Burning down the house

I have about 10 days until I sell my house. We've lived here for about 2 and a half years, so you'd think that the percent chance of major damage happening to my house during this 10 day period of time would be small. Let's do the math for those interested. 10 days/900 days=1.1%. That's pretty small. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to any damage done right now, but there seems to be a lot happening to my house the last week or so.

• My 8yo ran into a corner and dented it with his knee.
• A little cousin tripped and jammed a (plastic) lightsaber into the wall in the stairway. A real lightsaber would have been much worse.
  
• An eraser for a whiteboard was smashed into the carpet, leaving a nasty black stain. We was able to mostly get it out with our carpet cleaner, but I can still see it in the right light.
• And the piece de resistance. I just about burned the place down.

I'm done with home improvements on this house, but I noticed that some small rodent had dug a home under my back patio. This displeased me, and I had 3 rodent-killer smoke bombs left. So, I thought I'd take care of the problem.

The process is this: wait until evening so the rodent will be home, find the front and back doors of the rodent dwelling, block one with dirt, stick a rodent bomb in the other opening, light the bomb, cover the remaining opening, and wander off to enjoy your rodent-free evening. I've done this before without incident. (Well, I guess the rodent had an incident.)

So I lit the smoke bomb, and buried the hole. I went inside and retired to the basement to watch Nacho Libre with my boys and my sister, who was visiting. As the movie progressed, we started smelling more and more smoke. I just thought that some of the smoke from the bomb was getting into the house. The smoke kept getting worse, even though I was ignoring it! I went out to investigate.

This is what I found. I had blocked the hole with decorative tree bark, not non-flammable dirt. Not so smart. There was a large section of bark that was glowing red hot. Fortunately it didn't ignite into flames, but it was really hot. I got a bunch of water and doused it, but the smoke was everywhere. The hole was close enough to the house foundation that had it ignited, it could have really done damage.

What happens if you burn down your house right before selling it? I guess the move would be off. That would be bad.

I blame George Bush and Karl Rove.