Strange But True 
There are currently 20 blog entries related to this category.
Strange-But-True: Into the Snake Pit
Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 5:32pm. 1262 Views, 1 Comments.
The Sessions' thought the 5-bedroom house on nearly two acres would be their dream home. Little did they know, the home’s current reptilian residents had other plans.
They slithered behind the walls at night and released foul-smelling musk into the drinking water. And they were so numerous that Ben Sessions once killed 42 in a single day.
Shortly after buying their dream home, Sessions and his wife discovered it was infested with thousands of garter snakes. For the next three months, their growing family lived as if in a horror movie. More than a year after they abandoned the property, the home briefly went back on the market, and they fear it could someday attract another unsuspecting buyer.
That's when they realized their home was probably sitting atop a…
Strange But True: Giving a Condo to a Veteran Harder Than Expected
Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 7:51pm. 576 Views, 0 Comments.
The owners of luxury condominium Eagles Point at the St. Croix, in Prescott, Wis., wanted to show their support for Minnesota troops. So they decided to donate a beautiful condo to one lucky veteran. A year later, they still have no takers.
They've tried to find a veterans' organization or other group to help them choose a veteran and arrange logistics. They've contacted more than a dozen organizations - from First Lady Mary Pawlenty's "Military Family Care Initiative" to the Minnesota Military Appreciation Fund to the national Troops First Foundation. They even tried the Minnesota Lottery. No one has come forward to help.
"The most common response we get is, 'It doesn't fit our mission,'" said Ken Miyamoto, sales manager for Eagles Point at the St. Croix,…
Strange But True: Home For Sale, Lot Not Included
Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 11:58pm. 679 Views, 0 Comments.
There is a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom rambler for sale in Chaska. Ron Olson is even willing to deliver it to a lot of your choice, as long as it's close to Chaska.
Ron is a contractor who runs an excavation company, acquired with the custom-built house after he was hired last fall to demolish it on a lot in Chaska MN. The home had suffered some smoke damage after some paint rags caught fire during the finishing process. The buyers didn't want it though, so the builder offered to tear it down and build a new one. Rather than haul it to a landfill, Ron decided to recycle the house, which would have sold for $600,000 at its former location.
"It's really a waste to take a perfectly good house that can be cleaned up fairly easily and throw it away like it's…
Strange But True: The Igloo and The Ice House
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 8:31pm. 556 Views, 0 Comments.
The cabin fever caused by winter's snowy weather and cold temperatures seem to have inspired some creativity. An igloo in Ohio and a house encased in ice in Detroit are drawing national headlines.
First, Jimmy Grey, of Aquilla, Ohio, has been out of work for almost a year. To keep himself busy, he took advantage of the heavy snowfally to build an extreme igloo in his family's yard. The "man cave" has 4 rooms, 6-foot tall ceilings, and an entertainment rooms with a flat-screen TV, cable, and surround sound. He says when he has friends over, cold temperatures mean the beer never gets warm.
Next, two artists who have encased one of Detroit's thousands of abandoned homes in ice, hoping to draw attention to the foreclosure and housing crisis that has battered the…
Strange But True: Own a Piece of Minneapolis Skyway
Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:55pm. 587 Views, 1 Comments.
An 83-foot piece of the Minneapolis skyway has been taken down from the sky and put up on the market. It could be yours for just $49,500.
This section of skyway was built in the late 1970s and spanned across 5th Street. It connected J.C. Penney and Powers department stores, which closed in the mid-1980s. Powers was leveled in 1993, and instead of taking down the skyway, it just sort-of dead-ended on the other side of the street. When light rail came, the skyway segment needed to go.
Minneapolis architect Ben Awes and his City Desk Studio partners offer in a Craigslist ad an array of possibilities for the 1,380-square-foot structure, all 140 tons of it sitting behind TCF Bank Stadium: office, bridge over a creek, ice rink warming house, etc.
"The one we are…
Strange But True: Home to be Raffled Off for Charity
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 5:54pm. 2335 Views, 0 Comments.
For $50, a raffle ticket, and a little bit of luck, a 7,400-square-foot, 7 bedroom mansion in Athens, Ohio, could be yours. And a new car, and utility and taxes paid for 5 years.
Sometimes referred to as "the castle house," the 80-year-old estate is being raffled off by owners, Dr. Ernest de Bourbon and his wife, Jennifer, to raise money for local nonprofit May the World Dance, which helps poor children with obesity and related health problems. The contest, billed as the "Ultimate Life Makeover," is designed to revolutionize the life of the winner, who will be announced July 4.
The winner -- to be chosen through a drawing -- will receive the title to the house, a new car valued at less than $20,000 and money to pay the income tax on the house. In addition,…
Strange But True: You Could Own the School... Literally!
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 9:51pm. 465 Views, 2 Comments.
The Robbinsdale School District has to determine what to do with 7 expendable buildings. Members of the district's Divestiture Plan Advisory" Committee will meet with the public on Thursday to solicit ideas on how to put them to better use or sell them. The buildings include an elementary school in Plymouth that was shut down to save money.
Committee chairwoman and Robbinsdale school board member Sherry Tyrrell said possibilities include selling the buildings, putting them to some kind of new use for the district, or even razing them and holding on to the property until the commercial real estate market improves. Leasing them is unlikely because the district would still have to maintain the buildings.
In addition to the Pilgrim Lane elementary school in…
Strange-But-True: Minneapolis Assessor Contests His Home's Valuation
Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 11:58pm. 631 Views, 0 Comments.
Many people were upset with their home's assessed values last year. Even Minneapolis' tax assessor wasn't satisfied with his property tax statement.
Minneapolis City Assessor Patrick J. Todd maintains his northeast Minneapolis home was valued at far more than it was worth when he bought it. He appealing to the Minnesota Tax Court to contest the value of his home, which was set by the office he heads. You read that right.
"It's one of those properties where the owner never called [the assessor's office] to say the value was too high," he said.
That's an understatement. He bought the 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom home as investment property in July 2008 for $90,000. On January 1, 2008, the home had been assessed at $166,500 with a tax bill for payable 2009 of…
Strange-But-True: Instead of Tearing Down, Donate Your Unwanted House
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 8:35pm. 777 Views, 0 Comments.
When the Schrank family decided to sell their Prior Lake home and property, they were horrified to find that the new buyer wanted to destroy the house and build a new one in its place. The Schrank's are now donating the home to Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity.
But it had to be moved to its new site before a new family can take residence in it. That was accomplished last week by Otting House Movers based in Lakeville:
The 30-Ton house, 64-feet in length, 32-feet in width took up both lanes of traffic, which created quite the chore Wednesday. Crews had to cut branches from the tree-lined streets, Xcel Energy took down low power lines and some street signs were taken apart.
It took 4 hours to move the house 1.5 miles.
"It's always exciting to get a house…
Strange But True: Skeletons in the Basement
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 12:14pm. 666 Views, 1 Comments.
When most people decide to sell their home, they take some time to spruce up the place for when potential buyers visit. They clear out the clutter, dust, sweep out the dirt, vacuum, and generally make it more inviting. It makes the home much more likely to sell. A house in Louisianna just might not ever be sold because of the sellers failure to clean out some of the skeletons in their closet. Or in this case, the basement.
A real estate agent showing a house in Gibson found about 100 human bones in a corner of the basement:
James Kenny, a forensic investigator with the Terrebonne Parish Coroner's Office, says the bones found Saturday were so old that dirt had saturated the marrow inside them. He says they probably are remains of Native Americans buried long…
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