apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"To which we say, believe it or don't, but it can't hurt, so why not?"
Because burying a rock is free..

Ok, I buried st. joseph in the yard of my amazing mid-century house that's been sitting on the market in portland for a few months, and after a month of waiting, nothing's happened.

Well, nothing's happened except that I've decided to add a 2nd bathroom in the basement because that was everyone's only complaint with the place.

I had never heard of this, but over the weekend my mom mentioned that their close friends who had just had their house on the market for 13 months with no nibbles "buried a saint statue" and sold their house within a month. She asked me if I knew what saint it was and I told her I'd never heard of it. And then to see it here a few days later - weird!

It's worked twice for me. The first time, I forgot to unearth him and had to go back in the dark of night armed with a spade as he was a part of my Christmas manger set.

Oof. Superstition is a terrible awful no-good thing, even when it's seemingly innocuous.

I scoff in your general direction.

what is so terrible and awful about something so fun? magic is in the details...

I actually love the St. Joseph statue thing, because it demonstrates, perhaps better than any other single thing, how religion and superstition blur together until they can no longer be distinguished from each other.

Because really, they're the same thing - irrational belief combined with occasional coincidence and unscientific perpetuation of the myth. It boggles my mind!

Congrats on your friends selling their house, though!

You guys are just incorrigible product pushers.

"Original 4" St Joseph Statue Home Sales Kit - $9.95"

Shameless.

I light black candles and throw chicken blood around a circle during the waning moon....Same thing

Where do you put St. Joseph if your house doesn't have a yard?

.... or if you're not Catholic?

My Jewish parents are firm believers in this. Not that I believe it's anything but coincidence, but... it's worked for them repeatedly, and for the handful of folks who followed their advice....so in all matters real-estate, they consider themselves Catholic. Funny story: Selling a vacation home, they once mailed the statue to the realtor, giving her instructions to bury it head-downward next to the front door. She did, and neighbors sent a picture: it was buried head-in, with the rest of the body sticking straight up out of the ground.
Ok, maybe not SUPER-funny.... : )

oh.....all you atheists. Just remember that once you sell the home to dig him up and but him in a place of honor in you new home.

agree with brenjay. my mom actually did this with our old house which was on the market for 6 months. a patient of hers told her about the statue thing and she followed...a month later house was sold. coincidence or was it st. joseph's blessing?

my mom is a very religious catholic who's always reminding me til this day to pray every night before i go to sleep :-p it baffles me sometimes when she falls for superstitions and practices them coz i thought it was against our religion to believe in superstitions. :-\

i'm not as religious as my mom, yet the thought of burying st. joseph's statue head down in the dirt seems to me kind of blasphemous, isn't it?

Oh Tess - yours is the only comment that didn't raise my hackles (is that the right phrase?) Happy you got Joseph back for your Creche!

I'm a bit bothered by the idea of folks who swear off any religious beliefs or faith in God - glomming on to a practice like this as if it's a superstition.

I say, if you're not Catholic (the only denomination that believes in saints if I'm right) it's highly insulting unless you're seriously considering conversion. RCIA - Baptism - the whole bit.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh - but it's rather insulting to have my faith batted around with words like superstition, magic and chicken-blood.

St. Joseph was a carpenter after all - and the patron saint of the worker and the family - so it makes sense that he would intercede in the interests of a family home.
Real Estate Agent he ain't.

A little respect for others' faith please.

I feel that saints don't intervene on real estate issues. They have got bigger things to worry about.

I almost bought one of these when I was selling my house. Unfortunately (not!) my house sold before I had a chance to buy him.

Darn the luck! :)

Clickchick - I'm Antiochian Orthodox and we believe in saints. I'm not sure how "the church" feels about burying statues of saints though.

leave it to Catholics. Although, I don't recall my parents doing this the first time we moved but I should ask my Tia if she did this because she's lived in sooo many houses.

Clickchick - I'm Catholic but have a different take on this than you.

A lot of our traditions are not strictly theological, some are better desribed as cultural and some are attractive holdovers from the past that are ingrained in our practice. It's nice that some of our traditions are friendly enough that non-Catholics are attracted to them, and the saints are wonderful characters worth learning about, whether you believe in them or not.

You don't have to be religious to find this interesting, and you don't have to be non-religious to have a sense of humor. RCIA to qualify to bury St. Joe in the backyard indeed.

Personally my hackles are raised more by the "ick, religion/supersition, can't stand it" comments. What a closedminded attitude that is.

Get slapped around by Catholics for a while and you may end up with similar attitudes about religion.

Clickchick, you ask us to have respect for your faith and then trash 'superstitions' like Pagan ritual. Obviously hdtex was being humorous but the comment referred to something people believed in at one time. So where is *your* respect? It's attitudes like this that make people make fun of Christians. You're right. We're wrong. ohhkay.

Re: burying St. Jo: hey. whatever.

If I had a house that wasn't selling -- I would do it.

Love and Kisses to everyone on this wonderful FRIDAY.

I'm on the same page as whytephoenix here. That is what I meant when I was talking about religion and superstition. Because the only rational response is to say either:

1. all faiths and religions and beliefs and traditions have merit, and deserve respect

or

2. all faiths and religions and beliefs are equally flawed, because they all rely on believing things that can't be proved.

But to claim that your personal faith/tradition/beliefs are right and everyone else's are superstition and falsehoods? That's where it becomes closed-minded. Belief in god is just as superstitious, objectively speaking, as believing there are monsters under your bed. And equally provable.

So show some respect for others who believe equally unprovable things, or universally deny them. The middle roads are where the closed-mindedness lay!

yikes! beliefs, practices or superstition...let it be, let it be!

i just wanted to add that NPR had a lengthy, interesting and thoughtful interview with a realtor who discussed this practice...i searched NPR's archives, but could not locate it.
i believe it was a week-end or friday broadcast between january and april of this year.

i'm from a long line of mixed faith marriages (and the whispers, denials and nasty remarks were abundant)...everyone has rituals that ease their way in life, religion based or not.

If you have faith, no matter what religion you are (or aren't), it will work. If you don't then you don't.

Don't go hating on people's beliefs. No matter what they may (or may not) be.

You're asking us to respect Catholicism, but then saying that non-Catholics are not allowed to have anything to do with your traditions? You realize that respect goes both ways, right?

What about all the people who've converted to Catholicism while still maintaining many aspects of their indigenous practices? You are aware that a lot of the traditions practiced currently by Latin American Catholics are a meshing of their traditional beliefs and Catholicism, right? And that the types of figures and altars and so forth currently used by Catholics originated from Latin Americans who beautifully meshed the two traditions?

People have borrowed from other traditions ever since we made contact with one another. If it's disrespectful to borrow from other traditions, then nearly all practicing Catholics are frequently disrespectful to African and Latin American and pagan and other cultures (where do you think "your" Christmas trees came from?). Or, if it's natural and normal for cultures to borrow from one another as they come in contact, then it's OK for non-Catholics to use "your" saints.

"I'm a bit bothered by the idea of folks who swear off any religious beliefs or faith in God - glomming on to a practice like this as if it's a superstition."

"as if it's a superstition" - you got to be kidding, right!?!

*I* was also offended by clickchick's scoffing at other people's religious rituals. I am pagan. How about having some respect for others yourself there?

And LOL particleboard. Absolutely.

How many posters here were all het up about Buddha heads as decor?

Palmetto: As long as you don't bury him head down in the yard...

To the experts: does the house sell twice as fast if you bury two of them?

So who can I bury to get better dates? My loft is fine and I don't want to sell it, but dating, well....

"So who can I bury to get better dates? My loft is fine and I don't want to sell it, but dating, well...."

Why yer ex, of course :]

>So who can I bury to get better dates?

Oh ye of little faith.... St. Anthony, of course! And make sure you wrap him up with a rope and keep him upside down in a closet.

Good luck, but be careful you don't get hitched ;)

During my 17 years of being in the business of providing home-sellers and real estates St. Joseph statue home selling kits, I can count on one hand the number of angry customers that thought they got scammed.

Everyday, I’m blown away by the stories I hear from those using Joe. And on top of that, when I see that on a monthly average 100 home listings posted on our site are marked sold I begin to think there might be something to this St. Joseph thing.

Suggestion, follow this link and see what real people really think about St. Joseph. http://www.stjosephstatue.com/letters.mv. Far be it from me to understand the ‘power of St. Joseph’, I’m just a mortal. There are plenty of pinions about St. Joseph, and we each have the right to believe as we wish.

If you’re not in the St. Joseph camp of religious beliefs, perhaps the spiritual approach would be an option. Consider what Einstein said about Quantum Physics-just maybe the Universe will provide what we need and the act St. Joseph is the connection. If we want or need something bad enough, it can’t hurt to ask for it, it might even help.

If burying a piece of plastic in the yard awakens the hopefulness in a person in this trying real estate market I say start digging those holes baby. A very successful real estate agent told me, ‘if together a home-seller and Realtor© get to the point of burying Joe, a commitment to sell that house has been established’.

Come visit us, it’s a cool site and we enjoy what we do. FYI, I’m also a mortgage banker of 22 years, I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what’s happening in the real estate world. 80% of my day is counseling people that have found themselves trapped in a bad real estate decision. If you need help, call me, is free 888 BURY JOE. I can’t promise to fix your problem, but I can promise to inform you of your options so you can sleep better.

To better understand my take on real estate, which is very unique for a mortgage guy, see my writings http://www.stjosephstatue.com/philcates/20080701.mv?news 100006 deckerj@core.com 32919

I'm sorry if I sounded less than intolerant.

Maybe I'm a bit ignorant - I've never heard of 'superstition' lauded as a faith. But here I'm told that a superstition is a pagan belief.

Hmm. I'll do more research.

Perhaps I've misrepresented myself, I am tolerant and respectful of what others believe.
It's just taking me a long time to wrap my head around the idea that people equate belief in God to belief in monsters under the bed. Honestly, for 35 years I didn't know that some folks looked at relious beliefs as 'magic'. Once I heard that description I finally understood how people are so lost.

Give me another 38 years. I'll wrap my head around it eventually.

I like that you're trying to be tolerant, but it's not very tolerant when you say that non-Catholics should not incorporate saints into their practices. Like I said, most current religious practices and symbols have their roots in other cultures. It's beautiful that we all borrow from one another, and it's incredibly closed-minded and selfish to say that others may not borrow from "your" religion (when you yourself say that you practice a religion that has borrowed tremendously from other cultures).

Using the term "superstition" at all is belittling to others' belief systems, and it really reveals how you view those beliefs. The term is usually used by one group to indicate that the other group's beliefs aren't grounded in anything. You don't have to share their beliefs, but you can respect that they have a reason for believing what they do, and that their beliefs are just as valid as yours.

Let's just begin here, I'm an atheist, and not in the lapsed religious formative years way that I think most people arrive.

I know one of the commandments, and I think it's the first one, is, have no false idols before me (god).

It's a superstition no matter how you frame it, to put a manufactured piece of plastic, wood, metal, nylon, crylon, stone, molded ice (you get the idea) in your lawn to sell your house. If you believe in a Saint Joseph, he's in the ether. You consult with him and maybe your house will sell. If you don't believe in a Saint Joseph, you are doing kind of voodoo with material articles. It's a molded piece of stuff, come from a factory that makes them by the thousands, and sells them by some newspaper articles.

Then, if there is a god, and you prayed to sell your house, the answer isn't always YES, or RIGHT AWAY.

I apologize if any of this is demeaning, but I think I'm well able to examine the effects of religious beliefs here, and remind people what they do believe isn't always what they get, at least according to my observations. To some extent, it's hypocrisy, but everyone's entitled to a little comfort in the effects they think they cause.

You are all very silly.

lol, I used to work at a very prominent home building company. They would do this with homes that sat on the market for too long. It's all bs but hey it worked for them.

Here's all the skinny on St. Joseph and his real estate prowess.
http://asksistermarymartha.blogspot.com/2007/03/up-above-clouds.html

After all, saints are my business!

whytphoenix, that was so classless for you to say something so ignorant to bash clickchicks comment. She is in her right to say that when she is catholic. What you said was insulting.

A girl friend of mine actually now makes eco-friendly St. Joseph statue because most products on market are plastic. Those plastic St. Joseph statues are petroleum products and are toxic for the environment to produce and to be left in the ground. If people are burying St. Joseph statues, they might as well bury an eco-friendly one that's biodegradable. Her website is http://www.ecojoekits.com. She actually was just on CBS 5 news for EcoJoe couple days ago (http://www.budurl.com/ecojoeoncbs5)