Response to House on Loon Lake

                In the podcast This American Life: House on Loon Lake, the narrator Adam Beckman and a few of his friends find a house that looks like it has been abandoned for a while. They were mischievous kids, so they decided that they wanted to go inside the house. At first it was more of an “I bet you won’t go in there” type of deal but once they were in they saw some interesting things which may or may not have been wrong for them to take.

                They enter the house to find a mess of old stuff. They found a few things that seriously made them interested in the house and curious about who had lived there. They also wanted to know if it was actually abandoned and if it was, they wanted to figure out why the owner’s belongings were left behind. Adam decided to take a few of his findings with him when they left. He took a wallet which has an identification card belonging to someone names Virgil Nason, along with a few letters.

                After leaving the house the kids wanted to know more. They wanted to tell somebody else about the house, so Adam decided to tell his mother. His mother was interested and ended up going to the house with the sister and tried taking an old crib they had found rotting away in the attic. While they were in the middle of trying to take the crib from the house they were caught and told that they had no right to take it.

                Whether the kids or the mother were stealing by taking from this house is controversial. Some would say it was okay to take from the house and others would say it is wrong. One could argue that they had no right taking anything because it did not belong to them, but I’d have to say it was alright for them to take from the house because nobody owned it. The house was going to be burnt down anyways and most of the stuff would have gotten burnt down with it. I believe that he preserved memories of the family and it was a good thing that Sarah was able to get those things. As for the crib, I think it was great that the mother was taking it because I’m a strong believer in recycling and the crib was doing nothing but rotting in that house.

                So, were they actually stealing or were they preserving family memories and putting the belongings to good use? It’s all based on opinion and could be argued both ways, but I believe that it was not stealing and the Beckman’s were actually doing something good by taking those items even though they did not belong to them.