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A French man chased a fly around with an electric swatter and accidentally blew up his own house

  • A man in France tried to eliminate an irritating fly and ended up blowing up his house.

  • The man, in his 80s, used an electric bug swatter which reacted with a gas leak in his home.

  • The explosion left him with minor burns and his home is uninhabitable, according to local reports.

  • The fate of the fly is not known.

  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

house fly
A man blew up his house trying to swat a fly.

A man in Dordogne, France, accidentally blew up his own house while trying to remove a fly, local reports say.

Armed with an electric swatter, the man — who is in his 80s — chased the insect around his home, according to the local Sud Ouest newspaper.

What he didn't know at the time, though, was that there was a gas leak in his home. The reaction between the gas and the swatter caused an explosion that collapsed past of his ceiling, according to the report.

The man suffered a minor burn to his hand and his home is uninhabitable, Sud Ouest reported.

The fate of the housefly is unknown at this time.

Friday's blast wasn't the first time that an attempt to exterminate a tiny pest had led to bigger problems than it's worth.

Last year a man in Brazil tried to kill some cockroaches his backyard throwing matches in a hole that he had poured gasoline into. (It obviously wasn't the best strategy.)

Related: What would happen if bees went extinct?

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