Marcel Berlins - writing in the Guardian - asks whether the tenants of 50 Irvine Drive in Margate ought to receive compensation for the inconvenience suffered while police dig up their home to retrieve dead girls. Thank God, he says, they're tenants rather than homeowners. A macabre event rarely enhances the value of a property. Apparently, agents report finding the attic flat at 23 Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill (eeew) hard to shift. But the fact is that psychopathic killers rarely own their own homes. Christie, Crippen, Nilsen... all renters. Presumably, killing and dismembering is one thing, risking a kicking in the housing market if you get caught is quite another. Only Fred West was a proud homeowner... but then he need to be in order to facilitate an ambitious schedule of home improvements tailor-made for the serious, prosumer psychopath.

Real estate stigma [August 7, 2006]
"If a celebrity dies in your house, that's a landmark..." [May 16, 2006]

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