One Silly Homeowner Slept With A Baseball Bat Next To His Bed For Two Years

The Detroit Free Press posted an article today that basically painted real estate agents as evil greedy bastards. The Freep believes homeowners should be warned of Poltergeists. The law does not require sellers to disclose to potential home buyers if a murder or a death happened in a home they were considering buying. The article went so far as to quote morally outraged Wagnerian homeowners who found out about a death in the house after they moved in.

Kayla Bentley moved into a home where Justin Olszowy went nuts in 2010 and shot both his parents.  She told the Free Press, her and her husband believe in ghosts and claims her husband Joshua, slept with a baseball bat at his bedside for part of the two years.

Bentley and her husband are not alone in their fears.

There are thousands of people out there who have watched one too many horror movies or read one too many Stephen King novels that are afraid to buy a home where a death may have occurred.  It’s as if they believe that furniture will mysteriously begin stacking itself on top each other or that Reverend Kane from Poltergeist II is going to come to their front door and start shouting, “You’re gonna die in there, all of you”

One Broker-Owner feels the Darth Vader-style inner conflict within himself when he sells a home where someone may have been murdered or committed suicide. Mario Como, the broker-owner of St. Clair Shores-based Realty Executives Select told the Free Press,

“I knew that would only cause the client emotional conflict. On one hand, they were excited about the property and on the other hand, it was giving them an opportunity to pass on the property. I was definitely torn. I have certain duties as an agent of client or buyer, but ultimately, one of my duties is to help them reach their goals. In this case, the goal was very clear: a home they were very, very enthusiastic about.”

In January, I posted an article about how a woman in Pennsylvania sued the people she bought her house from and the seller’s agent for not disclosing that a murder-suicide had happened at the property in 2006.

In that case the Pennsylvania judge summed up Pennsyvania law which is almost identicalto Michigan,

“If the murder/suicide cannot be considered a defect legally, or if the Sellers were under no legal obligation to reveal this alleged defect, there can be no liability predicated upon the failure to so inform…Today, we find that psychological damage to a property cannot be considered a material defect in the property which must be revealed by the seller to the buyer. Thus, each of Buyer’s issues on appeal must fail.”

California is this the only state that requires sellers to disclose any knowledge of a murder, suicide or death.  With California being California, naturally a cottage industry of groups performing exorcisms on homes has become a billion dollar industry.