# Apartments In Paris

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apartments-in-paris/198423>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 29, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apartments-in-paris/198423 "2003-08-29T14:27:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thwartme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@thwartme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thwartme)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apartments-in-paris/198423/1 "2003-08-29T14:27:19Z")

</div>

Okay, here’s a macabre idea. I read this story a few years ago:

\*\*World’s oldest woman outsmarts lawyer \*\*

PARIS- A lawyer who gambled in a 1965 property deal that an elderly woman would soon die, only to see her live to become the world’s oldest person, has himself died at age 77.

André-François Raffray was buried Wednesday in the southern French city of Arles after dying on Christmas day, a secretary in his law firm said. The woman, Jeanne Calment, celebrated Christmas with a meal at an Arles hotel, looking forward to her 121st birthday, Feb. 21.

When Calment was 90, Raffray, then 47, agreed to pay her a rent of $500 a month until she died, on condition he would inherit her house in Arles. Over the next 30 years, Raffray paid Calment more than $180,000, three times the value of the house.

“We all make bad deals in life,” Calment joked to Raffray on her 120th birthday.

\*-Reuters, San Francisco Examiner, 1/1/96 \*

Now I read in the news that over 11,000 people in France died as either a direct or indirect result of the heat wave, most of them elderly.

So… is now a good time to by French real estate?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apartments-in-paris/198423/2 "2003-09-08T06:12:48Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by thwartme \*  
> \*\*…Now I read in the news that over 11,000 people in France died as either a direct or indirect result of the heat wave, most of them elderly.
> 
> So… is now a good time to by French real estate? \*\*

I think I read that many died because their younger relatives and caretakers were away on holiday. So I assume the property would not be for sale. Also, you would have research laws about non-French buying French real property.  
Bonne chance! 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apartments-in-paris/198423/3 "2003-09-08T14:58:23Z")

</div>

I had a real New Yorker moment when after reading about all those, horribly sad and moving deaths, that I thought 'I’ll bet there are some great apartments available.