A real go-getter in upstate New York said he couldn't get a permit to demolish a house on Martin Luther King Day (duh), so he went ahead and knocked it down without one. Also, his wife owned the house. Also, all her stuff was still inside. Also, she wanted that stuff.
The Middletown man ended up in jail on a criminal mischief charge, but has since been released on $300 bail. His wife told WABC in New York that she still has no idea why her husband of nine years, 48-year-old James Rhein, used a rented excavator to demolished the house his wife says they were living in and renovating.
"We were not fighting, we were not arguing," she said.
"I asked him just kidding around if he was going to knock down the house with a bulldozer, and he said, 'Yeah.' I thought he was kidding," said one neighbor.
Rhein told investigators that the house was in bad shape and that it couldn't be repaired, so he knocked it down. He also told reporters that they'd moved out of the house weeks ago. But why not let his wife get her things out first?
"I tried calling her, she didn't answer the phone ... I'm a good husband. What can I tell you?" Rhein told an NBC New York reporter when asked about his reasoning.
She was probably always bugging him to get things done on his days off...
[Via Gawker]
