Andy Pascali, a Romanian living in Bucharest, was left in shock when he and his father visited his summer home in Braila, Romania. The house was nowhere to be found, and in its place was a fully planted cornfield, ready for harvest. While home theft is bad enough, having your entire house stolen piece by piece while you're away, only to return and find it gone, is a different matter entirely. Here are more details about the incident that resulted in this Romanian's home being stolen.
Pascali built this cottage for his father as a temporary shelter. But when he returned to the house in early May 2014, he discovered it was gone, leaving only a pile of gravel and a few rocks.
This wasn't the first time things had been stolen from his home. In 1996, a refrigerator and everything inside were stolen. So he installed a barbed wire fence around the house for extra security. Pascali stated that the house cost him approximately 6,800 euros. He installed electricity and 12-meter utility poles, which cost an additional 270 euros. The house was built with an iron frame and had oriented strand board (OSB) walls. It was surrounded by a wooden fence, and there was a fountain in the garden. All of this was stolen, along with cement pipes. The thieves left behind nothing but gravel and rocks.
When he returned two months later, he found that his neighbor had planted a cornfield where his house had once stood.
When Pascali arrived in the village and discovered his home gone, a man offered to help him clear out the trash. He then asked if he could use some power poles to connect to the power lines and plant a cornfield where the house had stood. Pascali agreed to use the poles but refused to plant the corn. But when he returned two months later, he discovered the man had planted the corn anyway.
Although Pascali contacted police, he made no active attempt to catch the thieves and posted a warning on Facebook to other homeowners in the area, urging them to be careful.
«"I think this could only happen in Romania.".
«"My entire house was stolen, and the neighbors took advantage of the opportunity to plant a cornfield in its place. It's simply unbelievable!"»
«"If you have a summer house in the mountains, you should check to see if it's still there. I drove to my house in the countryside and found only a cornfield in its place. I don't mean the corn obscured the house from my view—I mean it literally obscured the spot where my house used to stand.".
Pascali said he wasn't upset by the disappearance of his home, as he lives in Bucharest and is fortunate to own two. However, he expressed bewilderment, saying, "What I don't like is such disrespect. Why do this to a house that doesn't belong to you?" A neighbor who had planted a cornfield, when asked if he'd seen anything, replied that he'd only bought the land there in the fall, and no one had stayed there in the winter to notice anything.
[Sources: Dailymail, Vice]