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Food

Insanely Spicy Chili Caused the Evacuation of Four Homes

We’re sure you’ll mirror our utter lack of shock after hearing how four student houses had to be professionally fumigated due to a batch of student-cooked chili that turned very, very wrong.

As we're sure a fair number of you can attest, pretty much all college housing arrangements are, by their very nature, sordid and grim affairs—but the students living in them usually don't mind. What your parents may deem to be a tetanus-coated den of iniquity looks pretty damn palatial in your eyes, what with the newfound liberty of living away from home. And learning to cook in a college dorm? Well, some pretty strange tastes and scents can emerge from the kitchens of novices.

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So we're sure you'll mirror our utter lack of shock after hearing how four student houses had to be professionally fumigated due to a batch of student-cooked chili that turned very, very wrong.

Theresa Morgan is a student at Manchester University in England. She and her housemates were pre-gaming before going out to celebrate Halloween when noxious fumes started pouring into their student housing. Theresa and friends thought the problem must have been caused by a gas leak, and they called the British version of 911.

As Theresa explained to The Tab, a student newspaper, "Everyone was wearing fake blood, because we were getting ready for a party. We had all the windows open but we were in the house when everyone started coughing. There wasn't any smell and we couldn't see any smoke so we thought it was something like carbon monoxide. We saw the neighbors around us also coughing and rushing out of their houses, so I called 999 right away."

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Things were pretty bad, according to Theresa: "It was ridiculous, all four houses were outside coughing, I thought there must have been a gas leak or something. One of my housemates was even throwing up." Housemate and second-year student Liv said: "For once I was throwing up and it wasn't because of alcohol."

Outside, Theresa and friends ran into more neighbors—the ones who fessed up. The guilt-ridden group said they were trying to cook "the world's hottest chili," when things went seriously awry.

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The fire crew arrived and rushed straight into the house of the offending chefs. Then they rushed straight out, spluttering thanks to the godawful fumes. They told the crowd of students that this chili-induced alarm "was the most stupid thing they'd been sent out for in 20 years."

Nevertheless, the firefighters remedied the situation. An eyewitness said: "They went into the house and came back out coughing, so then they put on gas masks, and got a huge fan and had to fumigate the houses."

Still, the night was not a complete loss. The school paper reported that "in true Manc fashion, the guilty house were [sic] seen handing out beers as an apology." Theresa said, "When we found out it wasn't gas we all calmed down quite a lot. We still went out, it was almost Halloween after all."

And what about the chili?

According to the school paper, "Needless to say none of the students had the balls to taste the chilli after the fumigation scenario."

But then, James, another student confessed to having had a taste: "It was nothing like I'd ever felt before, it was like eating pins and needles."