Woman’s threatening note a hoax

[snopes]

"Please be advised that your home will be ransacked, doused in gasoline and torched to the ground as of 9 p.m. tonight," the Department of Housing notice read.

This was the letter a Korean-speaking woman working at a Chebucto Road grocery store in Halifax received. She could not read English but managed to roughly translate the letter using her English-to-Korean dictionary.

But here’s the catch. The notice was actually a hoax, and the Korean woman was the victim of a cruel misunderstanding.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/855002.html

[snopes]

A mock eviction notice that terrified a Korean-speaking woman into thinking her Halifax-area home would be burned down turned out to be part of a UN-sponsored campaign highlighting the plight of refugees throughout the world.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/855214.html

[kmcm]

Who's bright idea was this? "Let's send out fake eviction notices to people to show what life is like for refugees! Let's make sure to give them to people who are possibly refugees themselves, in case they don't know how lucky they are to be here! Never mind the fact that some of them may not be able to fully read them and we might possibly scare the NFBSK out of them in the process!"

I think the UN people who thought this one up need to personally apologise to this woman. Not through a press release or a nicely worded letter.

[Chloe]

I suspect it didn't occur to them that some of the people who would receive it would not be able to read the small print rather than that they didn't care.

[Eddylizard]

I was looking for a picture of the notice, but I found this which seems to indicate that the Chebucto Road is subject to a road widening proposal which may lead to the demolition of at least one home.

Maybe she and her meighbours were a little nervous about the future of there properties before they got the "eviction" letter. Which makes it even more insensitive IMO.

ETA News article.