A brief history of Strange Debt

We normally associate being in debt with woes and stress, this is obviously true as no one likes owing money to their friends let alone the big banks and credit card companies. Sometimes debt can be decidedly strange from getting calls about someone else’s debt because you have the same name to being chased for debts from beyond the grave!

Yang Jiansong form China is one of such strange cases of debt, Yang has for the past 14 years been rearing Pythons. "I got nine eggs from my neighbour in June 1994 and nine snakes were hatched. My neighbours took seven of the snakes, and now my pet is the only one left," Yang said.

His ‘pet’ however has become the source of his debt woes; The snake is now 4.6m long and weighs 82kg, The cost of it’s diet is what is proving difficult for Yang to cope with: A Python typically needs 8 ducks twice a month and has become a hefty burden on Yang.

Jiansong however remains optimistic; he hopes to get some extra money by getting a job which will allow him to work with his snake, perhaps posing for photos with tourists.

In some strange and potentially distressing cases people can’t escape debt even by dieing. In New York Times archives it shows in November 1897 that the body of singer Gertrude Averitt was held hostage by the Manager of the theatre to which she was contracted to work at unless a £150 debt was settled, her husband had to take the case to court for the ridiculous debt to be lifted.

These are two strange cases and obviously not true of all cases of debt, in most cases it is a traumatic experience and many people feel isolated and struggle with their debts. It is important to seek help via debt management organisations who can help you plan out how to repay your debts with debt consolidation loans or contacting your creditors to try and get a more manageable sum to repay and in some extreme cases can arrange IVAs. So no matter how bad you think your debt problems are make sure you seek help as soon as possible because with debt s there’s always interest which is only going to get worse the longer you wait.