United States: A most unusual lawsuit is taking place in New York, in which a man is suing an estate agency over a rather odd incident which allegedly took place as he was trying to sell his flat:

Daniel Farash said he returned home to his three-bedroom apartment on West 79th Street after a weekend away to discover many of his mattresses had been urinated on, his belongings broken and laid out in strange patterns - and his broker naked and chanting in a closet.

I was ambushed. She came out of that closet like a lunatic. She was naked holding my mother's vase in one hand and a towel in another and screaming all this nonsense, Farash, 44, told The Post.

Portions of my house were turned into . . . a satanic temple . . . like some sort of witchcraft. I was in shock. You're talking about your home - you're talking about your real-estate broker.

He claims that the incident caused him to sell his flat for $500,000 less than the $1.2 million market value of the property (for a three bedroom flat? I thought the Edinburgh housing market was over-inflated!) and left him with post-traumatic stress.

THE DEVIL'S APT. BROKER—New York Post, 25th September 2006.