Today's farce: man almost burns down apartment building in attack on bedbug

No matter what actually happened, no matter whether the poor shmuck was really just trying some heavy-handed extermination or whether it was the result of a "heated argument" (!!), the events of Monday night in a Nashua, N.H. apartment building turned out bad for everybody.

Police have charged a 27-year-old Nashua man with arson, alleging he intentionally lit a mattress on fire that displaced several occupants of a Hanover Street apartment building.

Michael Fink, of 49 Temple St., Apt. 32, was arraigned Wednesday in Nashua District Court on the arson charge. During the proceeding, Fink told the judge that it was a "misunderstanding." He also said he was attempting to light a bug on fire, not the mattress.

Lt. Jeffrey Bukunt of the Nashua Police Department said Fink used a butane lighter to ignite a mattress on Monday in his girlfriend's lower-level apartment at 24-A Hanover St. ...

Bukunt said police stand by the charges, adding Fink was engaged in a "heated argument" with the woman during the incident. Once Fink allegedly lit the mattress on fire, he then tried to push the mattress through a window, but it became lodged and ignited the side of the building, according to Bukunt. Police said the fire quickly spread throughout the apartment and continued to damage other apartments within the multi-unit dwelling. ...

-- news story

The desperado fled the scene and was arrested at ... wait for it ... the local public library.

It doesn't say whether the apartment is now free from bedbugs.