Weight of book collection damaging house

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, June 7 (UPI) -- The weight of about 350,000 books a Canadian Prairies couple wanted to save from burning is damaging a second house they bought to shelter them, officials say.

Shaunna Raycraft and her husband live in the remote town of Pike Lake, Saskatchewan, southwest of Saskatoon. Months ago, a neighbor who collected books died and the man's widow said she wasn't interested in the uncatalogued collection and was going to burn it.

The Raycrafts, both book lovers, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. they would take the collection and had a small house towed to their property to store the books.

"We're talking 30 tons of books," Raycraft said. "The weight of the books is pulling the house apart."

The couple have tried selling some of the books on the e-Bay online auction site but can't find any appraisers willing to travel to the remote Canadian town.

"It took a minimum of three days to pack the baseball books alone into boxes [and] five days for the bibles and religious texts," she said. "Most of the boxes are still unopened and unsorted."

Raycraft said it's impossible to even speculate on how much the whole collection might be worth, the CBC said.