The government of Luxembourg has announced a plan to drastically reduce housing prices by spreading a rumor that the entire country has cooties.
Cooties is a highly infectious and possibly imaginary disease that little boys often accuse little girls of having, claims to which girls then say, “No, you have cooties.”
Officials say state employees will be dispatched to high-level meetings and summits where they will approach strangers and whisper in their ears, “You know that Luxembourg has cooties, right?”
“Once the rumor travels around circles of global elites, it will trickle down to journalists, corporate leaders, and health officials in other countries,” said Agency of Covert Initiatives head Nicolas Trausch. “Before long, half the world will associate Luxembourg with cooties and say, ‘ew, gross.’”
Experts say home prices could plummet by as much as 50 percent as some residents flee and foreign workers begin to turn down job offers here.
“I can’t wait to be able to afford property in my own country again,” says Viviane Hoffman, a 34th-generation Luxembourger who relocated to Konz, Germany five years ago to buy a home.
However, not everyone is pleased with the plan.
“I just took out a huge loan to buy a mediocre three-bedroom house in Biwer for 1.5 million euros,” says expat Dirk Mortensen. “Shit.”
