the ad without a subpoena or search warrant.

I have just the slightest feeling the massive lawsuit potential is probably going to help there, too. "Prankster," I really hope you were smart enough to do this shit at a library, because you seriously shouldn't think Craigslist is going to give a fraction of a fuck about your privacy on this one.

According to a post in the Feedback Forum, the owner may not be as much of a victim as she appears.

To be fair, according to the average post in a Craigslist Feedback Forum, I can get new pills pr0mise expand p3ni5 overnight. I don't take those seriously either.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 10:33 AM on April 5, 2007

Therefore it makes sense in that situation to offer to let people come and salvage stuff from the structure for free.

Actually it doesn't make sense. Imagine the huge liability exposure the property owner would have if someone got injured. I can't see anyone with half a brain allowing this.
posted by MikeMc at 10:37 AM on April 5, 2007

It's just so wildly implausible that someone would want to give away pieces of their house.

There was a house in Monte Sereno for which our architect got permission to remove anything she wanted. The owner had died, and the architect had the commission for the McMansion that was to go up in its place. On a Sunday morning my gf and I went over and took a dozen glass sliding doors and a number of lovely plants from this place. It had looked nice until we got there, but once the doors were off the leaves started to blow through the living room and the house quickly began to look abandoned - kind of sad, really, because the house had been built nicely and cared for very well.

The glass doors are on our greenhouse now, we're really happy to have them.
posted by jet_silver at 10:41 AM on April 5, 2007

There's a good reason to get people to haul off items - post demolition, the haul-away costs money. If people really want sinks and doors and will lighten the load there's some motivation there. As far as the liability, I suspect the average Joe ponders such things less than you or I might, MikeMc. If people thought that carefully as a matter of course they wouldn't lend their cars out, at least not in vicarious liability states like Florida.

All that aside, there's no way this went down the way that would. Something's fishy. Either the house was left open and inviting in some way or the people who showed up needed little encouragement to engage in aggressive demolition and theft. No matter what, something more went on here than a simple joke posting gone awry.
posted by phearlez at 10:49 AM on April 5, 2007

"the haul-away costs money"

The haul-away and the disposal. Many thousands of dollars. I bet you can reduce that by quite a bit.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:52 AM on April 5, 2007

A professional journalist wrote that sentence?

It's KING5, not the NYT.

In fact, if someone posted an ad on Craigslist and tomorrow you came home to find your house gutted, how would you even know there had been an ad on Craigslist?

According to the story, the police watch CL postings and an officer noticed this one and kept an eye on it.
posted by dhartung at 11:10 AM on April 5, 2007

Missed connection:

You, a hottie of a redhead with a prosthetic nose, slight limp smelling of feces and alcohol listening to your iPod on the Green line train

Me, blind with two glass eyes, a half-finished bottle of Wild Irish Rose, nude, wearing pink bunny slippers.

Our eyes met (i think). Did you feel it too?
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:15 AM on April 5, 2007

I may be wrong, but it looks like someone's trying to do the same thing in glendale right now.
posted by dogwelder at 11:24 AM on April 5, 2007

Were there any cameras?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:25 AM on April 5, 2007

I had a happy CL experience last week. Saw a cool girl at the grocery store, posted to Missed Connections... she emailed me! :>

Wow, so that actually happens? Awesome!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:38 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sure looks that way, dogwelder- who has internet but not a phone?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:40 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mister_A:

And semi-literate people called "nohandle" are not necessarily reliable sources.

What part of the following statement did you miss that led you to believe that I gave credence to the post in the CL Feedback Forum? (Hint, I highlighted in bold.):

According to a post in the Feedback Forum, the owner may not be as much of a victim as she appears. Or maybe she is. You know, you really can't believe everything you read on the internets:

XQUZYPHYR:

To be fair, according to the average post in a Craigslist Feedback Forum, I can get new pills pr0mise expand p3ni5 overnight. I don't take those seriously either.

I think you're confusing the feedback forum with the ad space. The Feedback Forum is a relatively tidy, no nonsense forum, which is policed pretty rigorously by the regulars. The average post in that forum is more likely to be "Flagging sux," followed by ten posts which attempt to explain precisely why flagging does not suck with varying levels of niceness or vitriol depending on the original poster's perceived level of idiocy.
posted by ereshkigal45 at 12:34 PM on April 5, 2007

Bunch a savages in this town.
posted by cashman at 12:48 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I can't imagine "Someone on an internet forum said it was ok" would be an convincing defense against burglary charges. It would be an interesting one, though.
posted by ken_zoan at 1:14 PM on April 5, 2007

"Wanted: a stranger to break down my door, enter my bedroom, and violently rape me. The safe word is 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. If I'm screaming and asking who you are and what you're doing here, that means you're not raping hard enough."
posted by tehloki at 1:36 PM on April 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

I haven't seen the ad in question, but the idea of it isn't all that implausible, and wouldn't necessarily raise a red flag in my mind

I've seen similar ads on local (NoVa) FreeCycle lists -- it doesn't seem terribly uncommon for folks who are in the process of major renovations to offer up everything including counters, cabinets, appliances, and the kitchen sink. They'd just be getting rid of it anyway, after all, and this lets them save some cost and effort on the gutting and disposal side.

Mind you, the ones I've seen weren't posting their addresses and saying "come and get it", so some pre-screening would be going on. The free-for-all "show up at this location" stuff, when it's allowed -- some of the lists discourage it more actively -- tend to be smaller or junkier items -- unsold yard sale leftovers, broken lawn mowers, etc. So I would be a little suspicious of an open invitation to go inside someone's property and take stuff with no supervision or screening beforehand. But the simple offer to take anything desired from a room to be gutted? That wouldn't raise my eyebrows.

As for the subpoena issue: CL is being perfectly reasonable here. It is very, very common for ISPs and other internet content providers to have such a policy as a form of due diligence, to protect their customers/users from stalkerish sorts who are seeking personal information to aid in their harassment of some online foe (and to protect themselves from lawsuits from such customers if said information is handed out improperly). Anyone who's got a serious, legitimate need for the information, like the alleged victim here, should be able to turn to law enforcement (or private attorneys, if they're pursuing a civil case) to get the necessary John Doe subpoena, at which point the provider will cheerfully comply; but that paperwork requirement will help discourage the more casual sort of kooks.
posted by Smilla's Sense of Snark at 1:53 PM on April 5, 2007

CSI did a story about a 'craigslist' kinda ad put up by an ex-boyfriend on a woman's behalf, inviting men to show up, take the key from under the mat, and come in and rape her...the poor frat boy who killed her in the process felt pretty bad about it...
posted by troybob at 2:23 PM on April 5, 2007

From the light fixtures to the hot water heater

Luckily, the cold water heater was left untouched. <rimshot/>

Saw a cool girl at the grocery store, posted to Missed Connections... she emailed me!

Didja nailer?
posted by oncogenesis at 2:29 PM on April 5, 2007

It is very, very common for ISPs and other internet content providers to have such a policy as a form of due diligence, to protect their customers/users from stalkerish sorts who are seeking personal information to aid in their harassment of some online foe

Or in this case, if all is as it has been reported to be, to prevent a homeowner in a righteous anger from showing up at the pranksters house and giving him/her some high-velocity lead poisoning. Or possibly the house of the person whose open wifi the prankster used to post the message.

Good on craigslist for not disclosing.
posted by phearlez at 2:34 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's like saying that if this person made a bunch of flyers and posted them on telephone poles to advertise "free stuff", Kinko's and the phone company should make it right.

Unlike Kinko's, Craigslist is defined by its sense of community. Craig Newmark's made a point of that in every interview I've ever seen him give. He explicitly cites it as the reason he refuses to sell the company. The community participated (albeit unwittingly) in the vandalism of a home. If they want to mitigate the inevitable loss of trust that's already coming from that, the community will have to make amends, publicly.
posted by scalefree at 4:14 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Seen in other news articles about this situation: the tenant she evicted was her sister, so the police are calling it a likely case of domestic conflict, and she they are declining to press charges against anyone nor get a warrant for the info from Craigslist.
posted by Kickstart70 at 5:45 PM on April 5, 2007

homodigitalis -
Toilet seat guy appears to have been stuck more than once.
posted by swell at 6:18 PM on April 5, 2007

So what, just because it might have been a sibling that set this up, the cops aren't interested in pressing charges or even looking into it any further? That seems sort of insane. I never knew siblings could do whatever they wanted to each other without the law mattering.

Good thing I don't have any evil siblings (or any siblings at all).
posted by Orb at 6:39 PM on April 5, 2007

Officials at Craigslist say they need a subpoena or search warrant to release information about who posted the ad. Tacoma Police say they are not going to request those documents.

Police also say even if they knew who took items from the home, most would likely not face criminal charges.

Say wha...? I guess no one reads to the bottom of the article? How is it that you can remove a kitchen sink from a place and not face criminal charges if you don't get explicit permission?
posted by mhh5 at 7:17 PM on April 5, 2007

Officials at Craigslist say they need a subpoena or search warrant to release information about who posted the ad. Tacoma Police say they are not going to request those documents.

Police also say even if they knew who took items from the home, most would likely not face criminal charges.

"There were no convenient black kids to arrest and it sometimes takes up to two phone calls to get a subpoena," said Tacoma Police Detective Gretchen Ellis. "Actually investigating a crime that isn't handed to us on a silver platter is a lot of work."

Ellis then sodomized a Jamaican immigrant with her nightstick.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:50 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm with ikkyu2 above, this story does not wash.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:40 PM on April 5, 2007

I moved to The East Village in the mid 80's, and before it gentrified the place had a rather interesting sense of community. It was a pretty practice common for folks to sublet flats for the summer, contents and all, as many people liked to get out of New York during July/August.

Almost always these flats were rented to friends of friends, cash basis, since everyone had a rough idea of who everyone else was.

An friend of my GalPal at the time sublet her place and promptly moved with her boyfriend to Fire Island for what she had every reason to believe would be a relaxing summer.

Two weeks later my GalPal is walking down Ave B and see a flyer advertising a "moving sale" and the prices - almost free - caught her eye. She then thought she recognised the address, so she visits the flat and immediately realised what's going on - they guy who rented the place is now selling off all of the property, towels, bed linen, etc, etc all even down to light bulbs "everythings gotta go!". Naturally, there was a large mob carting off everything of value.

Turned out he'd just been released from one of the mental hospitals, and sorta went off when he forgot to take his medication.
posted by Mutant at 2:46 AM on April 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

@swell:

Serial toilet gluer?

Thanks!
posted by homodigitalis at 5:03 AM on April 6, 2007

I just need to mention one of the great short stories of all time -- Graham Greene's The Destructors.

‘Old Misery’s going to be away all tomorrow and Bank Holiday.’

Blackie said with relief, ‘You mean we could break in?’

‘And pinch things?’ somebody asked.

‘I don’t want to pinch anything,’ T said. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

‘What is it?’

T raised eyes; ‘We’ll pull it down.’ – ‘We’ll destroy it.’

Blackie gave a single hoot of laughter and then, like Mike, fell quiet, daunted by the serious implacable gaze. ‘What’d the police be doing all the time?’ he said.

‘They’d never know. We’d do it from inside. I’ve found a way in. We’d be like worms, don’t you see, in an apple. When we came out again there’d be nothing there – nothing but just walls, and then we’d make the walls fall down – somehow.’
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 10:03 AM on April 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

If it's true, the situation sucks.

But I can't help but think that this is the most creative way to commit insurance fraud I've ever heard of.
posted by id at 11:40 AM on April 6, 2007

Another story with a bit more information. Seems they are investigating it now, but still saying they aren't sure a crime happened and it might be a civil matter, which I still don't get. I would hope if the windows, doors, sinks and whatnot that make up my house were to be hauled off one day without my persmission, someone would consider that a crime, no matter who did it or how they got the idea to do it.
posted by Orb at 7:34 PM on April 6, 2007