“Seeking a murder house for residence”. This is an internet ad posted by office assistant David Hsieh, who hopes to strike a bargain in Taipei’s booming property market.
Taiwanese buyers normally shun “murder houses” where people have been killed, fearing their spirits could linger to torment the dwellers and bring them bad luck, and when property owners put homes up for sale, they are required by law to disclose if a homicide or a suicide has taken place within its walls.
However, a growing number of bargain hunters, some of them forced by money concerns, are defying the belief that murder houses are haunted or associated with bad luck.
“A murder house is about 20 to 50 per cent off the market price so it can attract some buyers who don’t care too much about religion, charity groups and speculators,” said Wesker Hu, founder of unluckyhouse.com. (AFP)
Looking good
Young men are spending more than women on looking good, according to a survey.
A total of 3,000 18- to 35-year-olds across the UK were questioned about their health, fitness and beauty regimes, revealing a narrowing in the gender divide.
On average, men are spending £11.72 a week on their appearance – £1 more than women. (PA)
Blasphemy charge in Indonesia
Indonesian authorities have arrested an American man for blasphemy after he pulled the plug on a loudspeaker at a mosque because it woke him up, police said yesterday.
Luke Gregory Lloyd, 64, was taken into custody after he disrupted a nightly Koran reading session near his home on Lombok Island which was being broadcast over the mosque’s loudspeaker during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The incident happened on August 22 and Mr Lloyd has been under police guard at a hotel ever since, pending further investigations.
“He got angry as the Koranic reading woke him up. He scolded people in the mosque before pulling out the loudspeaker’s cable,” a police officer said. Mr Lloyd could face five years in jail under the mainly Muslim country’s blasphemy laws. (AFP)
Freediving record
A Briton set a new UK freediving record by plunging to a depth of 101 metres on one breath.
Jim Lawless, 42, from Barnes, London, broke the British “no limits” record with a dive lasting two minutes and seven seconds in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh.
No-limits freediving is a discipline in which the athlete is allowed to use any means to descend and ascend to the surface. It is seen as the most extreme form of freediving.
It is the only freediving discipline to have reported fatalities in competition and record attempts. (PA)
Drunken sailor
The captain of a Dutch ship that ran aground this month near the southwestern Swedish port of Helsingborg was yesterday sentenced to one month in prison for “aggravated drunkenness at sea”, media reported.
Andrey Sharafonenko, a 44-year-old Ukrainian, was arrested on August 13, shortly after he ran the 85-metre Flinterforest aground in the Oeresund strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.
Mr Sharafonenko was found guilty of aggravated drunkenness and sentenced to a month behind bars, but was let off with the 17 days served, the TT news agency reported.
The court had taken into consideration that he would likely never again be able to work as a ship commander.
According to prosecution charges, Mr Sharafonenko was at least twice over the legal limit for navigating. (AFP)
Health risk
Italy’s health minister has apologised to a mother for an operating room fight between two doctors that led to her botched delivery.
Laura Salpietro had to have her uterus removed and her son Antonio suffered heart problems after his birth in Messina’s public hospital.
The two doctors – her private physician and one on duty at the hospital – disagreed about whether to perform a Caesarean section and came to blows. (PA)
Magical mystery ‘tour’
A couple who left their car in a long-term park near New York’s Kennedy Airport came back to find the milometer reading had jumped by 724 miles.
Owner Ulrich Gunthart said he was “flabbergasted” when he saw the number. He had another surprise when he started the car as a CD came on at full volume. AviStar parking said it had investigated and looked over inventory logs but “found nothing out of the ordinary”. (PA)