Phantom Hitchhikers & Decoy Ducks by Albert Jack

November 1st 2006


The Seafood Effect


June was not a happy lady. Just before Christmas in 1998 her husband Mike had left her to start a new life with her closest friend. June spent the whole winter alone in the house until the day she received a letter from a divorce lawyer, asking for possession so that Mike and her old friend could move back in. That was when she planned her revenge. She replied, offering vacant possession, on the condition the house was sold and the proceeds split between the two. The evening before she was due to move out June invited her real friends around for a lavish 'Last Supper'. The following morning she carefully unscrewed the ends of the metal curtain rails in all the rooms and filled the cavity with half-eaten prawns, shells and spoonfuls of caviar, after which she picked up the rest of her belongings and left the home she loved.

A few weeks later the new couple noticed a lingering smell. It became worse as the days passed. They paid to have the house professionally cleaned from top to bottom, the air vents and floorboards checked for dead rats and air purifiers installed in every room, but still the smell grew worse. Before long the workmen were refusing to enter the house and, as potential buyers were failing to make it past the front door before they fled, the estate agents suggested taking the property off the market until the smell had been removed.
 

   
Eventually the couple had to retreat to a hotel before taking on a huge loan and buying another house. Soon afterwards, as chance would have it, June phoned Mike to enquire how the house sale was progressing and listened as her cheating husband made up a story about the depressed housing market and how he had been unable to find a buyer. He was amazed when his former wife offered to buy his share, for a substantially reduced amount. Seizing the chance to burden his ex with the mysteriously smelling house, he accepted a nominal payment for his half share, but not without one last act of meanness.

On the day of the transfer June pulled up with her removal men just in time to find Mike's men stripping the house of the last fixtures and fittings to be taken and installed at his new home down to the light bulbs, carpets, curtains and …..curtain rails. June's plan had worked to perfection