obviously very secluded

December 5, 2010 8:37 AM

~Price Reduced~ 1.4 acre property in Lincoln, Montana. Great fishing and hunting! Cabin not included.
posted by Curious Artificer (55 comments total)

A perfect place for building offices for a tech start up.
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:38 AM on December 5, 2010 [6 favorites]

It's an interesting bit of magical thinking that we humans do, where that land somehow becomes 'polluted', or at least 'different', based on his former presence there.

Even adults, it appears, believe in cooties.
posted by Malor at 8:41 AM on December 5, 2010 [4 favorites]

How much would it have gone for if Kaczynski had never been involved? The price might not reflect cooties, but rather infamy, like owning a tea cup that Ed Gein once drank out of.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:49 AM on December 5, 2010

Malor: even in a practical way, purchasing that land would be a social annoyance. Who wants to be known as the person who bought the Unabomber's old place?

On preview: what cjorgensen said.

Also, the cabin photos are very interesting. They present a person whose interest in survivalism is a very idealised version of frontier American simplicity: the zither, the photographs. Most telling are the second-hand books purchased by someone whose academic experience might more naturally pull toward the recent.
posted by honest knave at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2010

So is $69,500 very cheap for this amount of land in this area? One could get lovely houses in some cities, with actual running water and electricity and other things I like to have TM, for the same price.
posted by dabitch at 8:52 AM on December 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

$70k for 1.4 acres in Montana? Unless there is something particularly spectacular about it, and it doesn't seem like it, that's a pretty big premium over what I suspect the land is really worth as land. The reason the price has been reduced is that the seller started off at "astronomical" and has recently come down to "stratospheric."
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:59 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Landwatch.com shows other properties near Lincoln going for about the same - there is another 1.6 acre plot going for $40k but it is close to a lake. There is another 18.6 acre plot for $65k in Lewis and Clark County. I would think this land would be marked up somewhat from what it would otherwise be worth because of the notoriety. The real estate agents wouldn't be mentioned the historical aspect up front if they thought otherwise. I wonder how much Ted Kaczynski paid for it.
posted by ChrisHartley at 9:01 AM on December 5, 2010

One could get lovely houses in some cities, with actual running water and electricity and other things I like to have TM, for the same price.

Even given the real estate collapse of 2008, I'm hard-pressed to believe you can get a "lovely" house for $70,000 in any city. Links?
posted by mistersquid at 9:02 AM on December 5, 2010

A quick search for real estate online show several larger parcels in the same general area for sale for $36-52k. I would guess market value of this property without the unabomber association is probably under $30k.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 9:05 AM on December 5, 2010

spend a hard winter out there without electricity and I guess you'd think the ghetto deluxe fix-me-up on the wrong side of the tracks would be quite lovely.
posted by nervousfritz at 9:06 AM on December 5, 2010

I wonder how much Ted Kaczynski paid for it.

What he paid is a matter of public record and someone with access to MLS data for Montana should be able to find out.
posted by fixedgear at 9:09 AM on December 5, 2010

There are plenty of perfectly nice houses in good neighborhoods for $65-$75k in Indianapolis. There is a lot more to the US than NYC/LA/CHI/ATL and there are a lot of nice cheap houses out there.
posted by ChrisHartley at 9:10 AM on December 5, 2010 [5 favorites]

I just saw Ted Kaczynski's cabin, which is now at the Newseum in Washington DC. You can't walk inside but I stuck my head in there and it was pretty musty.
posted by ofthestrait at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

I assumed (like Malor and cjorgensen) that the price was below market value because the realtors couldn't sell it because of the Kacynkski association - like how houses in which a murder has been committed become "unsaleable". It's interesting that the reverse may be true, and they're trying to get a premium out of the association instead.
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2010

like how houses in which a murder has been committed become "unsaleable".

Marge Simpson sold the murder house, no problem.
posted by fixedgear at 9:15 AM on December 5, 2010 [3 favorites]

In case you do buy this land you may want to read the owner's manual suggestions on neighborly relations.

135.
In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak neighbor who is left destitute by a strong neighbor who takes all his land by forcing on him a series of compromises. But suppose now that the strong neighbor gets sick, so that he is unable to defend himself.

The weak neighbor can force the strong one to give him his land back, or he can kill him. If he lets the strong man survive and only forces him to give his land back, he is a fool, because when the strong man gets well he will again take all the land for himself. The only sensible alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one while he has the chance.

In the same way, while the industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness, it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.


posted by Babblesort at 9:17 AM on December 5, 2010

mistersquid: you have to live in the South or Midwest and buy a foreclosure, but they are out there. In fact, in my old stomping grounds in Virginia Highlands, in a somewhat posh portion of Atlanta, you can buy condos that would have gone for $200k a couple of years ago for $90k or so. Get into the edges of the City of Decatur, and you can find 3/2 brick homes for under 100k.

When there's blood on the streets, buy real estate. Some of my friends who are investing are just tracking the values from 1985 to 1995, averaging that, and then adjusting for inflation. Home prices have historically kept pace with inflation for the last hundred years, once an area is developed.
posted by notion at 9:18 AM on December 5, 2010

Eponysterical.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:22 AM on December 5, 2010

Many areas of Tennessee have quite nice houses for $70K. "Lovely" is subjective, but assuming you're not trying for a McMansion, it's not hard to find reasonably spacious, well-maintained dwellings for that much.
posted by Malor at 9:23 AM on December 5, 2010

dabitch : So is $69,500 very cheap for this amount of land in this area?

Not even close.

On the small-lot end, that area has prices in the $5k-10k/acre range. For larger lots, it drops to under $2k/acre.
posted by pla at 9:24 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

1.4 acre? That's all?

The media made it out to be this sprawling rural acreage where he could do whatever he wanted without concern for visibility. I own 5 acres and I can see the neighbours for most of it, and hear them from anywhere.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 9:26 AM on December 5, 2010

lovely. As you can tell, I want to move south. ;)
posted by dabitch at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2010

Wow, pla, maybe I should revise my (daydream) plans and get a whole bunch of acres somewhere round these parts instead, there's some beautiful views there.
posted by dabitch at 9:35 AM on December 5, 2010

Does it come with a hoodie and sunglasses?
posted by Skygazer at 9:37 AM on December 5, 2010

They present a person whose interest in survivalism is a very idealised version of frontier American simplicity: the zither, the photographs.

I'm disappointed that "Zither me timbers" has only, like, five hits on Google.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:38 AM on December 5, 2010

How far is it to the post office?
posted by Flashman at 9:40 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

dabitch : Wow, pla, maybe I should revise my (daydream) plans and get a whole bunch of acres somewhere round these parts instead, there's some beautiful views there.

Believe it or not, you can get a lot of land dirt cheap (if you'll forgive the pair of puns) in a great many parts of the US.

With just one teensy problem...

You'd better have a job that doesn't require your physical presence (or have enough money saved up to never need to work again).
posted by pla at 9:55 AM on December 5, 2010

That wasn't much of a problem for TZ to overcome, pla.
posted by notyou at 10:02 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

In the same way, while the industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness, it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.

Heh heh... thinking that all our freedoms are being wiped out.

What a crazy old loon!
posted by Joe Beese at 10:07 AM on December 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the enligtenment-through-links ChrisHartley and, notion, for the talk-through.

In June 2009, I left the Midwest (Athens, OH) and sold my house for nearly twice what sellers are asking in ChrisHartley’s link. (Which sale basically took me back to even after 3 years of ownership.)

I’m stunned property values have gone and remain so low. Guess the economic crisis ain’t over yet.
posted by mistersquid at 10:20 AM on December 5, 2010

It's not like you're even buying a famous return address...
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:22 AM on December 5, 2010

I wasn't really interested, but then the realtor's photos showed me that the property comes with some cut wood and a tree branch, or possibly an ent. Now I'm sold.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:30 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

eh... There is a 5 acre parole of land 30 miles outside the small city I live in, near local organic food producers, 30k, no nationally known unbalanced individuals associated with it though.
posted by edgeways at 10:31 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

parcel
posted by edgeways at 10:38 AM on December 5, 2010

I wonder how much Ted Kaczynski paid for it.

An arm and a leg?
posted by hal9k at 11:02 AM on December 5, 2010

A zither? Suspiciously technological way to produce chords on a stringed instrument.
posted by interrobang at 11:15 AM on December 5, 2010

Heh heh... thinking that all our freedoms are being wiped out.

What a crazy old loon!

Yes, Joe, and while it certainly is unfortunate that he had to kill the odd computer salesman or advertising exec, and blow off the arm of a secretary or two, I'm quite certain that you agree that sometimes collateral damage to civilians is a sad but justifiable necessity when you're fighting to liberate people from tyranny.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 11:34 AM on December 5, 2010

For those new to browsing rural land online and entertaining fantasies of moving to the woods to build an 8x24 foot cabin, Ozarkland.com provides a gentle if somewhat overpriced introduction to the hobby.
posted by ChrisHartley at 11:43 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

What a crazy old loon!

Clearly, you are right - we should abandon technology, go back to an agricultural society and presumably the feudal system while we're at it. And the way to get there is to send bombs to people who happen to work with technology, like computer science teachers.

So, yes: crazy old loon.
posted by me & my monkey at 11:52 AM on December 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, Joe... So, yes:

Sadly, being bat-shit insane doesn't necessarily prevent anyone from occasionally making sense. Take Ron Paul, for example. And I bet whenever news of backscatter x-rays, commonplace and unwarranted invasions of privacy by the government against its citizens, torture as part of government policy, the growing surveillance state, and... (oh, I'll just stop there) makes its way to his room at the supermax, TZ grinds his teeth and grumbles, "I tried to warn them."

And, apologizing for a slight derail, I read an article this year that tied Kaczynski's ultimate insanity to a university study he participated in that, sort of, got out of control. Kind of like Zimbardo's, but a different one. It was an interesting article, and I can't find any record of it on metafilter. Anyone?
posted by fartknocker at 12:31 PM on December 5, 2010

Oh, here it is: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber 4 pages, good read.

Also, if that snow-covered cordwood against the cyclone fence was chopped by TZ, that should add to the home value, no? Surely something like that could be sold on ebay for ready cash.
posted by fartknocker at 12:53 PM on December 5, 2010

I don't think Kaczynski is batshit insane at all - his actions are perfectly rational, they just start from an ideological premise that most of us don't share.

The decision he made was that the evil he was fighting against was so terrible that he was justified in taking lives, even innocent ones, to try to defeat it - there's nothing crazy about it, just morally repugnant. You could argue that he was insane in thinking that he could really turn back the forces of technological authoritarianism just be sending out some letter bombs, but I'm not even convinced of that - he did after all get his manifesto published in the New York Times and Washington Post, and has us still talking about his ideas today, and it's hard to imagine how else he could have accomplished that.

Anyway, I'm sure he finds the mere fact of the conditions in his new home at ADX Florence to be a vindication of all of his beliefs. The whole place could practically have come straight out of his manifesto - there might not be a more pure example in the world of the state ensuring total compliance through a system of technological control mechanisms.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 1:05 PM on December 5, 2010

I don't think Kaczynski is batshit insane at all...

Really? Man, I sure do. I see a lot of wrong today but I certainly don't blame college professors for it. (I don't think they're perfect, either. John Yoo teaches at Berkeley, for pete's sake.) And even those figures who to me seem genuinely responsible for our modern deprivations I don't think merit bombs made from toothpicks and glue being posted to them. You'd have to be nuts to ignore the obvious collateral damage such an endeavor would cause. The article I linked to does a pretty good job, I think, of explaining why he snapped the way he did.
posted by fartknocker at 6:10 PM on December 5, 2010

I worked in computational genetics while Kaczynski was extant. Meaning I was a target. I thought "luddite loon" too, until I watched The Net. Now my opinion of Ted is much more ambiguous, nuanced and shaded with all kinds of grey.
posted by telstar at 6:48 PM on December 5, 2010

"Crazy" is not a synonym for "does things that are morally wrong," and it were only the insane who were willing to cause the deaths of innocents for what they believe, this world would be an infinitely less bloody place than it is.

If Kaczynski's a madman for what he did, then so are Curtis LeMay and Bomber Harris. The only difference is of scale, and that they had whole civilizations lined up behind them.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 7:03 PM on December 5, 2010

"Crazy" is not a synonym for "does things that are morally wrong"

No, but there's often quite a bit of intersection in that Venn diagram, and it's unsurprising when someone we find in one of those categories shows up in the other. Kaczynski's means didn't have any chance of achieving his ends, and this is obvious to a non-crazy person.

And one of the markers for "crazy" is the fact that the person in question doesn't have whole civilizations lined up behind them. Bomber Harris didn't have to worry about justifying his actions to, say, the citizens of Coventry.
posted by me & my monkey at 7:48 PM on December 5, 2010

Off-topic, but if you are dreaming of owning a little piece of land, you might as well do it right (search for under 50k).
posted by bystander at 12:23 AM on December 6, 2010

Surely "doing it right" implies the purchase of decommissioned missile silos.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:28 AM on December 6, 2010

What he paid is a matter of public record and someone with access to MLS data for Montana should be able to find out.

Not in Montana, or 9 other US states: Non-Disclosure States
posted by enkd at 8:42 AM on December 6, 2010

That cabin looks really joyless.

I mean, duh. But strikingly so.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 9:11 AM on December 6, 2010

He did have cocoa, though.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 9:12 AM on December 6, 2010

That's good!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:38 AM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

There are plenty of perfectly nice houses in good neighborhoods for $65-$75k in Indianapolis.

Oh, I thought you were talking about in a CITY.

oh snap son
posted by FatherDagon at 10:06 AM on December 6, 2010

Ted, crazy? Maybe.
posted by ergomatic at 4:45 PM on December 6, 2010

ROU_Xenophobe : Surely "doing it right" implies the purchase of decommissioned missile silos.

Hey, if only the li'l lady would have gone for it, you'd find me writing this from 15 stories below ground with 4ft thick concrete walls and an inch of solid steel on hydraulics for my front door.

Chicks just don't dig (no pun intended) bunkers for some reason. ;)
posted by pla at 7:13 PM on December 6, 2010