Ma'am, your house is haunted.

Every so often, I come across these new stories that I just can't figure out. They are often nonsensical and yet still managed to strike me as incredibly hilarious. It's not so much the writing as it is the story itself. Take for instance this story.

According to the article, Easington council officials in Britain used taxpayer dollars in order to compensate a psychic who had been called in to perform an exorcism in state housing after "the distressed occupants said otherwise they would leave and become homeless" (Apps, P., 2008).

The entire fracas was, apparently, the result of mysterious banging happening in the loft, objects flying across the room and doors slamming. They, of course, called the police, but the police found nothing. Their next step was to call in the psychic who summarily informed them that they had an evil spirit in the house thanks to a murder from years early.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but if someone came into my home and informed me that someone had been murdered there, I'd be asking for evidence before I agreed to anything further. But, it doesn't, from the articles, look as if that happened. The psychic said they needed to exorcise the home and the council readily agreed. I have nothing against psychics... but some days, I really wonder.

I mean, who needs proof when you can shell out a few bucks from others and keep a family firmly entrenched just because a psychic said it was so? That's just... so sadly funny to me. Have we really gone so nuts that we believe anything with no kind of proof or documentation?

Ah, I love the way people decide to spend taxpayer dollars. It's so beautifully nonsensical, it's become one of those truly awe inspiring art forms.

Priceless.

Additional Link:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article788659.ece