Better Pass on the Dessert...

From the "This Didn't Really Happen, Did It?" files, West Hartford home owner Nancy Glass has been charged with second degree assault, second degree reckless endangerment and tampering with evidence for feeding her Realtor® a piece of ginger cake. Sounds harmless, right? Appreciative seller wants to reward her agent for all the hard work he's done to market her house, so she bakes up a nice ginger cake and gives him a big slice, warm from the oven.

Except, this cake had a secret ingredient the agent didn't expect: marijuana. Yes, the home owner laced the cake with the world's most often used illegal drug, Cannabis sativa. A little "ganja" to take the edge off, I suppose. The agent didn't even know until he had left her home and felt a little sick. He called 911 from his office and was transported to a local hospital, treated and released. Medical personnel initially thought he might have been allergic to the ginger in the cake, but police later found out that the cake was doctored because the home owner told a friend what she had done. The woman later admitted to baking the drug-laced cake, saying she didn't mean for the agent to get sick, and she apologized . There was apparently no motive, unless you take into account that the agent has been trying in vain to sell her home for a couple of months, but that's to be expected in this market. The only clue police have is a report indicating that officers were at the home in September for a report of "mental health issues". Go figure. The home owner threw the rest of the cake down the garbage disposal (hence the tampering with evidence charge), but police are holding crumbs of the cake found in the trash for further testing.

Seriously though, we know that selling real estate can sometimes be a dangerous job. We hear about events like this and this and are appalled that people can be driven to such desperate lengths to cause harm to another person. We take care to not go into dark homes alone or without a flashlight; we tell someone where we'll be so if we're late getting home they'll know where to look. But sometimes trouble hides in plain sight, no matter how much we try to anticipate it. So, when we hear about such a wacky thing as this we just have to shake our heads, chuckle to ourselves and be thankful the agent is OK.

And if any of our clients offer us a piece of cake in the future, we'll be asking to see the list of ingredients...