We love a good hissy fit. They’re usually expected from overtired children and sometimes hangry adults, but this guy in Malaysia has restructured the foundation of what a hissy fit is.
The unnamed man, who a few news outlets have humorously dubbed Uncle Unhinged, didn’t like the new apartment he’d recently purchased. The real estate company — Tropicana Corporation Berhad — has many such apartments on the market. Labeling them luxury homes with a price tag to match, you’d expect an understandable amount of quality and pomp. The apartment cost around $500,000 and when our hissy fit hero saw the state of the place, he unleashed hell.
About 20% of insurance claims involve some sort of water damage, but the rampage that this man went on was more of the red spray paint and sledgehammer variety. Feeling taken advantage of, in an eight-minute video, brandishing a can of red spray paint, sledgehammer, helmet, safety glasses, powder blue flip-flops, and more than a few reproachful words, he proceeded to go through the apartment and highlight his displeasure.
The most expensive chair ever sold cost $28 million — but even that probably wouldn’t have prevented this demolition project.
Nothing would escape his wrath. He meanders the apartment spraying bright red lines on each part of the cracked marble floor. He turns his gaze toward the furniture, throws a chair against a wall, and verbally disparages the Tropicana Corporation as he takes a sizeable sledgehammer to a massive glass table and the marble floors.
“This will be your new showroom!” he says over and over while providing filming direction to the people with him.
He goes on to say that he wants this video to destroy the reputation of Tropicana, in both Malaysia and wherever else they are selling “luxury” properties. The video went viral. How could it not?
Where there’s drama, there are plot twists: Tropicana released a statement saying that this guy didn’t even own the apartment. He was a representative of the woman who actually owned it. Whether or not she knew or approved of his representation in this matter is unknown. Still, Tropicana issued a statement and knew this man to have premeditated his behavior, so they refused to be culled by his demands.
“Today, Tropicana is in this situation as the group refused to negotiate with such individual, who clearly has malicious intent towards the group. This is clearly a premeditated attempt to extort financial gains from the group,” Tropicana Corporation said in a statement.
Needless to say, he took matters into his own hands. Stonework fireplaces can weigh between six and seven tons, depending on the scale, but that weight pines in comparison to fully laid marble slab floors. Floors which now bear the angrily endowed sledgehammer marks of Uncle Unhinged. The Corporation is seeking to get in contact with the man responsible, as well as the actual owner of the apartment. While his behavior is inexcusable and illegal, his ill-advised actions still highlighted serious points of concern for prospective buyers.
How this will pan out is uncertain, but one thing is. Sledgehammers don’t make smart demonstrative tools if you want to get a point across and expect progress.