In Eugene, everybody gripes about housing codes. We want housing codes so our dishwashers won’t make the dishes dirtier and our garbage disposals will actually dispose of our garbage.
But there’s a little town in Italy that needs housing codes way more than Eugene does. The town of Canneto di Caronia, on the north coast of Sicily, needs housing codes like a whale needs water.
In Canneto, the appliances don’t work. They blow up.
It all started in January, when the air conditioner in Antonio Pezzino’s house burst into flames. That was no big deal. Maybe it was an electricity surge, or maybe a train was passing on the nearby tracks.
Pezzino is one of only 39 people who live in Canneto. Or, lived in Canneto. Soon, everybody was being visited by the appliance demon. Lamps and refrigerators burst into flames. Car alarms went batty. Cell phones, which barely worked before, really went on the fritz.
By mid-February, the entire town was evacuated and living in a nearby hotel. Police, electricity experts, geologists and even spiritual experts parked on Canneto’s one strada, or street. Satellite trucks and seismic-reading devices turned the town into what seemed like a movie set.
Still, nobody could find the answer.
“Someone wrote to us, saying the solution was to sacrifice a black goat and collect its blood,” Canneto Mayor Pedro Spinnato told Reuters news service. “At some point, that’s going to start looking like a good idea.”
The utility company shut off the town’s power in January, but it didn’t help. They tried to hook up the town to a generator, but the generator exploded, too.
Looking for answers, the town big-wigs even called in Massimo Polidoro, the head of Italy’s Committee for the Control of Paranormal Claims. Polidoro officially nixed the demon explanation.
“The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural, phenomenon,” he told Reuters.
That helps.
Finally, by the end of February, the fires stopped. The town residents got excited about the possibility of moving back into their homes.
But then they started again, worse than before. An apartment went up in flames. More appliances combusted.
Police held onto the theory that a pyromaniac was starting the fires. Until, that is, a power line went up in smoke.
Canneto residents are still holed up in the hotel. People have theories. They think it could have something to do with power lines near the train tracks. They think it could be natural surges of electricity welling up from the earth’s core.
“I just want to go home,” Canneto resident Rosi Cioffo told Reuters. “I don’t know what’s causing it and I don’t care anymore, even if it’s the devil.”
So, the next time your washing machine turns your favorite shirt pink or your freezer melts your ice cream, think about the people of Canneto. Think about the possibility of sitting in the Eugene Hilton while the town around you is shrouded in darkness, save for the occasional fireworks when Johnny’s microwave bursts into flames.
Think about that the next time you complain about housing standards.