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Ok... Who started the fire?

snigletsniglet
edited March 2008 in Seattle Real Estate
It's confession time... Which Seattle bubblehead started the fire? The statistics of rising inventory and declining prices are scary enough in the Puget Sound. You didn't have to actually go and torch the icons to northwest McMansiondom!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23447353/

Comments

  • david_mcmanusdavid_mcmanus
    Even though, I can't stand the "street of materialistic dreams", I am 100% against what the ELF stands for and their terrorist practices. Find them and put em in jail.
  • femtofemto
    I wouldn't leap to conclusions yet about this being an act by ELF. They seem like an easy cover, and in the current environment there are many groups that could have either hostile feelings towards a homebuilder, or a direct financial incentive to disrupt the project. If it is in fact ELF I would expect them to attempt to claim responsibility.
  • david_mcmanusdavid_mcmanus
    Uhh...well they left a sign at the fire with ELF on it. Is that good enough?

    Photo courtesy of the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/ ... 256663.jpg
    2004256663.jpg
  • jillaynejillayne
    When I woke up this morning and heard about the fire, my reaction was the same as femtos.

    After I dropped my kids off at school, I heard an update on the radio that it was last year's Street of Dreams, and that none of the homes had sold.

    I would hope that the investigators wouldn't just blindly pin this on the ELF, even though they seem to be taking credit, and instead, take a look at how much the builder/developers were underwater financially.
  • femtofemto
    First off let me say that I don't at all condone ELF nor their tactics. I don't think a sign left at the scene has any particular credibility. Almost all terrorist organizations develop strategies for laying claim to acts after the fact. From the Wikipedia page on ELF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Libe ... #Actions_2:
    One of the last ELF actions in a string of jointly claimed arsons,[44] that was well publicised was in November 2002, when activists sent a communique to Bite Back and also the ELF Press Office, claiming responsibility for the arson at Mindek Brothers Fur Farm. In a press release, the group stated:[45]

    "Working together, cells from A.L.F. & E.L.F. demolished this feed facility due to it's role in the systematic torture and killing of thousands of innocent creatures yearly - animals which possess the same complex emotional/physiological traits as loved household pets, yet are denied all reasonable consideration and confined to a miserable "existence" in tiny wire cages hardly large enough to turn around in."
  • CougarCougar
    Have cyber-terrorists attacked the eco-terrorists?

    It appears so, based on a look at the Earth Liberation Front Web site, which should be getting a lot of traffic today after the group was implicated in the arson of a luxury Street of Dreams housing development near Seattle.

    The apparently authentic Earth Liberation Front Web sites appear to be a mix of content about eco-terrorism and Viagra.

    The meta title of the homepage is even "Viagra Sample Pack - Free Viagra Sample," which could reflect some misguided attempt to capture Web traffic from poor old men most likely uninterested in radical environmental terrorism. The "links" navigation at the top of the page links directly to a full page Viagra ad, and there are Viagra ads all over the site.

    The domain appears to be for sale, but that doesn't explain who is maintaining the site now.

    From The Daily Green.

    So who and what was the motive behind torching these unsold homes?
  • UbersaladUbersalad
    Everyone should do their homework first...

    None of the houses were sold, and all of these builders are having trouble staying afloat.

    Fishy? I would think so.
  • UbersaladUbersalad
    If ELF indeed had something to do with this, I think they actually HELPED the builders.
  • ira sira s
    ....And if the builders actually are responsible for the fires, would they leave a sheet spray painted with ' We did it". Signed, The Builders.?
    No. They would pay some thugs to do it and have them leave a spray painted sheet.
  • perfectfireperfectfire
    SeattleP.I. wrote:
    Hoffman said fire officials told him a fourth house was spared because an arson device inside it didn't go off. That house, Seattle Home Design's La Belle Fleur, recently went pending with a buyer, and would have been the first of the five to sell, he said.

    Wow, what luck!
  • SeattleMooseSeattleMoose
    Highly suspicious to say the least.....the ELF "sign" is about as convincing as the terrorist passport "found" at ground zero of the WTC.

    I expect that this is just the start of what will be a "hot summer" of multiple "ELF events". :wink:
  • rose-colored-coolaidrose-colored-coolaid
    All these conspiracy theorists! Look at the facts. They have fewer homes to sell, the sold home was undamaged, and the remaining unsold homes have fresh publicity again half a year after they were last in the news. I just don't see a motive here.

    Besides, it makes perfect sense that ELF would wait until the street of dreams was empty and completely forgotten about before acting.
  • The_TimThe_Tim
    Update: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonia ... xml&coll=7
    A team of federal arson investigators pored through the ruins of three luxury homes Tuesday in Woodinville, Wash., finding no evidence that the eco-saboteurs claiming responsibility for the crimes broke into the houses or used firebombs.
    Hmm...
  • david_mcmanusdavid_mcmanus
    If the builders really did this, I have to say, if the feds are involved, their life is now officially.....well, you know :p
  • david_mcmanusdavid_mcmanus
    Sounds familiar.....

    http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/200 ... .homes.cnn
  • jillaynejillayne
    Hi David,

    I JUST posted this same link over on Alan's foreclosure update post. LOL. I saw this tonight and couldn't believe it. Well, I CAN believe it. This is very sad.
  • SeattleMooseSeattleMoose
    Well obviously ELF is nation wide now!!!

    We don't need no stinkin banner to condemn those long haired enviro-freaks!!! Yee Haw!! :twisted:

    Looks like this summer we are gonna see a lot more "fire sales" ...
  • The_TimThe_Tim
    Federal agents are openly talking about the possibility that this fire was a matter of insurance fraud. From today's Seattle Times: Arson group retreats even more into shadows
    The Seattle Times wrote:
    Agents from the local offices of the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) met Friday to divvy up investigative tasks. And that includes steps such as checking out transients in the area and considering other motives such as "revenge and arson-for-profit," said Doug Dawson, the assistant special agent in charge of the Seattle ATF.

    "This could be insurance fraud; it could be something to do with the housing market," said Charles Frahm, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism operations in Washington, D.C.

    At the Street of Dreams, a bedsheet painted with "ELF" and a message rejecting "green" building practices was left. Although such signs are an "ELF" calling card, federal agents are not assuming there is an active ELF cell in the area, Frahm said.

    "You can't assume it, and we don't assume it," he said.

    So at this stage, they can't rule out any possibility, including "that ELF is being used in an attempt to misdirect the investigation," said David Gomez, the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge.
  • WestSideBillyWestSideBilly
    I mentioned insurance fraud when some acquaintances were talking about these fires, and they all looked at me like I had lost my marbles.

    No, nobody would have a house burned down to save themselves a couple million dollars... nope, never would happen. Not at all suspicious that the only one spared was also the only one with an offer.
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