Real Estate That’s Been the Scene of the Crime

Mayhem sells. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the lists of best sellers and top-grossing movies this week. On any given evening, scores of us jump into our jammies and crawl under the duvet with a whooping good tale of murder and mutilation. Others head to the four-plex and tuck into that tub of popcorn while watching rape and decapitation.

Violence is a bit different when it is closer to home, or even in the home you live in, as staff writer Pancho Doll discovered when he was doing research for this week’s cover story.

Doll visited houses where killings had recently taken place to do a story on slayings and real estate disclosure laws--agents are required to tell prospective buyers about all known problems with a house. Along with leaky roofs and fault lines running under the house, they must disclose killings that occurred on the property within the previous three years.

What Doll found out was that local real estate agents had been doing their job. The people who had recently bought houses where slayings had taken place all knew about them.

“Although none of them knew the details, nor were they much interested in knowing the details,” Doll said.

In the face of real violence, people get quite squeamish, and reporters quite careful.

BAH HUMBUG: Is it just me, or has everyone else noticed that Christmas is upon us earlier every year? It used to be that the holiday season unofficially kicked off the day after Thanksgiving. Nowadays it’s on us before we’ve even reached Halloween. Maybe we should just merge all of the festivities--put the kids in Santa Claus suits to go trick or treating, fill their sacks with turkey dinners and slices of pumpkin pie, and send a Day of the Dead contingent to the Macy’s parade.

One good thing about starting the holidays early is that it forces us to make some plans. Since many of us will be buying gifts, having dinners and throwing parties--and generally feeling that we are part of the great cosmic conspiracy to separate us from our money--it is nice to know there are plenty of good deals on holiday linens, according to Julie Sawyer, who writes this week’s Shop Talk.

Perhaps you’ll want to recycle them into ghost costumes.