MERL — Proving once and for all that it is possible to live in Luxembourg-ville on a combined income of less than 5000 euros a month, a local couple have been turning into ducks at night and living in Merl Park.
“We sat down and took a hard look at our finances,” said Mary Poole, who works as a language teacher. “We decided we just couldn’t afford to live here anymore.”
Mary’s boyfriend Frank Braband, who works in IT, says that at the end of the day, transforming into small winged animals in order to live on public property just made good financial sense.
“We considered moving over the border, so we looked at flats in Thionville and Arlon, but the idea of traffic jams and packed trains every morning was really depressing,” he said. “Then we thought about moving into a house with roommates, but we didn’t like that idea either. We’re too old for that.”
“So I said, well, there’s that big pond in Merl Park that’s quite nice,” he continued. “Why don’t we turn into ducks at night and live there?”
As it turned out, the medical procedure to give them the ability to turn into ducks every night was a sound investment, especially in light of the skyrocketing cost of rental properties in Luxembourg.
“The procedure paid for itself after only four months,” Mary said.
While they’ve lost a few friends, and putting up with the other ducks — who Mary says “shit everywhere and never shut up” — can be a real nuisance, knowing that they live on prime real estate makes the inconveniences worth it.
“A two-bedroom apartment in this neighborhood is going for upwards of 2600 euros per month,” Frank said. “We pay nothing. You can’t beat that.”
According to the Office of Therianthropy, the number of people who turn themselves into animals in order to afford residing in Luxembourg is on the rise. Some residents regularly transform into horses so that they can live cheaply in any one of the stables that surround the city, and one man — a junior accountant at a Big Four firm — underwent a procedure to become a poodle, which led to him being adopted by a wealthy widow who owns a mansion in Cents.
