A-maizeing theft: romanian home replaced by corn field

Photo: Facebook (via Vice)

Pascali, aged 40, contacted the local police to inform them that his home had been removed. The property, which was built for his father, had been taken apart piece by piece, leaving just "a pile of gravel and a few stones", he told Vice.

The house was broken into before in 1996, when thieves took the fridge and all its edible contents. Now, though, Pascali is facing a surplus of food: someone had not just removed his home but planted a field of corn in its place.

"I had been worried about thieves maybe breaking in and stealing the television or something, and so I put a barbed wire fence up around the house for added security," he added to The Daily Mail. "But they stole that as well."

Mr. Pascali recently posted a photo of the estate on Facebook, along with a caution to anyone who might fall victim to the same thing.

"If you happen to have a summer house in the mountains," he posted as a status, "you should go check that it's still there. I drove to my house in the countryside and all I found in its place was a cornfield. I don't mean that the corn was covering the house from my line of sight – I mean that it was literally covering the place where my house used to be."

The property was worth approximately 7,000 euros. It had three bedrooms, but "was more of a lodge", he admits. Still, it had "an iron frame and OSB walls", not to mention a fountain in the garden. But everything was removed, he told the magazine, including the water feature.

"They even removed the cement tubing from it and filled it with earth and garbage," he said to Vice. "They stole the fence, everything. They cut whatever they could with a blowtorch and left a pile of gravel behind."

Surprisingly, the only mystery that does have an explanation is the corn that replaced the home. It came from a neighbour of his, who previously asked if he could plant crops on the land.

"I didn't give him the okay," explains Mr. Pascali. "He still did it, though. I am not upset that he planted corn, but... where's my house?"