A puzzlement

[commodorified]

So, an unexploded shell of indeterminate age has been removed from a house in Toronto and taken to CFB Borden to be destroyed.

Noting that all has ended well and everybody is fine, so I can afford to be trivial:

A man who had just bought a home on the street discovered the shell in the house's garage

I think that the homeowner would be well within his rights to request that the fee for the customary pre-purchase home inspection be refunded in full. I mean, unless he waived inspection, which would be very unusual, or it's on page 12: "Garage — foundation good, roof in need of repair, unexploded ordnance behind workbench" and the purchaser just didn't read the whole thing.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

"Not our problem, guv. We're there to inspect the property, not personal possessions."

[commodorified]

*giggles*

Events incline me to believe that the garage was badly skimped, though.

[nineveh_uk]

It certainly doesn't auger well for their powers of observation.

[xinef]

That was my reaction!

[thnidu]

And they're supposed to know the drill. (BTW, it's "augur".)

I expected you to go for "mortar bit".

[commodorified]

Please do not attempt to use an augur on unidentified live ordnance.

A hammer drill is right out.

[commodorified]

Also, I know these things make you twitch, and I also know you mean only good and are used to this being perfectly okay, but while you may freely correct the spelling in my posts, please don't correct my commenters. Some of them are composing or typing under difficult conditions, and all of them are allowed to be imperfect in off-the-cuff remarks.

[thnidu]

Ah! Noted to remember.

[adrian_turtle]

That's just what I was thinking. I expect there's a checklist of things one customarily looks for in a pre-purchase home inspection--mold, termites, rust or leaks in critical places, etc. The inspectors don't rummage through the boxes in the attic or open the crates in the garage. (Not even a dusty old one labeled "Grandpa's stuff from Ypres.")

[graydon]

I recall the Metro News story having a phrase about "renovations"; it'd be quite the surprise to be taking the battered, dingy drywall down in the garage and find the former owner's cache of mortar bombs.

[commodorified]

Aaah, that makes sense. Less funny, but more understandable.

[graydon]

All the reports are being incredibly vague about what was found and they keep saying "disassembled", rather than "safely detonated" or something like that.

About the only thing I can think of they'd disassemble makes me really, really hope the reportage is just using the wrong word for some reason.

[commodorified]

Well, mi Diefenbunker est su Diefenbunker, of course, but the reports all seem to contain other obvious errors, so I wouldn't stock up on canned goods until they start testing the air-raid sirens.

[graydon]

Oh, no, no, sorry, nothing that involves unusual quantities of neutrons.

The stuff that gets disassembled has white phosphorous in it. Can't just blow it up, it contaminantes the range.

[commodorified]

I ... would rather think about neutrons than about Willy Pete.

which is a personal problem, I admit.

[commodorified]

Yeah, I suppose I was assuming something like a tank shell sitting under the workbench, you know?

[metawidget]

The inspector was too busy looking at the soffit vents, obviously.

[legionseagle]

A Sten gun has just been removed from the house of a deceased elderly lady of impeccable respectability. Plus, on the ferry on Sunday, the Dover/Calais line (we were travelling Newhaven/Dieppe) having been disrupted by what we assumed to be the condition known as The French on Strike Again turned out to be The Ferry Cannot Run Because Clearing WWII Mines From Calais.

So (as Hot Fuzz pointed out) You Never Can Tell.

[stardreamer]

My Inner Editor is screaming. Not just once but twice they refer to it as "ordinance".

[thnidu]

(Vide supra.)

[sara]

You will I think recall the story of the unexploded ordnance I discovered when I took over management of the museum?

They had catalogued it.

I let them keep the box, after the bomb squad had cleared it.

[commodorified]

"They had catalogued it".

*reverent silence*

[castiron]

That is definitely more startling than the abandoned reptile nursery I discovered when clearing out some old carpet that the previous owners had stashed in the utilities room. (Fortunately just a hundredish empty eggshells and not any of their former inhabitants.)

[legionseagle]

I got a bit bothered when a former trainee of mine mentioned rustling in the loft and said cheerfully that it might be one of the neighbour's escaped snakes.

[legionseagle]

Queen's St E.! For some bizarre reason, I rather thought it might have been in my old stamping ground just between Roncesvalles Ave. & High Park.

[commodorified]

JUNCTION! I lived various places between Lansdowne and High Park for most of the time I was there.