How about this for a real estate ad? "Roomy, beautiful clapboard clad house nestled on pristine Waterford River in St. John's."
Sounds inviting. Then you find out the street number is 666, the mark of the beast, the biblical number of the Antichrist.
Well, that might turn you off, and homeowner Charlie Anonsen thinks so too.
Anonsen owns that lovely yellow house on Southside Road in St. John's, and uses it as an office.
"I'm going to be here for a long time. Hopefully it will be a place where I'll retire," he said.
But he knew that if he ever wanted to sell the house, the address might work against him.
"I think it probably isn't good to sell a house with 666," he said.
That's why he had the address changed to 2 Waterford Lane — the lane runs perpendicular to Southside Road.
"By just removing those numbers, I think my property value increased by about $100,000."
A couple of years ago, Anonsen let his son and a buddy move into the house, and CBC did a Halloween story to see if they found anything peculiar about living there. They didn't.
I was referred to often as an Antichrist anyway, so I thought I'll fit in very well with this house.- Charlie Anonsen
And Anonsen said he's never found anything strange about the house either.
He bought the property 25 years ago. An avid fishermen, he was attracted by the Waterford River that flows beside it.
"Just before I got married, I was looking for a home near a river or on a river. And I looked at all the rivers in St. John's and this is the one I found. It's a beautiful river and it's very calming."
It's about the bottom line
Anonsen knew it came with the number 666, but that didn't bother him, despite his Catholic upbringing.
"I noticed it, and a lot of people did notice it and I was referred to often as an Antichrist anyway, so I thought I'll fit in very well with this house," he said.
"I went to St. Bon's, so I was a Catholic. I was a choir boy at the basilica, an altar boy," he said. "And there were things that made us nervous, but I certainly didn't bring that with me when I bought this house — 666 didn't mean much to me."
Quickly turning, and looking around to see if anyone or anything is watching, he added, "And I don't think it's harmed me."
But he didn't want the number to harm his bottom line, so Anonsen asked the city for a change of street address, and took down the sixes that were mounted on a neatly edged board.
"I was taking it down off the house when a friend of mine came by in a pickup truck," he said.
"He asked me what I was doing with it, and we chatted and had a couple of laughs and when he left, I dropped it in the back of his truck."
But that wasn't the end of it.
"Two or three days later, he brought it back."
Still a mystery
During the interview, Anonsen checked behind a shed for the numbers, and they were gone.
"I don't know what happened. Maybe it went down the river? I'm not sure."
With the departure of the potentially malevolent number, there is no longer any house in St. John's bearing the 666.