goto the US and try selling a house that was owned by Wiccans, Voodoo, Devil worshipers, etc. Make the same claim on paper. Sell the house as not having been previously owned by “other than Christians”. See if someone doesn’t get a heavy fine and/or jail time for Fraud.
I mean common…lets sell the Jews repackaged pork and call it chicken! Thats ok right?
Could be funny if there was a sale with a clean bill of psychic/spiritual (?) health and then manifestations of the beyond made their presence felt. Presumably the current owners would have to take all moral and financial blame, even if the ghosts wore costume from the time of the previous owners.
[quote=“PunishmentNow”]I mean common…lets sell the Jews repackaged pork and call it chicken! Thats ok right?[/quote] That made me laugh out loud! Still laughing… Good point, too! 
marboulette
You might ask a realtor. Seriously, you could find a bargain. But resale value will be similarly reduced.
[/quote]
Someone in fact told me recently about a violet house that’s been on the market near the CKS memorial hall. It’s in the same building where Chen Chin-hsing (of the famous Pai Ping-ping saga, also being discussed in another thread) murdered a dentist. I was told the apartment has been on the market for over a year, and there hasn’t been ANY offer. I think the seller would be happy with any offer at this point. PM me if you’re interested.
re: removing the ghost
I got dead (excuse the pun) into this when I was looking for a house, i really tried to find out if there was any ritual to cleanse the house, I mean, if there tradition exists, it must be breakable right?
In euopean society we had exorcists who would dance around and force the ghost out to cleanse the house
In japan they have the shinto priest come over, burn some insence and splay holy water around the entrance frames
And in vietnam you just need to “cleanse with fire”, ie, you burn down the room in which the abhhurrance occured
In Taiwan, the cure is to raze the building and rebuild
However, and this is the thing that facinates me about the conflicting superstitions, razing and rebuilding is OK for a murder, but a gravesite can never be cleansed since there is nothing standing there! Unless yu could build a shack knock it down (and burn it just for the pyros and good measure, maybe have a bbq too) to cleanse the land… I was tempted to employ a “virtuous” monk to advise me on this and buy up the houses for “cleansing” before returning the same to market at full value…Me He, other businessperson takers?
Also related a "natural death’ is OK, no ghosties
However and unnatural death is very bad, I think suicide is more powerful than murder as well… (picture the scene)
Mother in Law: so whys is so cheap?
Foreigner: its a violent house
MiL: Oh… what happened
F: oh chainsaw murderer wiped out his family
MiL: He didnt commit suicide after did he?
F: no
MiL: oh, thats ok then
…
[quote=“itakitez”]re: removing the ghost
In Taiwan, the cure is to raze the building and rebuild
[/quote]
Surprising that mobile homes aren’t more popular here.
cheers,
DB
You can get a Taoist priest or one of those Vietnamese monks that especialize in such ceremonies…
[quote=“Incubus”]
Someone in fact told me recently about a violet house that’s been on the market near the CKS memorial hall. It’s in the same building where Chen Chin-hsing (of the famous Pai Ping-ping saga, also being discussed in another thread) murdered a dentist. I was told the apartment has been on the market for over a year, and there hasn’t been ANY offer. I think the seller would be happy with any offer at this point. PM me if you’re interested.[/quote]
Longer than that probably. The first floor, a prime location on Roosevelt near the Nanmen market, is an empty concrete shell only used by itinerant sellers of clothes etc for years now.
I guess it also depends on how much has been invested and by whom. The Grand Hyatt has for years been considered as haunted. Guests have reported seeing ghosts there but it still goes on. The hotel still enjoys a high occupancy rate.
Near the RR station in Ktown theres a small and nice little hotel that I have stayed in several times. Clean and was bout 1000nt/nite (cheap). And I was told later on that in one of the rooms a guest had committed suicide and people didnt know and were staying in that room with no problems. My friend said that room always has fresh flowers in it everyday. Thereafter when I stayed there I always checked to see if my room has fresh flowers in it. Admittedly I would not be super comfortable in that room 
Theres a nice hotel on chang chun rd, near chong shan n.rd. called the WHITE HOUSE hotel. Its was bout 1500/nite and had a nice restaurant with great pizza on the second floor.
Nicely done love hotel it was. And I coulda sworn there was a helpful spirit there. I told my gf then that we must get up at 530 in order to catch our early flight to HK> . I set the alarm for 530am but at 528am or so the tv turned itself on all by itself. I thought the alarm clock was set to the TV, but it wasnt. So I thought “hmmm” but thought nothing further.
MY then gf came back first to Taipei and stayed another nite at that same hotel and she said that the lights to the room would turn on and off by itself.
Guess its all down to faulty Taiwan wiring but hey? Never know?
I guess if a hotel had a violent death and there were a lot of reported sightings then I would think that hotel would be doomed once word got out.
IF the news was suppressed and many people continued to stay there, then eventually it would die (sorry for the pun) away.
I was told I would never have to worry about ghosts in Taiwan, as the ghosts couldn’t haunt me because they don’t speak English!
Once, I swear this is true, I was in a cab and the driver spoke pretty good English–he had a US university degree. He was just pulling up at the destination and turned and looked behind him. He caught a glimps of himself reflected in the rear door glass, just a trick of light at the right angle and his semi tinted windows. He freaked out!
Me: “You okay?”
driver: “Did you see that? I saw a ghost in the window!”
Me: “Yeah, I saw it–it was your face, a refle–”
driver, already starting to take off: “Aaarrggghhh!! Get out! Get out!”
He had seemed so normal up until that poing.
I didn’t have to pay for that ride.
[quote=“housecat”]I was told I would never have to worry about ghosts in Taiwan, as the ghosts couldn’t haunt me because they don’t speak English!
Once, I swear this is true, I was in a cab and the driver spoke pretty good English–he had a US university degree. He was just pulling up at the destination and turned and looked behind him. He caught a glimps of himself reflected in the rear door glass, just a trick of light at the right angle and his semi tinted windows. He freaked out!
Me: “You okay?”
driver: “Did you see that? I saw a ghost in the window!”
Me: “Yeah, I saw it–it was your face, a refle–”
driver, already starting to take off: “Aaarrggghhh!! Get out! Get out!”
He had seemed so normal up until that poing.
I didn’t have to pay for that ride.[/quote]
Haha what a story. Either you were in a ghost cab or he thought you were a ghost?? Were you extra pale or something that time? 
Hey instead of a free ride in the CASH CAB you got a free ride in a ghost cab? Now how many taxi drivers were educated in an American UNIV??? Cant be many. That shouldve been your tip off right there. And how many cab drivers speak of ghosts when they are taking a fare anyway? NOT many… hmmm.
[quote=“tommy525”][quote=“housecat”]I was told I would never have to worry about ghosts in Taiwan, as the ghosts couldn’t haunt me because they don’t speak English!
Once, I swear this is true, I was in a cab and the driver spoke pretty good English–he had a US university degree. He was just pulling up at the destination and turned and looked behind him. He caught a glimps of himself reflected in the rear door glass, just a trick of light at the right angle and his semi tinted windows. He freaked out!
Me: “You okay?”
driver: “Did you see that? I saw a ghost in the window!”
Me: “Yeah, I saw it–it was your face, a refle–”
driver, already starting to take off: “Aaarrggghhh!! Get out! Get out!”
He had seemed so normal up until that point.
I didn’t have to pay for that ride.[/quote]
Haha what a story. Either you were in a ghost cab or he thought you were a ghost?? Were you extra pale or something that time?
Hey instead of a free ride in the CASH CAB you got a free ride in a ghost cab? Now how many taxi drivers were educated in an American UNIV??? Cant be many. That shouldve been your tip off right there. And how many cab drivers speak of ghosts when they are taking a fare anyway? NOT many… hmmm.[/quote]
No, he didn’t think I was ghost, he thought the reflection of his own face was a ghost. I don’t know how many taxi drivers have a US education. He made it up? But his English was fairly good and he said he was sharing the taxi with a friend because he still couldn’t find a job–sounded plausable.
Really, the more I think about it, perhaps some enterprising individual could set up a real estate agency that specialises in violent houses. Call it “Violent House Realty.” The only buyers would likely be foreigners, and the few Taiwanese who aren’t afraid of their own shadow (perhaps the aborigines?). Good way to pick up a new house for 1/4 market price, or less. Considering how ridiculously overpriced real estate is in Taiwan, this could gain some traction.
cheers,
DB
I’d pay extra, but I’d be asking for proof of manifestations.
Cool story, housecat!
My ex gfs mother has an apartment in Taichung that’s been on the market at a very reduced price for 10 years.
The last tenant (a disabled local) committed suicide.
She can’t even find anyone to rent the place.
No one will touch it.
[quote=“cake”]My ex gfs mother has an apartment in Taichung that’s been on the market at a very reduced price for 10 years.
The last tenant (a disabled local) committed suicide.
She can’t even find anyone to rent the place.
No one will touch it.[/quote]
I’ll make an offer. We believe cats keeps spirits away. 
This is interesting. It’s possible to accommodate religious beliefs (or superstitions) through protective legislation. (For example, kosher / halal laws.) The thing is, the ghost tradition appears to be entirely uncodified. What if a fengshui master claims to have exorcised the place? Who decides?
When we first moved to Taiwan, we got a good deal on a flat near the Far Eastern Hotel. It was only many months later that we learned our building was widely known as ‘The Suicide Building,’ because there was easy access to the roof, which had only a waist-high wall a jumper needed to climb over.
About 18 months after we moved there, sure enough someone else jumped - an elderly person with chronic pain, apparently. Seems there had been a suicide roughly every 18-24 months for some time. Everyone in the nearby community would use that one nondescript building.
One can get great deals with these ghost houses!
It appears to be a fairly straightforward fraud case, and normally these come down to the extent to which the seller deceived the buyers and made a profit from it.
From news articles, it would appear that the seller made a hefty short-term profit. When the seller bought the property a month before, the previous owner had specifically inserted the fact of the suicide into the sales contract as being the reason behind the discounted price. The seller then proceeded to hide the information about the suicide from a buyer who then bought at a premium, including a false statement that the deceased tenant had died at the hospital instead of in the home. (Here, I use “premium” as meaning “a price above that which correct information would have resulted in within the market”.)
A colleague of mine did take a short look through the court decision, and the key factors for the conviction were:
The relatively heavy sentence (1 year 4 months, commuted down to 8 months automatically under the commutation act) was because:
Absent the long arm of the law, a person could basically conduct arbitrage of murder and suicide apartments – buy low from honest, good-faith sellers and then cover over the stains with a fresh coat of paint before selling to unsuspecting suckers. The purchasers would be hard pressed to maintain the apartments’ value in subsequent sales. Perhaps it’s only Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that’s pulling the prices down, right?
Before we stick this as a mere matter of local Taiwanese superstition, though, keep in mind some U.S. states have looked at the issue as well from time to time. Apparently sellers in California need to disclose deaths within the past 3 years, while in New York it is not necessary to disclose poltergeists. But it appears most states have opted for the basic rule (at issue in this Taiwanese case as well) that if somebody asks about some aspect of a property, you’re not supposed to lie.
That’s a really interesting post; thanks.
Stuff like an obligation to disclose (or not) poltergeists is very open to interpretation? Couldn’t people just say ‘I didn’t disclose it because I don’t believe they exist’? Was there a case about this, or something.
We can dismiss it as superstition, but ‘haunted houses’ are taboo all over the world. Here in the UK, serial killers’ houses are usually quickly demolished, although most houses are too old to get precious about their history.