SEATTLE— A SWAT team, hazmat crews, firefighters and the Seattle police bomb squad swarmed a home on South Edmunds Street in the Rainier Valley Monday afternoon.
Crews believed the house, which is in foreclosure, was filled with suspicious powders and booby-traps.
Neighbors call it the Camelot House because of the castle style brick wall around it, but when police got to the house they suspected there was something much more sinister and potentially dangerous.
The yard was littered propane canisters and fire extinguishers and some of them were connected with wires.
The homeowner moved out several months ago and it was a cleaning crew that alerted police that something didn't seem right.
"There were some devices in there that looked to us to be suspicious, so we wanted to be 100 percent sure that they weren't any kind of explosive device," Seattle Police Bomb Squad Commander Greg Sackman said.
The bomb squad and the SWAT team were called in to investigate.
Nearby homes were evacuated and a two-block area was sealed off to traffic.
"The police officer came to the door and asked us to leave," Jeri Bellinger said.
"My wife texted me that the fire department and a whole lot of police and firefighters were in the neighborhood," Tim Erickson said. "My first reaction was, 'Oh something at the Camelot House'."
Neighbors said the man's wife recently died and then he lost his home.
Some said he had threatened to booby trap the place but they figured he was just lashing out and never meant to hurt anyone.
Four hours after they arrived, police confirmed there was no danger and that it was an unfortunate prank from a man who had reached the end of his rope.
"There were propane cylinders and fire extinguishers that had wires and one was actually rigged so if you pulled the wire by opening the gate, the fire extinguisher would go off but there were no explosive devices or anything that we found," Sackman said.
There was also a white powder found on the floor inside the home. Police said it was likely a combination of sugar and powder from fire extinguishers
