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The local news is following a breaking story about a house that exploded in the QEW/Cawthra area of Mississauga early yesterday. This is a sad but morbidly fascinating story for a number of reasons, and not just because the police and fire marshals are as yet unable to determine the cause of the explosion.
Amazingly, no one appears to have died. Neighbours were able to pull somebody out from the wreckage of the home before the firefighters arrived, and as flames drew dangerously close.
The house had been for sale, believe it or not. Closing day is today. The police have not confirmed whether the person pulled from the debris is the former owner, but that is the suspicion. And as sad as this situation is, I still have to wonder what this does to the real-estate deal. What does the new homeowner do? Does he inherit a hole in the ground, or is he off scott-free because there is now no house to close a deal on (although he still has to find himself a new house, which can cause all sorts of other headaches if he sold his old house and has no place to live)?
And what’s even weirder is that CablePulse 24 has just interviewed a neighbour who was injured after finding himself jogging across the street from the house, as it exploded. Shrapnel cut up his legs pretty badly, forcing him to go to the hospital to get a number of stitches.
The weird part? The jogger himself owned that very same home about ten years ago.
What’s the likelihood that an exploding house could so affect the lives of not one, not two, but three of its former and current owners?
The Fates are having far too much fun with causality this week.