strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

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House With a Creepy Stalker Yours for $1.25M

'The Watcher' house is back on the market

(Newser) - A New Jersey home supposedly stalked by an anonymous creepy-letter writer who goes by "The Watcher" is back on the market, the AP reports. The current owners, a married couple with three children, bought it in June 2014 for nearly $1.4 million. But they refused to move in...

Woman Ships Box of DVDs With Her Cat Inside

Oops...

(Newser) - Always double-check your boxes before sealing them up and mailing them: That's the lesson one British woman recently learned after she accidentally mailed her cat. Cupcake had climbed into a box of DVDs the woman was planning to ship, as cats are wont to do , and the woman didn'...

What Happens When a Beer Truck Crashes Into a Chips Truck

That's one tasty Florida highway

(Newser) - It wasn't a happy hour for some central Florida drivers when trucks carrying Busch beer and Frito-Lay chips collided, spilling them both along Interstate 95 early Wednesday morning near Melbourne in what KUSA is calling a "couch potato's dream." Per the AP , Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman...

Behind Seattle Evacuation, Hazmat Search: Deodorant

Church, daycare cleared out because of Axe body spray

(Newser) - A church and daycare center in Seattle's University District were cleared out by the city's fire department, nearby streets were roped off, and hazmat teams descended on the area Friday after "cough-inducing fumes" were noted wafting out of the church's bathroom and someone called 911, MyNorthwest....

No One Knew Body in Coffin Wasn't Grandma— Except Little Kids

Adults thought Val-Jean McDonald's body looked odd but didn't say anything

(Newser) - With eight sons, more than 20 grandkids, and nearly two dozen great- and great-great-grandchildren, it wasn't surprising there were lots of attendees at Val-Jean McDonald's funeral after her death in December at the age of 81, the New York Times reports. What was surprising: Not a single adult...

Baltimore Woman Sues Mayor for Violent Toilet Explosion

She was 'blown off' the toilet seat, suffered injuries and 'mental anguish': suit

(Newser) - A Baltimore woman who says she was blown off of her toilet when it exploded in November 2014, causing her physical injuries and PTSD, as well as loads of physical damage to her home, is now suing the city's mayor and City Council, as well as a couple of...

Snoop Dogg Accidentally Promotes Transylvanian Village

'Snoop Dogg checked into Bogata by mistake—but you don't have to'

(Newser) - A small village in northern Romania is reveling in the virtual attention caused by a spelling mistake by Snoop Dogg. Posting a selfie on Instagram, the rapper who has been on tour in Bogota, Colombia, told his fans he was in Bogata, in Transylvania. (It seems he accidentally checked in...

Son of Punk Icons to Burn $7M in Memorabilia

It's a protest against 'mainstream' celebrations of punk

(Newser) - Joe Corre's collection of punk memorabilia is worth $7.2 million—and it will soon go up in flames. The son of late Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood says he'll burn his "vast amounts" of clothing and artifacts from the era...

Florida Guy: I Was Speeding Because I Had to Pee

Cops find out hard way that he was not lying

(Newser) - A man in central Florida has been arrested after telling a deputy he was speeding because he had to go to the bathroom. Lake County Sheriff's officials say 24-year-old Carlos Adonis Ramos-Erazo refused to get out of his vehicle Thursday after being nabbed for going 20 miles over the...

Airport Gets 6.5K Noise Complaints —From One Person

They equaled 75% of all complaints in 2015

(Newser) - Out of the 8,670 noise complaints Washington's Reagan National Airport received last year, officials say a whopping 6,500 of them came from the same person. Officials at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority say one unidentified Washington resident was responsible for about three-quarters of noise complaints in 2015,...

Perfume Maker Bottles Scent of Dearly Departed

Product promises 'olfactory comfort'

(Newser) - Photos, mementoes, an urn on the mantel—there are many ways to remember a loved one who has died. Now a French company is offering a new one: the bottled scent of the recently departed, Fusion reports. The product created by the firm Kalain offers "olfactory comfort" in a...

Cardboard License Plate Doesn't Fool NY Cops

Twentysomething driver is now in trouble

(Newser) - Just a heads-up: Authorities in Springville, NY, do not accept license plates made of cardboard. Erie County sheriff's deputies say they spotted a woman driving 35 miles south of Buffalo on Wednesday without a front license plate, reports WIVB . On the back of her vehicle was a rectangle, painted...

Teacher, Student Find Out They're Sisters

Both adopted, they lived only 20 miles apart for years

(Newser) - Diane DiProspero Cook always considered Karen Cometa-Zempel to be her favorite teacher from New York's Bryant and Stratton College, where she was a student in 1985. Thirty years later, it makes a lot of sense why. Adopted as an infant, DiProspero Cook recently became interested in her biological family...

35-Pound Tumor Removed From Woman's Abdomen

Irianita Rojas Rasma couldn't work or study with growth she had for more than 8 years

(Newser) - For more than eight years, Irianita Rojas Rasma carried around a tumor in her abdomen that she never thought she'd get rid of. But doctors in Lima, Peru, finally removed the cancerous growth—which had developed into a 35-pound mass—from the 22-year-old woman during a Feb. 20 surgery,...

SF Would Like to Pay Steve Jobs $176

He overpaid parking tickets years ago, you see

(Newser) - Paging Steve Jobs: The city of San Francisco would very belatedly like to refund you $176. In kind of a strange story picked up by the Washington Post , it seems that the Apple co-founder appears on a lengthy list of people—including California AG Kamala Harris and PayPal co-founder Peter...

Bald Man Sought in Rogaine Thefts

He's also allegedly stealing 'brain health supplements'

(Newser) - Bringing new meaning to the phrase "nothing left to lose," a bald man has apparently turned to a life of crime, allegedly stealing Rogaine from multiple stores in Ohio and Kentucky, the Smoking Gun reports. He's suspected of taking $847 worth of Rogaine and "brain health...

Cops Spent 4 Hours Looking for a 'Unicorn'

Runaway pony in costume was eventually found in an orchard

(Newser) - California Highway Patrol spent hours searching for a "unicorn" on Wednesday. Yes, really. A white pony named Juliette, adorned with a horn as part of a fairy-tale photo shoot in Madera Ranchos, Calif., suddenly took off on her handler, reports CNN . She was caught but soon escaped again. Police...

She Tried to Run Across a Sea—and Almost Made It

Lindsey Russell traveled 17 miles in an inflatable ball

(Newser) - A British TV host tried to run 20 miles across the Irish Sea. She nearly made it, too. Inside a 10-foot-wide inflatable ball attached to paddles, 25-year-old Lindsey Russell set off from Donaghadee in Northern Ireland at 6:30am on Thursday in an attempt to raise money for Sport Relief...

Penn. Cops: Star Student Turns Out to Be Impostor

'Teen' is really a 23-year-old Ukrainian national, they allege

(Newser) - Asher Potts, 18, was a star student at Pennsylvania's Harrisburg High School: Among other things, he was a student rep with the school board, a candidate for local media's Best & Brightest program, a member of the ROTC and Naval Sea Cadet program, and runner-up for homecoming king,...

They're Back: Shoes Containing Human Feet Found in Canada

More than a dozen have washed ashore since 2007

(Newser) - After a short respite, athletic shoes containing human feet are once again washing up on Canadian shores, the Guardian reports. Earlier this month, a family visiting a Vancouver Island beach made a "grisly discovery," according to the CBC . "We had a look at it for about five...

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