[HN Gopher] The House That Vanished
___________________________________________________________________
The House That Vanished
Author : philbo
Score : 138 points
Date : 2021-07-28 07:03 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| jfoutz wrote:
| This is baffling. It's a good hook to listen to the podcast, but
| I'm not going to.
|
| My second thought was about insurance. The house is gone, it's up
| to their investigator to determine the cause. In the worst case,
| they say, too bad. thanks for the premiums.
|
| My first thought was to build a big ass fence at the property
| line. Generally be an ass, using my property in the least helpful
| way possible.
|
| given the dearth of information about the story I'm still a bit
| befuddled. given the timeframe 1994, it's understandable there
| isn't much available on the internet. I doubt an island of 120
| had a local paper, I doubt even more that the archives would be
| online. Apparently no records were found for the court case.
|
| There's a temptation to victim blame, there's a temptation to
| think Presho and Digger cooked up a scheme to get a little
| attention for the island and Presho's career. I think there's
| more information, but it seems unattainable.
|
| He won the court case, but got a pittance. There are no answers
| from the trial.
|
| In the end, I suspect this is a story that will end up much like
| "where is the other sock" it will vaguely nag at me for a few
| days, then fall out of mind.
|
| Interesting situation, possibly worth a listen, but clearly no
| satisfactory resolution is possible (for me anyway). Another
| fabulously unimportant unanswerable question to irritate my
| psyche for a few days.
| rsynnott wrote:
| On insurance, most insurers just won't cover a house that's
| left vacant and unmaintained for eight years, certainly not as
| a normal product. The insurer, if there was one, probably just
| walked away when they learned of the circumstances.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Here is the high court case, it's a sad story in the end,
| maybe, his mania probably sent him on this life adventure, it
| then made it complicated. It's a bigger adventure than most
| people ever live, who's to say I guess.
|
| https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5da053ed4653d07dedfd58...
|
| It was a big case locally in the region, there's also a book
| and online articles.
| fsloth wrote:
| Thanks! Sounds like a slippery slope of first abusing
| property rights and then more nefarious plans enacted.
|
| "..the defendants commenced the construction of a hotel ...
| at the rear of the property"
|
| and
|
| "The ... defendant employed John McGinty as contractor ...
| (who) .. occupied house without consent of the plaintiff
| while the hotel was being built."
|
| Then they interact with the doofus caretaker, conclude he is
| a lame duck and arson ensues.
|
| The caretaker allows the workman to inhabit the property
| without the owners consent. Mind. Blowing. Negligence.
| "Thanks for that".
| jfoutz wrote:
| This is satisfying. I made some uncharitable claims around
| spinning a yarn.
|
| Makes so much more sense that Presho was "of unsound mind" I
| feel sorta shitty for my other claims.
|
| but the court evidence and findings are great. Thank you.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > Presho and Digger cooked up a scheme
|
| Digger isn't the name of the neighbour, he owned a "digger" AKA
| brit-speak for excavator.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| Seems pretty clear cut to me.
|
| Outsider buys property on tiny island community, then
| disappears for 8 years. Islander gets annoyed about the vacant
| property blocking their view so decides to remove it. Other
| islanders refuse to rat them out due to being a tight community
|
| End of mystery
| uCantCauseUCant wrote:
| Usually its a story of continued decline. House has rain
| water damage (roof caves in), village teenager break into
| house, one of them sets it on fire. Ruin ruins next door
| neighbours view, nobody willing to clean it up, so he does
| the work for free.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Ok but you have to start civil proceedings to do so.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| It even says he got a letter about storm damage. If the roof
| got messed up in a storm and noone came to fix it in two or
| three years why not just knock it down.
| scandox wrote:
| Yes I'm afraid they're trying to Wicker Man this up to 11.
| Basically some bollocks half knocked down his house.
|
| "The House that got partially knocked down by someone with
| small regard for abstract property rights".
| da39a3ee wrote:
| That's not how to use the word "bollocks".
| jamiethompson wrote:
| Not in England, no. But it is in Ireland or Scotland.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| OK thanks I didn't know and deserve my downvotes!
| scandox wrote:
| In Ireland we do say bollocks or Bollix meaning a person
| who broadly speaking is difficult to deal with.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Ah OK thanks I had no idea. I gladly accept my downvotes!
| [deleted]
| stormdennis wrote:
| Maybe it is in Ireland.
| tobltobs wrote:
| This tight community also did have to accept a high loss to
| the value of their properties as their houses became
| unsaleable. It is a mystery to me how all property owner
| would accept this, when only one or two have an improved
| view.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Places like these are usually populated with people who
| have lived there their whole lives and plan to spend the
| rest of their lives there. The cost of the house, to them,
| isn't a monetary one, it's more a matter of community and
| sentimental ownership.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| Imagine you're retired, you own a house on an island where
| you like life.
|
| Why do you care if your house is "worth" $50k or $1m?
|
| Maybe you don't have kids to inherit it. Maybe you consider
| yourself at home where you're living, so you wouldn't want
| to sell it anyway.
| Angostura wrote:
| If you're in the UK, that house is probably the main way
| you are going to fund decent care in a care home in the
| last 5 years or s of life. You'll care
| maccard wrote:
| Have you had that conversation with many people who are
| retired in comfortable positions? I've had it with many
| family members (Apparently I'm the one who is "good with
| money things"), and they all _do_ care, despite the fact
| they will never realize that value.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| No, I don't know anyone in that position.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| You only care if your kids aren't planning to live there.
| In small, isolated communities it's common to hand
| property down (much like farmland) rather than sell.
|
| In those cases the cost of the property is more academic
| as the real value is the community and any sentimental
| elements (eg "my grandfather built this"/"5 generations
| of kids were born in this house", etc)
| Freak_NL wrote:
| The article mentions that the damages awarded by the judge
| wouldn't suffice to even buy a chicken coop on the island.
| My guess is that property prices are quite unaffected by
| this stunt.
| tobltobs wrote:
| I don't get how you draw the connection between a not
| satisfying damage award and unaffected house prices.
|
| Maybe the real reason why nobody spoke out was the fact
| that the guy flattening the house was Tory's biggest
| employer. The hotel Ostan Thoraigh has been at the centre
| of island life since the late 1800s. The hotel and
| general store was supplying everything from salted fish
| to marine chandlery to the island.
|
| The hotel is for sale now. It didn't survived Covid. See
| https://www.irishpost.com/news/irelands-stunning-tory-
| island...
| ash wrote:
| The article is from May 01, 2019. Covid didn't exist yet.
| jfoutz wrote:
| I'll go you one further.
|
| Outsider visits island for a few months and enjoys their time
| there, makes some great friends. Outsider's friend has a
| hotel, and wants to attract more clients. Outsider has a
| knack for storytelling, but hasn't been successful for a few
| years.
|
| Outsider spins yarn, friend fills up his hotel, both walk
| away happy.
|
| End of mystery.
|
| There are a million ways to fill in the blanks. We can't know
| _the truth_. I find this upsetting, and it'll bug me for
| days. but then I'll forget and it's ok.
|
| Your pat story is fine too. I REALLY want to know the truth,
| which is a fantastic hook. so I'm stuck with this story
| longer than you are.
| dmix wrote:
| There's probably some lessons here about good headlines to
| draw you into a story via social media. Or if you go deeper
| the value of stories/fiction that were entirely invented in
| the first place, or documentaries about real things
| combined with the limitations of an hour and a half plus
| the biases and editing of the creator, or the podcast
| medium which lets you go even deeper into a topic, etc.
|
| There's plenty of angles here in a meta way beyond the sum
| of the real story itself.
|
| But I do agree this is most likely going to be an
| unrewarding investment with a likely simple explanation
| like the hotel wanting views + very old basically vacant
| building in the way.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Given that he won in court, he was presumably at least able
| to establish that the house existed at one time, and he
| owned it, so it's unlikely to be totally fictitious.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| There would be a record in the land registry, with a map.
|
| Even if the house disappeared he would still own the
| land. Given that it was a very basic house it's likely
| the land was worth at least as much as the building.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Even if the house disappeared he would still own the
| land. Given that it was a very basic house it's likely
| the land was worth at least as much as the building.
|
| Don't underestimate the cost of building stuff on an
| island like that. Everything needs to be brought in by
| boat, including labor.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| For sure. An uncle of mine used to own property on
| Mackinac Island [1] that he wanted to build a home on.
| After years of trying to find a way to manage it, he gave
| up and sold: it was just too far beyond his budget (he is
| fairly wealthy).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Even if the house disappeared he would still own the
| land.
|
| Not always. So-called Ground Leases are common in many
| parts. The tenant owns the house but the _land_ lord owns
| the land and collects rent from the building owner. I'm
| not clear of exactly what type of ownership rights this
| person had over the house let alone the underlying
| property.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Ground leases in Ireland used to be common, but they're
| transferrable and can generally be converted to freehold
| for very little money, so they don't have a significant
| impact on costs. That said, land on Tory Island is
| presumably ~worthless anyway.
| arethuza wrote:
| "Islander gets annoyed about the vacant property blocking
| their view"
|
| Could well have been a vacant ruin after 8 years without any
| maintenance - we live in an exposed site half way up a hill
| in Scotland and I wouldn't leave our house for 8 weeks
| without arranging for someone to keep and eye on it and
| potentially getting repairs done.
| soneil wrote:
| That was my thoughts too. Go look up Tory Island on google
| maps - most of us would very quickly redefine our
| understanding of 'exposed'.
| silvestrov wrote:
| everything is within "walking distance", it's approx 2
| miles long.
|
| Photos from Tory Island: https://www.google.com/maps/plac
| e/Tory+Island,+Co.+Donegal,+...
| sbierwagen wrote:
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| He seemed to think 54 thousand pounds wouldn't pay for a
| "chicken coop" on that island so maybe it's a bit more pricey
| there than one might suspect? From my understanding island life
| can be a pretty expensive proposition all around.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| smcl wrote:
| The guy was from Northern Ireland (where the "civil war"
| you are taking about was happening) and bought a house in
| _Ireland_ (where it wasn't). Also comparing NI during The
| Troubles to Iraq is a bit of a stretch.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The house was probably virtually worthless, in that no-one
| would want to buy it, but on the other hand 60k euro
| certainly wouldn't replace it. Build costs in Ireland are in
| the 100-200euro range per sqm at the moment, and that's
| before considering that it's an _island_.
| Stevvo wrote:
| With only 150 inhabitants, properties will not go at market
| value. 54k will not pay for a chicken coop, because nobody
| will sell him a chicken coop.
| ornornor wrote:
| Elsewhere in the comments it says the judge awarded 48k eur
| based on the owners own valuation at 60k eur. And the hotel
| next door is now for sale for 400k. So maybe that's the
| actual value of that house after all.
| jonathanhd wrote:
| For those looking for closure, this case was litigated to the
| Supreme Court https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-
| law/courts/supreme...
|
| To my reading the house was destroyed in "mysterious" fire, and
| then demolished for use as a car park by the adjacent hotel. The
| court ruled that the hotel owner must pay replacement cost for
| the house.
| illwrks wrote:
| I was wondering... why does a hotel, on an island, need a
| carpark?
|
| I checked it on Google and it looks like the house was near the
| pier so it makes sense that residents might park their cars
| there to head to the mainland.
|
| Google Earth link:
| https://earth.google.com/web/search/Tory+Island,+County+Done...
| rsynnott wrote:
| I doubt there are many/any cars. The island's less than
| 4kmsq, and the ferry is passenger only.
| jonathanhd wrote:
| In this article from 2017 an islander claims that there are
| 60-70 mostly broken down old cars on Tory island
| https://donegalnews.com/2017/05/tory-islands-car-
| graveyard-c...
| willvarfar wrote:
| It could be that the islanders were supportive of the house being
| destroyed, or it could be that the islanders were scared to
| snitch on the bully that demolished it?
| woutersf wrote:
| Maybe everybody got their share. The materials had to go
| somewhere.
| Talanes wrote:
| It doesn't need to be fear, necessarily. They live on an island
| of 120 people with whoever did it. Like the guy or hate him,
| they're gonna be seeing him every week from here til the end.
| Why turn on him for some bloke who doesn't even have a house
| here anymore?
| tobltobs wrote:
| Maybe the real reason why nobody spoke out was the fact that the
| guy flattening the house was Tory's biggest employer. The hotel
| Ostan Thoraigh has been at the centre of island life since the
| late 1800s. The hotel and general store was supplying everything
| from salted fish to marine chandlery to the island.
|
| The hotel is actually for sale currently, for EUR400,000. It
| didn't survive Covid. See
| https://www.irishpost.com/news/irelands-stunning-tory-island...
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Link not working for me, only place I could see it is via
| google cache:
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aTLr7-...
| tudorw wrote:
| "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the
| lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful
| record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."
|
| I've lived in both, I'm happier in a city...
| danuker wrote:
| The solution to this is video surveillance. But in the EU, make
| sure not to record public land.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I can't imagine a surveillance system is going to be functional
| for 8 years without someone doing maintenance. Sounds like the
| guy abandoned the house.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Or daily satellite photos. Nowadays, the resolution is good
| enough to spot these changes.
| unixhero wrote:
| Zoom
|
| Enhance
|
| Enhance
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Nowadays you can just rent a Chinese military satellite for
| the few minutes that it'll be above your house. You'd be
| surprised at their resolution ;)
|
| Of course, there's also publicly available US offerings
| like
|
| "SecureWatch(r) is the premier cloud-based subscription
| service for secure and timely access to Earth Intelligence,
| simplifying your ability to map, monitor and detect change
| for any location on the globe at a moment's notice."
|
| EDIT: Found the price info for satellite rental again.
| $6300 per 30 seconds at 15cm per pixel resolution.
| danuker wrote:
| Detecting that your house is gone is pointless. A satellite
| photo does not show you who demolished it.
| na85 wrote:
| People demolishing your house while you're gone is a social
| problem and requires a social solution.
|
| Being a good neighbor is how you solve this problem.
| konschubert wrote:
| I agree with the first part of what you said, but regarding
| the second part:
|
| We don't know that he was a bad neighbor and even if he was,
| that's not a reason to demolish someone's house.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| You can't really be a good neighbor if you don't show up
| for 8 years.
| CraneWorm wrote:
| I consider that a perfect neighbor.
| pjerem wrote:
| Haha, was going to say the same :D
| kolp wrote:
| People demolishing your house is a criminal act.
|
| Your proposed solution implies that the victim was somehow to
| blame for this crime, by not being a good neighbour.
| yreg wrote:
| That's victim blaming. The proper solution is teaching people
| to not burn down other people's houses.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Or teaching them _to_ burn down people 's houses. If
| someone had just set it on fire, it wouldn't have been
| mysterious or interesting.
| BasDirks wrote:
| NEVILLE PRESHO V PATRICK DOOHAN AND ORS
|
| https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5da053ed4653d07dedfd58...
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| Assholes leaving house without maintenance for 8 years and
| letting it become eyesore are the reason to have HOA. With HOA
| owner would have got escalating fines for not keeping up house up
| to community standards and house would have been foreclosed in a
| year or so. No need to burn it down.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| Don't need a HOA for that, just a functioning governement. At
| least in my country, if your house gets bad enough, you get
| fined until it gets fixed.
| yarcob wrote:
| Look, if you care about what your neighbours house looks like,
| then go move to some US suburb.
|
| In most rural areas in the world if you don't like what your
| neighbours house looks like you can go pound sand. People
| generally like the fact that noone can tell them what they do
| on their own property.
| DrMonkFish wrote:
| I have spent a couple of great weekends on Tory. One special
| night with the late King of Tory, Patsy Dan, and the local Priest
| in the hotel bar will live long in the memory. Patsy had his
| squeeze box and there was plenty of 'craic agus ceol'.
|
| But people on those small islands are a different type
| altogether.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > He says he bears no ill-will towards the islanders and feels he
| has forgiven those he believes wronged him.
|
| Good for him, this is spiritually healthy. But if this happened
| to me, and I knew exactly who it was, and justice would fail me,
| I'm pretty certain I'd choose a very different path.
| kleiba wrote:
| I don't think you have to be a Christian to subscribe to the
| thought that the idea of "turning the other cheek" - as
| unintuitive as it may seem - is more healthy in the long run
| than "an eye for an eye".
| robbedpeter wrote:
| That's becoming harder to see, it seems.
|
| Liberal, democratic governments are supposed to maintain our
| various social contracts by dint of a granted monopoly on the
| use of violence or force. Laws and justice systems are there
| as tools for governments to exercise justified and escalating
| force to elicit compliance with social contracts, e.g. social
| order.
|
| When enforcement fails, the social contract is broken, and an
| individual may find that they are left with no better course
| of action than to exercise the force that was inappropriately
| withheld.
|
| This guy could be justified in disappearing those who
| disappeared his house, if left with no better recourse and
| his property remains under threat. Basic tit for tat game
| theory overrides morality when social order breaks down.
| Yoric wrote:
| > This guy could be justified in disappearing those who
| disappeared his house, if left with no better recourse and
| his property remains under threat. Basic tit for tat game
| theory overrides morality when social order breaks down.
|
| Disappearing their house, surely? Not them personally.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| You act like this is the first time you've heard of a crime
| taking place and the authorities are unable to prosecute
| the offenders. It's not the decline of private property
| rights and the end of modern western civilization.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It's a small island. Those have always been beyond the
| pale; it's not like there was ever a golden age of
| effective law enforcement on small remote islands.
|
| And no, murder is not an appropriate response to someone
| demolishing a house, bloody hell.
| Maursault wrote:
| > I don't think you have to be a Christian to subscribe to
| the thought that the idea of "turning the other cheek" ...
|
| The concept, phrase and idiom has its origin in the Sermon on
| the Mount in Chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew, a sermon
| ostensibly given by a Cynic and rebel Jew between 28AD-33AD,
| neatly proving your suspicion correct.
| account42 wrote:
| > The only sign that a house ever stood there is a bit of plastic
| pipe sticking out of the ground.
|
| > The ruins of the house
| https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1008xn/p09n3zd7.jpg
|
| So which one is it?
| null_object wrote:
| Reading the story carefully it seems that the photograph was
| taken before a digger totally removed the ruins of the house,
| which had been burnt down in the arson attack that preceded its
| total demolition and removal.
| mercantile wrote:
| That seems to be right, but your parent's point still stands
| -- the house may have burned down during an eight year
| absence, but it really doesn't seem to have "vanished". The
| title and lead into the story have been heavily
| sensationalized for click purposes.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| My thinking is he was unreachable for 8 years, house burned
| down (for whatever reason) and became a dangerous eyesore,
| so they took it down.
|
| The islanders faced with his reappearance decided not to
| incriminate anyone and keep quiet.
|
| The only question I have is how did it burn down? I imagine
| it was in quite a state of disrepair after almost a decade
| of low to no maintenance. Part of it may have been falling
| down already and the islanders may have assumed he'd simply
| abandoned his house and the island.
| [deleted]
| aliswe wrote:
| > Neville Presho is scanning the horizon for the house that he
| hasn't seen in eight years. /.../ But there's a problem. The
| house isn't there. It has completely vanished.
|
| Interesting story, but doesn't look like it evaporated into thin
| air if you look at the photo.
|
| https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1008xn/p09n3zd7.jpg
|
| Either I'm missing something, or the intro is very badly (and
| sensationally - silly season!) written, possibly by someone who
| didn't listen to the actual program.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Presumably that was after the fire. Fed up with the eyesore
| someone then knocked it down and the hotel next door started
| using it as a carpark.
| yosito wrote:
| He left the house apparently unattended for 8 years on an island
| of 120 people... not really surprising that someone would burn it
| down because they didn't like the sight of it.
| aivisol wrote:
| Well, he did buy the house (article says) not built it, so the
| sight of the house probably was there already for years if not
| for decades. They most probably didn't like that the house was
| bought by outsider.
| smcl wrote:
| I'd argue that it is very surprising that someone would wreck a
| house simply because they wanted a better view. What to me is
| surprising was that nobody bothered to contact the owner of the
| house, and that everyone responded that it was some mysterious
| act of god (a whirlwind or "a strange glow in the night sky")
| instead of just confessing the real reason. Remote communities
| can be weirdly insular and hostile to outsiders. We moved from
| a city to a village when I was 7 years old, I was still
| considered an outsider and treated with suspicion when I
| (gladly) moved to the capital for university aged 17 and never
| looked back.
|
| Edit: he _was_ contacted but it wasn 't particularly honest :)
| dataflow wrote:
| > nobody bothered to contact the owner of the house
|
| Did they mention anything about this one way or the other?
| Maybe they didn't know who the owner was or how to get a hold
| of him? Or maybe they did try to contact but didn't get a
| response? Unless I missed some part of the passage.
| Scarblac wrote:
| It says this:
|
| > The reason Neville had returned to the island in the
| first place was a letter from the local council warning
| this house had been damaged by a storm, but an engineer's
| report found that the house was most likely brought down by
| mechanical means.
|
| So he was contacted, by the local council, and they lied to
| him.
|
| Sounds to me like the island as a whole decided he wasn't
| going to come live in his house anymore and it was in the
| way, but they had to keep that secret of course.
| soneil wrote:
| > The reason Neville had returned to the island in the
| first place was a letter from the local council warning
| this house had been damaged by a storm, but an engineer's
| report found that the house was most likely brought down
| by mechanical means.
|
| There's a high chance both are true. 8 years left
| untended on a very weather-exposed coast - I'm a little
| further down the same coast, and I can only imagine the
| state it'd be in.
|
| I don't want this to sound like victim-blaming, but
| perhaps trying to imagine how things would progress to a
| point where anyone thought demolishing it was the right
| thing to do. Imagine getting your neighbours car towed
| off their own property simply because you don't like it -
| I think that's what most of us are picturing. Now imagine
| it's a rusting shell sat on four rotting, flat tyres.
| Perhaps burnt out, perhaps a few windows missing, perhaps
| bits of roof missing - we do get the odd hurricane. This
| is not an unrealistic picture of a house that's been left
| to weather the full fury of the Atlantic for 8 years. All
| it takes is to lose a bit of roof or a bit of glass, and
| the damage will snowball quickly.
|
| I'm not saying the owner deserved it. But there's a good
| possibility the house itself deserved it. And part of the
| self-reliance of isolated islands is that the community
| as a whole tends to take care of what needs to be done. I
| dare say if he'd been resident they would have banded
| together to help with repairs - that tight-knit community
| goes both ways.
|
| Based on being the only hotel on the island, this[0]
| appears to be the hotel in question. I read the space the
| house was in was being used as parking for the hotel, and
| the buildings either side of it don't look new - so I'm
| assuming the space is the turn-around between the hotel
| and the shore. You can see[1] it's a very prominent place
| in 'town' to be left dilapidated. Again, not trying to
| excuse anyone, but just trying to wrap my head around
| their motivations.
|
| [0] https://www.derryjournal.com/business/pictures-one-
| most-remo...
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/maps/@55.2651726,-8.2261543,64m
| rsynnott wrote:
| Someone complained to the local authority about a
| derelict building, a civil servant said "okay, yeah,
| whatever", sent a letter to the owner, and got on with
| their life. The council would have no context on the
| situation beyond what they were told.
| Scarblac wrote:
| I assumed the remote island would have its own council
| and everybody involved would know each other and the
| context, but apparently the island is part of County
| Donegal, which is much larger, and you are completely
| correct.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Nah. It probably would in the UK (where they have civil
| parish councils, a sort of retirement home for weird
| busybodies), but in Ireland the smallest type of local
| authority is a city/county council. Donegal CC has to
| deal with 160,000 people and probably only gives limited
| attention to evidently insane islanders.
| [deleted]
| hycaria wrote:
| I thought it was really vanished but instead it is visibly
| destroyed.
| samwhiteUK wrote:
| Right? It's not "vanished" at all. There's a fucking photo of
| the ruins
| fsiefken wrote:
| i was hoping for an x-files or parallel universe type mystery
| myself.. that would really be something.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I can imagine how the others on the island decided on that course
| of action. If there's a house decaying for 8 years without anyone
| visiting, it's not too difficult to assume that nobody will ever
| return before that house naturally decays. So they just sped up
| what would happen anyway.
|
| But what I find remarkable is how strong the "don't snitch"
| spirit was in that community. I mean the deed was obviously done
| and surely people knew who did what. It almost appears as if most
| people in that community did not like Neville Presho that much
| ...
| Aeolun wrote:
| They could have come up with a more satisfying lie than 'we got
| no clue'.
|
| Just say it burned down, and you tore down the remains.
| gambiting wrote:
| I think the problem there is that the local council decided
| to notify him about some damage to the house with a letter -
| so _someone_ on the island isn 't "in" on the whole
| conspiracy, otherwise, why even send him a letter. Or indeed,
| why not send a letter saying "yep, there's been a fire, we
| tried saving it but the house is gone".
| rsynnott wrote:
| That'd be Donegal County Council; the island doesn't have
| its own one. Unlikely that the council had someone on the
| island; someone probably made a complaint about a derelict
| building to them.
| a012 wrote:
| The population on the island was just 120, I can feel it's like
| the community in Hot Fuzz
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/) but less dramatic, it's
| still a closed community though.
| bluebubble56 wrote:
| Yeah, with a community that small, I can see them managing to
| keep it amongst themselves. Especially since this guy was "an
| outsider."
| progre wrote:
| I was thinking "Wicker Man"
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0070917/
|
| Ah this is great: The *police in Wicker Man is played by the
| same actor as the old neighbourhood watch guy in Hot Fuzz!
|
| Edit: He would have been about 42 at the time of filming
| Wicker Man
| wirrbel wrote:
| What baffles me is, if you leave a house FOR YEARS, why don't
| you hire a neighbour for upkeep? I mean every now and then a
| roof tile must come off in a storm that needs to be refitted, a
| house that you don't heat in winter starts to rot, etc. pp.
|
| I can actually see that in a moderately short time span of 8
| years a lot of decay can happen naturally after which 'hands-
| on' neighbours might have just not felt too bad to tear down
| the remains.
| dmix wrote:
| Notably it was also described as one of the oldest houses on
| the island. Which I think is a key point.
| BasDirks wrote:
| A neighbour was asked to look after the house. https://www.ca
| semine.com/judgement/uk/5da053ed4653d07dedfd58...
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| Non-story: individuals in a community will tolerate unjust
| behaviour of their community as a whole provided they are not
| affected. Communities pretend to recognise rights of others out
| of principle, but in reality 'rights' are only actually
| recognised to the extent that 1) you can defend them; or 2) there
| is an impartial body who (mostly) enforces them; or 3) there is
| no advantage to be gained from overriding them. This is a simple
| story of bullying that is played out in a million different ways
| every day - it is a difficult thing for victims to cope with. In
| this instance, the owner of the house has had not only his asset
| destroyed, but also his dreams of idyllic retirement in a
| friendly remote village: a hard thing to accept after years of
| slog to secure it.
| [deleted]
| kolp wrote:
| I'm Irish.
|
| Just for context, Tory Islanders have a certain reputation dating
| back many centuries. The word Tory comes from the old Irish word
| for bandit.
| FerretFred wrote:
| That still applies ;-)
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| This story reminds me of the game Alan Wake -- maybe the creators
| were inspired by it?
| redis_mlc wrote:
| This happens every day, all day in Detroit.
|
| The police do occasional helicopter overflights, but there's an
| endless number of "brick thieves."
|
| Items like aluminum doors go for $5 a piece at the local bar, and
| you can do "custom orders."
| pessimizer wrote:
| But not enough, at least in Chicago. Abandoned homes are
| garbage tip rat farms.
| aaron695 wrote:
| > Neville and his solicitor commenced civil legal proceedings,
| alleging that an islander had decided that Neville's house was
| blocking his view of the sea... and had decided to get rid of it.
|
| Clearly since the people on the island are human beings they too
| would hate with a passion anyone who did this.
|
| So, there's a huge part of the story missing.
|
| No one wants to lose property rights either. If you leave the
| island, people might destroy your stuff would scare anyone.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Clearly since the people on the island are human beings they
| too would hate with a passion anyone who did this.
|
| Other way round: since they're human beings they have loyalty
| among each other, and a relationship structure they're
| unwilling to compromise. Destroying the house of a _resident_
| obviously wouldn 't stand, but who's going to be a snitch for
| the benefit of the outsider?
|
| This happens a _lot_ in abuse situations. You will find out
| afterwards that a lot of people knew to some extent what was
| happening, but were unwilling to have the confrontation that
| would result from speaking out about it, or to put up with the
| long term social consequences of being the person who spoke up.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| > but who's going to be a snitch for the benefit of the
| outsider?
|
| I would, but I also have something of an antagonistic streak
| and a finely tuned sense of justice. I imagine there are many
| people out there, even in a small community of 120, who would
| have no problem sticking it to the establishment out of
| spite. It doesn't take a big community to sow a faction of
| dissidents.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| Your "finely tuned sense of justice" is just a way to say
| everyone who disagrees with you is a piece of shit. Very
| nice.
| underwater wrote:
| The law is just an agreement with a large group of people that
| says "don't do anything bad and we'll watch out for you". These
| people have just replaced that with their own informal
| arrangement.
|
| They probably prefer their got-your-back arrangement because
| they trust their neighbours more than they trust people outside
| the community. In addition it tips the scales in their favour
| because their law doesn't need to protect everyone equally. In
| this case outsiders are not afforded the same benefits as
| islanders.
|
| They just need a reasonable belief that they won't be
| steamrolled by the actual law, which comes from having a tight
| knit community where people don't run to the police.
|
| You see the same pattern amongst cops, the mob, remote
| communities, etc.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| Property rights do not exist in nature, they are just stories
| people tell each other. A house is just a pile of bricks. There
| is no objective concept of ownership.
|
| Ownership only appears when people tell each other consistent
| stories, and it becomes a social norm in some society that if
| you follow some rituals then you can do things like having a
| say on how a particular pile of bricks is used that others may
| respect.
|
| On occasion, different people will tell different stories about
| things and there will be disagreement. Here it seems the
| islanders do not consider such an outsider can "buy" and "own"
| a house according to the law and rituals of the mainland. The
| mainland is like a colonial power they resist. They just have
| they own laws in effect, that they can enforce (to a degree,
| someone still got a fine) through the community united in not
| collaborating with mainland agents. It's neat.
|
| Social norms vary, and elevating your norms above everyone
| else's is very ugly indeed. The islanders are as human as you,
| they just have a moral code that's not the same as yours.
| ornornor wrote:
| By that token, there is no life and just a collection of
| specifically arranged atoms. There is no murder, just
| metabolism alterations by a third party.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're certainly right about murder. You wouldn't say that
| a cat "murdered" a mouse, you would say a cat killed a
| mouse. Just as when a dog has a bone, you wouldn't say the
| dog "owned" the bone. There's a difference between material
| reality (such as life, killing, and physical possession)
| and the moral framework you attach to it (like murder and
| ownership.)
|
| Ownership is something a government does for you, and
| encompasses whatever arbitrary rules that government
| imposes and is willing to enforce. That's why this is a
| discussion about what courts should do.
| bagacrap wrote:
| I would say a cat murdered a mouse, in particular because
| cats seem to kill a lot of small animals for no practical
| reason (as opposed to hunger, for example).
|
| If you're suggesting there's a valid moral code where
| murder is ok (for humans), well, I guess that's a matter
| of opinion, but I expect many people will disagree with
| you.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| If he bought a house and then left it empty for 8 years when he
| moved to New Zealand then he has nobody to blame but himself -
| holiday homes left vacant for 11 months of the year can be a huge
| blight on a small community, but to leave it empty and
| unmaintained for 8 years when you move to the other side of the
| world and then be shocked and upset that it is no longer there is
| hard to believe.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Private property laws don't work like that.
|
| You can do anything with your own house as long as it is legal
| and you pay your taxes each year. Even not visit your beach
| house for a while if you don't feel in the mood to do that or
| are working in a different place, or are being treated in an
| hospital.
|
| If he has paid the taxes, and was paying insurance, and water
| and electricity bills each year, the house is not marooned.
|
| The idea of my neighbors being allowed to burn my house,
| destroy my souvenirs, art and stuff, and use my property as a
| private parking and say that they can because I'm not here to
| stop they is returning to law-of-the-jungle. Is horrible and
| unaceptable.
|
| If the building would be in danger of collapse or refuse to pay
| taxes the government should fine him first, ask for repairs
| and/or notify officially its demolition if necessary.
| CTOSian wrote:
| >The idea of my neighbors being allowed to burn my house...
|
| That's the case you see "red" and grab the old but trusty
| 12-gauge shotgun.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| "Usucapio" is still part of the legal system in many
| countries. Someone who illegally occupies property can become
| the holder of property rights after a few years if they don't
| get kicked out. So I'd say no, it's usually not safe to leave
| a house completely unattended for years on end.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| It's not about what is legal and right it's about what is
| expected. If you left $1000 dollars on top of your car in a
| parking lot you may have the law on your side but the money
| is going to disappear.
|
| The destruction came awhile after the building was burnt down
| - look at the photo, if you owned a hotel, would you want
| burnt out rubble next door? would you spend time tracking
| down the owner you haven't seen in 6 years or would you get a
| friend to knock it down, so it wasn't an eyesore for the
| community?
| pvaldes wrote:
| Money in the street can't be linked to its owner. A house
| is regulated and is somebody's property.
|
| > The destruction came awhile after the building was burnt
| down
|
| If the house was burnt down, then it was an arson crime
| scenery. Crime scenes -must be- left, 'in its current
| state', until the investigation ends (or a jury allows to
| restore it again). Even if it takes some years.
|
| To deliberately destroy proofs of a crime is obstruction of
| justice, a typified crime, and justice has always priority
| over touristic activities.
| zz865 wrote:
| That is a very American POV. Most small villages around the
| world are very tight and the loyalty is to insiders not to
| the official word of law.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Seriously, WTF? Its his private property. There is legal system
| last time I checked, and citizens should abide by it. Some mob
| rules about 'blight on a small community' perfectly ignore that
| the same fucked up community a) let the house be destroyed by
| some arrogant a-hole neighbor; b) knew perfectly well who it
| was; c) lied him & police straight to face, including priest.
|
| These were his childhood friends and 'friendly neighbors'.
| Because of sea view? That's one fucked up small community.
|
| Defending such behavior takes some serious moral twisting or
| plain absence to make it look OK.
| [deleted]
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I'm not saying that it was right - I'm saying that's what
| would be expected. Foreigners buying holiday homes have long
| been hated by small communities - particularly in Ireland and
| Wales and targets for arson. They can make property too
| expensive for locals and reduce demand for local businesses.
| A holiday home would be maintained but leaving a coastal
| property empty for 8 years it would likely it would also be
| an eyesore - this wasn't some farmhouse in the middle of
| nowhere it was 'downtown'.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > These were his childhood friends
|
| No, he was an outsider who moved to the island.
|
| As with a lot of comments on crime, there is a difference
| between "explaining" and "exculpating". I agree that
| "explaining" usually makes it look like the victim's fault.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Not everyone agrees with the system that designate some
| property as "belonging" to someone (after all, these systems
| are all artificial, as land transcends human ownership).
| After all, what gives the "legal system" the right to the
| land? How was that right established, and at whose consent?
| taffronaut wrote:
| I'm not condoning the behaviour but neither is it a pathology
| of a 'fucked up small community'. Welsh nationalists burned
| down english-owned holiday homes in the 80's and 90's "in
| response to the housing crisis precipitated by large numbers
| of houses being bought by wealthy English people for use as
| holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of
| many locals". In total 220 properties were affected [1].
|
| Thirty years later Wales has some coastal villages where more
| than 50% of the houses are exclusive holiday homes owned by
| outsiders. The new tactics to try to discourage this - a bit
| late - are punitive taxation and restrictive covenants on new
| builds.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meibion_Glynd%C5%B5r
| lenkite wrote:
| Would military satellites have this information ? Maybe beg the
| NSA / NOAA ?
| NalNezumi wrote:
| I only read the article and not the entire story but what baffles
| me the most is that Neville claims that the house he left
| unattended for _8 years_ disappearing made him so mad he had to
| go in and out mental health ward several times and collapsed his
| marriage.
|
| Why would he become so startled(and obsessed) by a house he never
| visited for 8 years? To the point that a marriage had to
| collapse, nevertheless.
|
| My guess is that Neville probably had schizophrenia, and thats
| unique thing about this story; I've heard a lot of stories of
| closed rural communities treating newcomer as pests.
|
| As a example from my life, as a teenager I went to help a family-
| friend that had newly switched to agricultural lifestyle in
| Japan, over the summer holiday. I remember arriving at the rice
| field for the first time, noticing that the field was dried up
| and there was cracks in the soil. I asked the friend if this is
| how it is supposed to be, and he replied "no, probably some of
| the old farmers clogged the water channel". I asked why they
| would do that, and he said that the old farmers here didn't like
| newcomers, and would in the night go out and sabotage his farm.
|
| I took a look around the farmland, and noticed a rotting hut,
| rusting tools, and how most of the rice field was now filled with
| bushes and weed and in no condition of agriculture. I again asked
| why, and he told me that because the old people can't take care
| of the land, and because they bully away any newcomer, most of
| the farmland have been taken back by the nature, pointing to a
| forest telling me that it used to be farmland. It baffled me how
| these old people would rather see their entire village, way of
| life die out than letting any new person in.
|
| Someone that just bought a house and left it unattended 8 years
| in such community, is to me not surprising at all that someone
| there took an ire. Maybe Neville just didn't catch that in his
| documentary about the island, and couldn't process the deeds done
| to him
| pessimizer wrote:
| > My guess is that Neville probably had schizophrenia, and
| thats unique thing about this story; I've heard a lot of
| stories of closed rural communities treating newcomer as pests.
|
| I don't know about schizophrenia, but my guess is that the
| mental illness had nothing to do with the house, it's just a
| convenient narrative. Being gaslit about the previous existence
| of your house certainly wouldn't help though.
| BasDirks wrote:
| He was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.
| https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5da053ed4653d07dedfd58...
| atombender wrote:
| The High Court of Ireland's ruling [1], which this article
| seems to have mined for most of the facts (some of it nearly
| verbatim) is worth reading, rather than speculating wildly.
|
| In short, the court found that Presho's bipolar disorder likely
| preceded the disappearance of the house, but that it was a
| factor in Presho's inability to protect his legal rights at the
| time.
|
| As far as I interpret the ruling, the sequence of events was
| roughly:
|
| * Persho left for New Zealand for 8 years, leaving the house
| boarded up and in the care of a local. During that time, a
| hotel was constructed next door, and its builder used the house
| illegally for lodging.
|
| * Around that time, the house fell into disrepair (if you read
| between the lines, they may also have stripped it for scraps)
| and suffered serious fire damage (highly likely arson).
|
| * At some unknown point in time, the house was demolished,
| probably by the owner of the hotel with the help of a local
| contractor (who was in possession of the only digger on the
| island) in order to clear the view.
|
| * The local garda did not find any evidence suggesting (or
| refuting) any criminal acts. However, the court appears to
| recognize the existence of a conspiracy among the locals.
|
| * When Persho returned in 1994, he responded to erratically to
| the loss of his house, and due to his bipolar disorder was not
| able to follow through with legal proceedings until the 2000s.
|
| [1]
| https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5da053ed4653d07dedfd58...
| dkersten wrote:
| On that last point, I would respond pretty erratically too if
| my house disappeared and nobody would tell me what happened,
| bipolar or not.
| fsiefken wrote:
| Yes, I was wondering about that too. Of course without knowing
| the details, or having listened to the podcast it's easy to
| come up with quick judgments.
|
| I was thinking that perhaps original film material or personal
| belongings were lost. Or additionally perhaps the island
| symbolized something important to him and that the island, or
| it's inhabitants rejected him in this way hurt more than we can
| imagine. Or perhaps it was just a lot of money and he and his
| wife were financially ruined.
|
| I am also reminded of people whose friend or family member goes
| missing for years and people don't know if the person dead or
| alive so they can't give it rest, perhaps it's similar. I never
| lost my house and my belongings, so I wouldn't know. I suppose
| I would make the best of it and accept the situation and try to
| move on.
|
| Once I was scammed by a bank for a lot of money, I spent half
| the amount of money on a lawyer to get justice. I am normally
| quite stoic, but was quite upset. After a few years the
| government arranged a (poor) deal I took, this meant closure to
| me and a lot of people.
| dmix wrote:
| Finances and time distracted by an obsession can take a toll
| on any relationship. No schizophrenia needed.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > Why would he become so startled(and obsessed) by a house he
| never visited for 8 years? To the point that a marriage had to
| collapse, nevertheless.
|
| I'm not sure, but I think I can understand it. A few years ago
| my girlfriend had her bike stolen and for at least a few weeks
| I would look at almost every bike I saw to see if it was hers.
| More recently I had my bike stolen and even months later, on
| holiday hundreds of miles from home, I still look at bikes
| wondering if I'll see my bike.
|
| These things can hurt you. Do you have any experiences that
| compare?
| ORioN63 wrote:
| There's a narrative that I hear often about Corvo island:
|
| Corvo is a small island in the Azores archipelago, which is home
| to less than 500 habitants.
|
| Every time a police officer, joins the island, it usually has a
| bit of a tough time, as it tries to write fines and issue
| warnings to the small population. The small population, not only
| disregard its orders, but they actually shut them out.
|
| Since there's very few establishments, the police officer,
| eventually, has to comply with the population.
|
| To be honest, I don't know how much truth there is, in this
| story, but I don't find it hard to believe.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It's almost impossible to imagine this in light of the "all or
| nothing" approach American law enforcement has toward its job.
| Would it really be as simple as ignoring the police that would
| undermine their authority?
| pjc50 wrote:
| It only works with a lone police officer. It's extremely hard
| to cope with being totally socially excluded on a remote
| island. Any situation where the police themselves can form a
| community because there's enough of them, this approach won't
| work.
|
| (I would note that one of the great American novels, To Kill
| A Mockingbird, deals precisely with the loneliness of trying
| to administer justice without community support)
|
| Then there's horror classic _The Wicker Man_ , about a police
| officer sent to a remote island to investigate a vanished
| girl and wall of silence ...
| [deleted]
| jfoutz wrote:
| it's a question of scale. in a small town of 120, yes,
| absolutely. In a city of a million, it's hard to get everyone
| to hold the line. A few fall, which causes more to lose their
| nerve, and more fall, and authority is enforced.
|
| but a group of say 500? that know each other on sight? Sure.
|
| I grew up in a small town in the US southwest. There's a
| reason Texas has successful defenses for murder that were "he
| needed killing". It can be terrifying to be on the wrong side
| of a popularity contest.
| tallanvor wrote:
| American law enforcement doesn't dictate how law enforcement
| ends up working in Portugal...
| float4 wrote:
| A decent next step would be to send more than one police
| officer, but it probably isn't really worth it.
| simonh wrote:
| Would doubling the cost, or more, actually provide double the
| benefits? At the end of the day it's the police officer who
| has the duty to protect and serve.
| andylynch wrote:
| This is what we wound up doing with Pitcairn.
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