Dicking around online today I ran across the account of a very unusual court case and in connection with it, pure internet gold.
First the case.
The opening lines of the final decision read:
"Plantiff, to his horror, discovered that the house he had recently contracted to purchase was widely reputed to be possesed by poltergeists, reportedly seen by defendant seller and members of her family on numerous occasions over the last nine years..........The unusual facts of this case, as disclosed by the record, clearly warrant a grant of equitable relief to the buyer, who, as a resident of New York City, cannot be expected to have any familiarity with the folklore of the Village Of Nyack."
Basically, in 1990, in Nyack N.Y., Ackley sold Strambovsky a house. Strambovsky then finds out, after the papers have been signed, that the house he's about to move into is widely known to be haunted. Since he isn't from the area, and hasn't heard the stories, S says to A: "You didn't tell me the house is haunted. I'm not taking any chances. I want my fucking money back."
A says to S: "Sucks to be you. Enjoy the ghosts, beeyatch."
So S takes A to court and WINS. How?
The house was on a local ghost tour, there was an article in Reader's Digest about it, everyone in town knew it's history.
These facts led to the final decision:
"Having reported the ghosts presence in both a national publication....and the local press....defendant is estopped to deny their existence, and as a matter of law, the house is haunted."
In layman's terms, this means: if your house is haunted, and you're telling everyone in town, and hosting ghost tours, and writing to magazines, you're not going to be able to just turn around and deny it if you happen to forget to bring it up to, say, the new owners. Now you're getting sued over something that may or may not exist and you're probably going to lose.
Plus you'd think there'd be a slew of nuts out there willing to pay good money to live in a haunted house.
I don't believe in ghosts, but I found it to be a pretty interesting little read. Especially when Stambovsky's lawyer manages to squeeze in a reference to Ghostbusters to defend his case.
If you Google the case name, the Wikipedia page comes up first. On that you can find a link to the original court statements.
But most importantly, you will also find a link to...........
Drum roll please.
The Kavanagh Webpages.
This a wonderful site. An in depth journey into the world of the Kavanagh family, currently living in Oregon, and the biggest collection of flat out dorks I have ever seen.
Oh, yes, kiddies. That's right. I'm going to regress back to High School now and pick on some nerds.
Come. Take my hand.
This is Mark. The Patriarch and creator of the page.
He works in the Semiconductor Industry. I don't know what that is either. He's also big into trains and transit systems. The site has a lot of pictures of trains and train tracks.
Mark married Cynthia. Her second marriage.
Cynthia now.
Once again, Mark.
Cynthia.
Mark is a busy boy.
Cynthia's maiden name is Ackley. She spent her teenage years in the haunted house. Her mother is the Ackley from the case.
The site has a page devoted to the house, it's history and Cynthia's ghostly encounters.
Mark and Cynthia have three children. A son & two daughters.
Let's start with young Emily.
Emily is into paganism and the Renaissance. I know this because I looked at her website, The Nymph's Veil.
Her page on the site has a link to it, but I'll save you some time.
www.angelfire.com/freak/emu_nymph/
You're welcome.
On it you will find pictures of her prom, pictures of her friends, some of her poetry, her favorite links and a page with some weird little sex things on it, like a skeleton blowing another skeleton and two stick figures fucking.
Emily's a dirty little bitch and she needs it bad.
In 2004 Emily married Matt.
They had a Renaissance style wedding.
Dig the crazy grin on Pop.
Imagine what this poor bastards life must be like. Three big women, their friends.....
(Oh, yeah. Emily has some BIG friends)
........and one house.
This poor sonofabitch is right up against it. All day. Mormon polygomists get more peace and quiet. I imagine the constant sound of chewing would be enough to drive a man to murder.
There's not a lot left about Emily, other then a couple of more wedding photos and a graduation picture. If you have the time I highly recommend checking out her sight for a better view of this sensitive nymph's fragile soul.
A few words from Emily:
I bound my heart and soul in locks and chain
Trying to hide myself from all the pain
In the bindings I wish I had stayed
For every dream and hope has now been betrayed
Good shit, right? Heartbreaking. Well, there's plenty more where that came from.
This is the eldest daughter Teresa & her husband Erik. Erik is a phone Tech support guy.
This is what I assume is their prom photo.
It looks like Teresa may have had a small window of fuckability.
That sucker slammed shut tight.
It appears Big T is into some wacky shit as well, but the page doesn't offer up any info and - unlike little sis - she doesn't have her own website.
This is the back of their home.
I particularly like the Teresa-to-house ratio.
The page mentions that they both enjoy playing "many different types of role playing games". This statement conjours up "many different types of horrible images". One can only hope these games involve a twenty sided die & not Teresa strapping on a Black Destroyer for a session of First Night In Jail.
This is Rich. The heir to the Kavanagh name.
I'm guessing Rich and Emily are roughly the same age since a couple of pictures of him are included in the Prom Section of Emily's website.
Not much is said about Rich, which leads me to believe he is the black sheep of the Kavanagh clan. It is, however, mentioned that he moved out of the house in 2006 (he graduated high school in 2003) and works as a baker in a sub shop.A job that obviously does wonders for the complexion.
If you visit the Kavanagh family website, make sure you have some time on your hands. Big Daddy K has left no stone unturned. Family vacations, favorite links and a step-by-step photo tour of the Kavanagh home re-modeling are just a few of the ways you can learn more about this fascinating family. Hell, they even give you this neat little site map designed like a train schedule.
I told you Mark was into trains, right? Well, he's REALLY into fucking trains.
Mark has even included a tribute to the World Trade Center victims and - to show how much he cares about his regular readers - an update section.
And if after hours and hours (and hours, and hours, and hours) of reading bios and looking at pictures of train tracks, you hunger for more, just turn to the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS section of the site. There you can put out those little fires of curiosity burning in your mind like: What Nationality is Kavanagh? (Kavanagh is a VERY Irish name. From County Carlow)
Or.
How do you spell Kavanagh? ( K-A-V-A-N-A-G-H)
Good stuff.
Even though I've just eviscerated these nice people, I hold a genuine affection for them. They have completely embraced their geekdom and marked out a definite niche in life. Not a lot of people I know can say that. To be able surpass the pressures of conforming to the unrealistic image of what's considered beautiful in this country and find happiness with who you truely are?
That, my friends, is character trate to be admired.
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