I have been in many foreclosed homes here in Salem Oregon lately. Some are in great condition and some…well aren’t. Forget taking the cabinets, stripping the carpet out of the house, and grabbing the kitchen sink…this incident adds a whole new level of crazy to the foreclosure market.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that in GA, two real estate agents went into a home after it went into foreclosure. Noticing a little ol’ grenade on the floor, one agent went over to pick it up to see if it was plastic. Seeing that it wasn’t and the pin was still in they called the police.
Athens-Clarke police and firefighters, along with technicians from the UGA Police Bomb Disposal Unit, responded to the call.
After taping off the cul-de-sac, officers informed neighbors of the situation and asked them to either stay inside or leave.
The bomb squad sent a robot into the house to pick the grenade up and move it to a pit the officers dug in the backyard. Officers then used an explosive counter-charge to blow the device up.
UGA police Chief Jimmy Williamson didn’t know if the grenade was real, but the bomb experts who examined it found no evidence that it was fake.
“When anything appears to be functioning, they are going to handle it as if it was a real device,” he told the Banner-Herald.
This is just a whole new level of crazy.
I like the competence of someone tossing a grenade with the pin still in it. I can hear them saying “Damn, musta been a dud, Bubba!”
Recent buyer, I have to think that they would hope someone would pull the pin, or maybe they thought they just went off when you picked them up?
Maybe they were counting on the real estate agents not being as smart as they were, and pulling the pin out, out of curiosity. So the ex-homowners were not just a bit dumb, but sadistically dumb.
Lisa,
I’m just glad it was found immediately. Can you imagine if a family went in to the look at the house and the grenade was hidden in a closet or something. I can just see some child pulling the pin…