PETA wants to lease 'Amityville Horror' house

In the all-publicity-is-good-publicity category comes this news: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked to lease the so-called "Amityville Horror" house to stage an exhibition about "the real-life horrors inflicted on animals at factory farms and slaughterhouses."

Up for sale for $1.15 million, the home at 108 Ocean Ave. is at the center of a bestselling book and nine films that followed about supernatural occurrences that the Lutz family supposedly experienced there in the 1970s. Before they moved in, a family of six was murdered in their sleep at the house.

In pitching "The Amityville Slaughterhouse of Horrors" show, Tracy Reiman, the animal rights group's executive vice president, tells the owner and his agent in a letter sent Thursday: "Not only would hosting PETA's exhibit attract more potential buyers to the house, it would also let visitors know that every vegan saves more than 100 animals a year."

The show, which PETA envisions would run a couple of months, would feature instruments used in raising and killing animals for meat, milk and eggs, including wire battery cages, branding irons and electrified prods. Attendees would have the chance to be put inside a metal-and-concrete pig gestation crate and each child would be given a "crazed and knife-wielding Ronald McDonald doll."

The house's owner, through his agent, could not be reached for comment.