Official News page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: LIVING IN A MAGNETIC HOUSE

by Hazed

Two couples who moved into brand new houses in Canal Winchester, Ohio in 2004 noticed strange things happening. The pictures on their TV screens were distorted. They had terrible interference when they used their cordless phones. Even worse, the hard drives on their computers kept getting corrupted.

Spooky! What could possible be the cause? Well, not ghosts or any other supernatural being, but magnetism!

Somehow, the steel joists used to build the houses had become magnetized - possibly during the construction process.

Since they had paid about $145,000 each for the houses, they expected the builders to do something about their problems, but when they told Centex Homes, they were rebuffed. Magnetized joists were not covered by the limited warranty included in their sales contract.

Since then, they have been battling it out in court, and the case has now reached the Ohio Supreme Court. Centex say that since they signed the sales contract, they agreed to waive claims for repairs except for those specifically mentioned - in a separate document, which was kept in a separate location - but that they could have inspected at any time.

Hmmm. Sounds very dodgy to me. If you read the full news story by clicking the source link below, you will see there's a lot of complex legal arguments coming from both sides. The lawyers must be having so much fun.

Until this is resolved, the couples are in a fix. They can't sell their properties, and I can't see how the problem can actually be remedied. A quick Google search tells me that there are a few ways to de-magentize metal:

• You can heat it to a very high temperature
• You can drop it from a height, or hit it very hard repeatedly
• You can use an even stronger magnet to randomize the metal's dipoles

But we're talking about houses, so I don't think those solutions would be very practical. You'd have to destroy the buildings completely to make them work!

Source: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/10/05/high-court-drawn-into-magnetic-homes-case.html

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