A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME.

It’s the hope of most people to own their own home. You know the ranch house with white picket fence, 2-1/3 kids and a fluffy dog. Sadly this has become a dream and in many cases a nightmare for the average American. The cost of homes and condos has now reached prices that are impossible for many men and women to consider unless they are Publisher’s Clearing House winners. It’s become as ridiculous as not expecting an oil company CEO price-gouging, gonif to laugh at the rest of us when he collects his trillion dollar bonus.

With real estate values through the roof, building costs out of sight, the cost of new homes has caused a conundrum for most developer. Conundrums, of course, are favored by the Vatican. Where do these real estate moguls find affordable land or buildings? Even if the real estate bubble doesn’t burst, developers are looking into new properties to convert into homes. The stranger and kookier the better it seems. One developer in Louisiana is offering underwater homes in the 9th district of New Orleans. He’ll even provide a scuba mask with each purchase.

The wildest and most interesting development in the new home front is that “not even spooky trumps location.” Across the nation, former state hospitals for the mentally ill – with dated names like “lunatic asylums” – are being converted into homes. Wouldn’t you want to live in: “Electric Shock Acres”? “Schizophrenia Shores”? “Rorschach Meadows”? “Lunatic Lane?”

Even the ominous Danvers State Hospital, once described as “the scariest building in the world” and a favorite destination of ghost-hunting thrill-seekers, soon will be home to laptop-toting latte drinking newly-weds. “There’s obviously a lot of notoriety associated with the site,” said a spokesman for the developer. “We plan on constructing 497 luxury apartments and condominiums.” I dunno about this idea. The Geezer is not thrilled with the idea of a home with door chimes that go, “Boo!”

No units are on the market yet but the owners expressed confidence that occupancy won’t be affected by the property’s jaded past, including a cemetery with some unmarked graves – one reminder of the sad history of treatment of the mentally ill. One wag suggested they make a theme park out of the cemetery. Perhaps they can call it, “Paranoid Park.”

The buildings are a little on the dreary side to say the least confessed the project’s decorator Mr. Bruce who promises to make all the condos “fun places to live.” Imagine walk-in closets for your straight jackets and flocked wall paper in your rubber room? One prospective buyer had a psychic friend of theirs go through the buildings and bless the spirits they thought were hanging around. The psychic friend was never seen again.

I wish the developers and builders good luck with their projects but personally I’m gonna pass. I just don’t fancy having a neighbor knocking on my door wanting to borrow a cup of sodium pentothal.