Real creepy real estate

When I feel like seeing a horror story on television, the last thing I need is something called "American Horror Story."  Why root around on cable for shows like that, where it's all made-up fiction, when the nightly news gives me enough to shudder about, in between commercials for prescription medicines ("Don't take Xylometazoline if you're allergic to Xylometazoline") and promos for network shows coming up later ("Tonight, on a very special Shasta McNasty...")?

So no, I never watched "American Horror Story," but a lot of people who enjoy horror shows apparently did.  Clearly, the show attracted a larger audience than "Shasta McNasty" had.

The first year of that FX series was filmed at an old mansion in Los Angeles, a house since sold to Dr. Ernst von Schwarz and Angela Oakenfold for 3.2 million American dollars in 2015.

The previous owner of what the show called "The Murder House" was Elizabeth Axelrod, who has well over three million reasons for not wanting the house back. But von Schwarz and Oakenfold say they aren't so happy in the house, and they are suing Axelrod and the real estate firm that represented her in the sale. 

The rub seems to be that the buyers were not told that the house was once the setting for a tv show. Interesting, because back here in the East, we believe that EVERY house in Los Angeles was once the setting for a show or movie.

And, by the way, von Schwarz and Oakenfold believe the house is haunted by not one, but two, actual ghosts. 

von Schwarz and Oakenfold (save that idea if you need a cool name for a folk music duo) say in their lawsuit that the place has become a “macabre tourist attraction,” and that fans of the series “trespass” and “attempt to break in” and are generally a “nuisance.”

One guy hired a front-end loader to take him to the fenced-in house and hoist him high enough to look over the brick walls meant to keep people like him at bay.

An attorney for von Schwartz and Oakenfold (I simply cannot type those words enough!) told The Real Deal website the couple have been tormented by loony fans coming to see the site “almost immediately” since they moved in. They also report  “weekly” break-ins.

Attorney Doug Vanderpol, a member of the legal team working on the matter, said, "A week before I first visited them [to work on the case], they had been awakened by the sound of glass breaking—someone came in through the window in the kitchen."

And although they did not mention this in the court papers they filed, in a kind effort to prevent the judge, bailiff and jury the embarrassment of pulling rib muscles laughing too hard, the attorneys say the house is haunted by two ghosts.

Oh, and by the way, Oakenfold and von Schwartz don't want to sell the house, but if they can get a bundle o' moolah for "compensatory and punitive damages," they'll be fine.  I'm thinking that $3,200,001 will do the trick.