There are so many risks a potential homebuyer may face in a home that the number of disclosures have gone up and up.
Since the garden isn't the home, do you have to disclose that a buyer may die from eating from his new backyard garden?
This new question is now in discussion in places like Hawaii where garden slugs and snails can harbor a very dangerous pest called the rat lung worm. Today as I write this blog, two otherwise heathy people are laying in comas in Hawaiian hospitals and may not survive. The technical name for the rat lung worm is angiostronglyiasis cantonensis.
This worm has a natural life cycle where it grows into an adult within rats. After mating within another worm in the same rat, the eggs of these worms are released into the rat droppings. Slugs and snails eat rat droppings and then the eggs hatch and go through a larval state. Rats in turn love to eat slugs and snails and the cycle is complete. Rats are not killed in the process.
However, when a human accidentally eats a slug or snail, that can be as small as 1 mm, the results are horrific. The larve grown into 2 cm worms that roam the body searching for mates causing damage in their wake. There is no way to kill the worms once in the body and doctors can only treat the terrible pain.
The problem was found in Hawaii a long time ago, however, a new invasive slug that arrived about 15 years ago is thought to be the primary reason why more people are showing up at the emergency rooms.
So for the Ethical Question:
Should a real estate agent disclose to a buyer that eating lettuce from their garden, no matter how well they try and wash it, can kill them or at best cause horrible pain?
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