Posted on 02/21/2005 9:53:55 AM PST by Dan from Michigan
Thieves Steal Built-In Swimming Pool
2 hours, 21 minutes ago Strange News - AP
OSLO, Norway - A Norwegian family's swimming pool wasn't just bolted down, it was in the ground, but that was impediment to a band of determined thieves.
When the Nicolaysen family visited their mountain cabin over the weekend, they discovered a big hole in the yard in place of the swimming pool that had been installed 20 years ago.
"This can't be, we thought," Arild Nicolaysen told state radio network NRK on Monday. "We didn't think it was possible. No one can steal a swimming pool."
Evidently, someone did.
At some point between early November, when the family closed up the cabin for the winter, and the weekend, their pool, 16 feet in diameter, and all its equipment was uprooted and stolen.
"It must have been a terrible job to disassemble such a big pool. There is a steel lining all the way around, plus there is a plastic liner and then there was a skimming system, a filter system and a lot of big hoses, and pipes," said Brit Nicolaysen, who owns the cabin with her husband.
"They must have had a whole lot of time," she said.
Brit said no one, not even the police, believed them at first.
Police said they had never heard anything like it. They suspected the pool was taken for someone's private use, since there's not a market for 20-year stolen, in-ground pools.
".... and they stole my driveway!"
S. Wright
I work for a law firm in NJ. Our former paralegal once told me a story where a family in bank foreclosure stole the house. When the appraiser, or whoever, got out to look at the property, nothing was left but the basement.
There was a similar incident in Montana several years ago. In that case the entire cabin was missing. Investigation determined that a wrecking crew was dispatched and got the wrong cabin,
I thought the pool I just bought was pretty cheap. Now I just gotta figure out how to get it in the ground.
Dude, where's my pool?
An example of Norwegian ingenuity.
SO9
ping
I remember hearing a story (from Wisconsin, maybe?) of an entire winter cabin being stolen.
".... and they stole my dignity!"
Flaming Mice and Other Frustrations…
Many moons ago, when I was a soldier in the beloved 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army, we had a barracks tradition that the only difference between a "Fairy Tale" and a "War Story", is that the fairy tale begins with, "Once upon a time…", while the war story begins with, "You ain't gonna believe this…"
Well, you ain't gonna believe this.
My father sort of grew up in the woods. The deepest, darkest, most isolated woods of Upstate New York – about a hundred miles from sunlight, to hear him tell it.
Personally, I grew up in Virginia. I wore gray to my wedding, and still refer to Manassas and other significant landmarks by their proper names. But enough.
Dad was homesick for the North, for the Finger Lakes, for the cold, clear mornings up above the Mason-Dixon. Mom had kept him bottled up here for most of his adult life, and he had put up with it, for the sake of us kids. So we did something about it.
We bought a couple hundred acres of the most useless, desolate, ill-formed land on the planet – a farm in New York. My brothers, my father, and I pitched in – it would be the family "cabin."
Only it had no cabin. It had no barn. It had no outhouse, no fencing, no chickens, no cows, nothing but trees. And sand.
And mice.
Two-hundred thirty acres of sandy mice, with trees.
Well, we thought – clearly, we need a cabin! Let's build one!
So we did. Slowly at first, quick-Crete-bag by bag, the cabin foundation started to form. Then the floor. We put a wood stove in the basement, and an outhouse outside, for use when we got frozen in. We got frozen in – my 4WD pick-up had to be dug out about twelve times the first winter, but we worked on the cabin every weekend we had free that year.
By spring, the woodstove got stolen. That summer, the outhouse was stolen.
We built a shed, hoping to keep our tools from being stolen. A porcupine ate it.
I am not kidding – it seems they like the salts in the plywood. My brother was sleeping in the shed one weekend after the stove got stolen (the shed was warmer), and woke up to a porcupine sniffing his face – he moved. Quickly. To Alabama. A week later, all of our tools were stolen.
So, we thought, enough. We have got to get this done or forget it.
We planned it out. I twisted arms, flew my brother back from Alabama, enlisted my cousins and nephews, and ordered materials. We sent an advance party to get everything up on the mountain, for when the crew arrived. We arranged air tools, generators, everything.
And in one short weekend, we built a house. Complete with a new, cheap woodstove that the porcupines did not eat (it was in the shed), and was too heavy for anybody to steal. Our last project was to carry that stove into the basement and hook it up. It took six of us to carry it in from the now-very-drafty shed.
As a finale, we fired up the stove. This one, like the first, was in the basement – with pipes up through the house and roof. Heat the bottom, the next floor will be warm, too.
I wadded up some paper, tossed it in, a chucked a match. Slammed the door.
Stove got hot – so far, so good. We checked the chimney pipes – no leaks.
Now, picture this. The basement of this cabin, newly-built, is full of tar for the roof, extra shingles, left-over lumber, a chord of wood we have stacked up for the next snow, gas for the generator, and other flammables. Notice that I have not mentioned a well? We have yet to drill one – we have maybe 4 gallons of water on hand. The cabin above is made entirely of – you guessed it – very dry wood.
My brother says, "Let's fire this sucker up, and see what happens!" So he opens the stove to throw in some wood.
And three flaming mice jump out, running for cover.
Now, I feel for the mice – really, I felt sorry for them. But consider our situation – flammable house, years of effort, filled with explosives, no water in sight. Heck, no water within miles.
Ever seen six guys try to stamp out a flaming mouse?
I thought it was six flamers trying to out mice?
Damn Moose will still anything.
LOL. Shaddup.
Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Thank you for that image; I am going to be sick, now.
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