And the parents.
Even the ants (sort of).
The idiot, not so much.
Posted on 03/20/2017 9:00:36 PM PDT by dayglored
Maine's state fire marshal says a man burned down his parents' house and killed three pets while trying to exterminate ants in his basement with matches.
Investigators say 21-year-old Devon Doucette was trying to incinerate the ants with wooden matches when one of them ignited combustible materials. The fire quickly spread to the rest of the house.
...the house is owned by his parents, who were not home at the time... the fire killed two cats and one dog. They say charges are not likely.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And the parents.
Even the ants (sort of).
The idiot, not so much.
Fire ants?
Maybe a NAPL ping; and/or Sad Kitty ping.
A most unfortunate last name for this young man. “Douche”.
His parents will never let this go. My Dad sure wouldn’t have.
He would have brought it up in the future as a family joke told at Thanksgiving. Years from now, they’ll be laughing about it. The story will be retold with everything greatly exaggerated.
He should have used diatomaceous earth. This is a sad story.
Devon’s first response to the Fire Chief; “I don’t know what happened. It worked fine on Youtube. Maybe I should have watched the video all the way to the end.”
Did he get the ants?
I think that will depend on whether their homeowner's insurance pays off on a totally idiotic human-caused loss. It might not, in which case laughing might not be their reaction.
If this idiot son is 21, then the parents are likely in their mid-40's. Not a good time to take a major loss.
Let's hope circumstances allow them to laugh, years from now, as you say.
What a complete idiot. Those poor trapped kitties and dog. My heart goes out to their pain and terror.
Ants could drive a person to do this.
One summer, we had an ant problem, and my kids joked, “Maybe we should burn the house down. To kill the ants.”
There is a Henry Mancini song somewhere in this thread.
I think it's safe to assume, given that the whole house was on fire, that the ants did not fare well, even in the basement. If nothing else, the water from putting out the fire probably drowned them.
He had to destroy the house to save it.
Diazinon used to work quite well but you can’t buy that anymore. Too bad—the ants used to grab it, drop it and go nuts. Another would come by, grab it, and go crazy. It worked like a charm. Just like government always dictates, everything that works good must be taken away.
A Pyrrhic victory, to be sure.
When someone burns down their house it’s usually over a spider.
A spoonful of mixed corn syrup, water and borax will kill them all and their sugar sucking queen, too.
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