DORIAN GEIGER
Opinions Writer

Saskatoon is a pretty safe place, but after returning from a vacation in Vancouver I was reminded that the world isn’t always the warm and fuzzy place it’s sometimes made out to be.

Let me rewind to fully illustrate my point. After strutting into my friend’s house in Burnaby around midnight after a 16-hour car ride last week, I was hoping to relax, kick back and catch up with my Saskatoon friend who had moved to Vancouver two weeks prior.

My excitement to see my friend, however, was quickly extinguished and my mood morphed into overwhelming feelings of rigid terror.

Claiming his landlord never breathed a word of it when they acquired the place, my friend’s brother had Googled the address a week before and stumbled across the petrifying truth, which he soon relayed to his brother.

In disbelief, hoping the whole thing was an elaborate prank to scare me silly, I performed a quick Google search of the home’s address, as my friend had suggested.

Staring speechlessly at the screen, several pictures of the green exterior of the same house flashed in front of me. A closer examination revealed several shots of the house encircled in yellow police tape, swarming with police officers and media.

A mouse click then disclosed the gruesome details of the slaying. Numerous CTV, CBC and Vancouver Sun reports stated the woman was from Colombia was murdered by an estranged lover who showed up one day and stabbed her to death in the house. Other statements read that her children were still in the house when the horrific incident unfolded but other than that, the major logistics of the crime remain unknown.

Thankfully the woman’s killer was apprehended at the 7-Eleven nearby where I would buy cigarettes and Slurpees for the remainder of the week — a pretty fucked up contrast. And each time I went to the convenience store, the video footage of the killer face-down on the pavement near the entrance in handcuffs replayed in my mind.

As if Internet news stories weren’t spine tingling enough, a brief — and I mean very brief — descent into the basement made me want to run away, screaming and crying. A flick of the lights revealed broken doll legs and arms, scooters and a variety of other abandoned children’s toys that were left behind following the brutal act.

You’d think the Burnaby House of Horrors would have run its course in terms of scaring the living shit out of me by now. But no, we’re nowhere near done yet.

Upon sprinting up the basement stairs like a frightened 12-year-old, my friend flashed a letter in front of my face which arrived at the house that day — and it sure as hell wasn’t addressed to him. The name scribbled on the envelope was that of the killer. How the envelope ended up at the house of the murdered woman remains a mystery since a lot of the details of the case are unknown.

Then I was presented with the dried and faded stains of a brownish hue that were faintly splattered on the front door and which bore the resemblance of what my friend suggested was blood.

Real blood or not, that was all the creepy evidence I needed: we were staying in a fucked up house and I had never wanted to spoon with one of my guy friends as much as I did that night — or ever will — in my life. Sleep did not come easily that evening, and in short, the evening felt eerily similar to the plot of some dark, sinister Edgar Allan Poe story.

What I can’t understand is how my friend isn’t bothered much by the whole thing; he has no plans to move out and is happy with the low rent in the five bedroom house that borders New Westminster. If any problems with my friend’s landlord arise, however, he plans to bring up why he was never notified of the unfortunate events that transpired there only months earlier.

I know death is a part of life, but the way in which the poor woman’s life was tragically cut short was a fact too unsettling for me to come to terms with. Staying there a few nights was troubling enough, let alone actually residing there.

My point is simple: the Internet exists; Google is quick. Do yourself a favour and research the house you might be potentially occupying. You could be surprised at what you find and might just save yourself a world of anxiety.

To see photos of the Burnaby house in question, click here.