Woman blocks man’s rescue over fear of ‘unlucky’ home

TAIPEI: A home owner in Taiwan reportedly refused to let first responders pass through her house to reach an injured man in a back alley.

Her reason for doing so was that she did not want her house to be linked to an unnatural death.

It started when an electrician fell two metres to the ground while he was installing an air-conditioner outside a house in New Taipei on Aug 11.

According to an online article written by someone claiming to be a volunteer involved in the rescue, the house owner refused to let firefighters through her home to the back alley, where the electrician had fallen, as she did not want her home to be associated with the death.

According to the article, the home owner’s decision delayed the rescue by about 15 minutes. The injured man was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

But in an ironic twist, the home owner’s alleged actions might have ended up causing what she had been seeking to avoid.

After the article was reported on by media outlets last week, the house was soon listed in an online “unlucky house database”.

Properties in which people die of unnatural causes such as homicide, suicide and by accident are regarded by some as unlucky – a label that can drastically reduce its price on the market.

In Taiwan, sellers of these “unlucky houses” are obliged to notify potential buyers of the properties’ status, which is legally regarded as a flaw.

Online databases, with many entries based on news reports, are a popular means for people to keep track of “unlucky houses”.

There are no clear legal definitions of an “unlucky house”. In court precedents, “unlucky houses” have been referred to as individual apartments – but not the entire buildings the apartments belong to – where deaths from unnatural causes have occurred.

If an “unlucky house” has been changed drastically to the degree that the social stigma of unluckiness can be deemed removed, the property is not considered unlucky anymore.