Cutting Off Your Nose in Spite of Your Face

Idaho is thinking about selling their Executive Mansion.

No governor has lived there since it was donated in 2004 and the fund which finances the stipend paid to the Governor for living in his own home used to produce enough interest to cover the Governor's monthly housing allowance ($4,500/mo), but because the upkeep costs of the Executive Residence also comes from this diminishing pool, the stipend has started eating into the principal.

Compounding the situation, Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter is the ex-son-in-law of the billionaire who donated the house, so everybody seems to understand, why he won't live in the home.

Of course in justifying the sale and perhaps to divert attention away from the millionaire taking a monthly stipend, Otter administration officials have to highlight the costs of keeping it -- $100,000 a year in lawn maintenance, "exorbitant" electric bills, difficulty to renovate, inaccessibility in the snow, etc.

Which naturally leads one to think that if the house is such a lemon, why would anyone want to buy it?