MI Man’s Blowtorch-Cooked Squirrel Dinner Caused $2 Million in Fire Damages

A Michigan man with a hankering for squirrel and an alarmingly low number of f---s to give accidentally set an apartment fire that is now estimated to cost $2,000,000 dollars.

In what is likely the only time it has ever been said that he has expensive taste, Khek Chantalavong of Holland, Michigan trapped a squirrel for dinner back in 2012, as one does. Obviously you can't eat a squirrel until it's been relieved of its fur, so Khek reached for the most obvious tool for the job -- a propane torch. What happened next was something that his neighbors at Clearview Apartments will never forget.

Sadly, Chantalavong's culinary innovation did not result in a perfectly-cooked medium rare squirrel flank steak, but rather a catastrophic fire, which temporarily displaced 29 families, some of whom lost everything to the blaze. They really hit the bad neighbor jackpot on that one. When he wasn't causing the whole place to stink like burnt hair, he was literally burning the place down. Talk about rolling snake eyes.

The Holland Sentinel is now reporting details of a settlement between the insurance companies involved in the matter, saying that the renter's insurance company is picking up more than $300,000 of the tab, which exceeded $2 million in total. At one point, the courts had ruled that the Khek's girlfriend and leaseholder, Barbara Pellow was on the hook for the entire amount. Luckily for her, that did not end up being the case.

There are lessons for everybody to be learn here. Guys, if you want to make squirrel for dinner -- eat it raw, like a normal person. Ladies, don't date weirdos.