An Ommen resident had a very unexpected visitor on Wednesday afternoon. An elephant wandered into his garden and started eating his pear tree. The man called the police, and after convincing them that he was not joking, police officers responded to the scene.
"On the way to the address - in the outskirts of Ommen - we wondered how in heavens name we were supposed to catch an elephant. This was a first for us", the Ommen police said on Facebook.
A balcony fell off a second floor apartment on Westindischekade in Groningen on Wednesday morning. No one was injured. Housing association Lefier will inspect the other balconies in the apartment building to see if any others are at risk of collapsing, RTV Noord reports.
On Tuesday evening the fire department rescued a 9-year-old boy from the roof of a building on Baron G.A. Tindaplein in Amsterdam. The kid climbed onto the roof "like some kind of Spiderman", but couldn't make his own way down, the Amsterdam Oost Zeeburg police said on Facebook.
According to the police, the boy climbed to the roof using windowsills around 9:00 p.m. Why exactly the young daredevil did so, is not clear.
The fire department eventually rescued the boy with a ladder truck. He was home just before dark, the police said.
The Arnhem police spent Sunday afternoon searching the forest at a playground on Engelenburgstraat for a so-called killer clown. The man dressed as a scary clown harassed eight children at the playground earlier in the day. He had knives with him, according to one child. The clown wasn't found, AD reports
Anyone who hangs a hammock in an Amsterdam park could face a fine of 230 euros, Amsterdam resident Lars Duursma found out over the weekend, he told AT5.
Duursma and his girlfriend hung their hammock in Sarphatipark on Saturday. According to him, they were not drunk and did not cause any trouble. Two enforcement officers appeared and told them to remove the hammock, or face a fine of 230 euros.
The enforcement officers told them that it has been a rule for years that you are not allowed to attach anything to a tree or lamppost anywhere in the city.
An animal skull was found hanging at a bus stop in the Utrecht town of Abcoude on Thursday night. The skull was hanging on a string over a trash can on Burgemeester des Tombeweg, AD reports.
Due to the strange nature of the situation, the police were called. Officers removed the skull - a cow skull - and took it to a police station.
Who hung the skull at the bus shelter, and why, is not clear.
A streetlight is standing in the middle of Klaverstraat in Nijmegen. The street was widened, but the streetlight was left where it was. As a result, it is now located in the middle of the road, blocking the way for cars, Omroep Gelderland reports.
A local resident told the broadcaster, that the workers who widened the street knew that the streetlight can't be left in the middle of the road, but also weren't allowed to move it.
A car lost its back wheels after driving over a bump in Breda on Thursday morning. This happened in the curve towards Fellenoordstraat, Omroep Brabant reports.
With great difficulty, the driver managed to park the car in a disabled parking spot, with the car's bumper on the street behind it and the axle with the back wheels beside it.
In a strange coincidence, two hot air balloons made unplanned landings in Tilburg on Tuesday. One landed in a small field in the middle of a residential area, the other landed on a football field a few minutes later. The two precautionary landings seem to be unrelated, Omroep Brabant reports.
Eight year old Sofie spent an entire 60 seconds hanging from a raised boom, meters above the ground, in Spaarndam on Wednesday afternoon. Quite a terrifying experience for bystanders and the lock keeper. But the girl herself was unfazed. She came down with a big smile on her face, Marcel Kraan said, according to NOS.
Franeker smells like caramel on Friday morning. According to the fire brigade, this is due to an overnight fire in a candy factory in the Friesland city, ANP reports.
A fire broke out in candy factory Royal Steensma during the early hours of Friday morning. The burning sugar caused a caramel-like smell in the air.
The Royal Steensma building was destroyed by the fire. No one was injured. The fire is under control
Three different hand grenades were found along the IJsselsteinlaan in Utrecht on Wednesday afternoon. The discovery prompted the evacuation of the Hoograven neighborhood and a nearby police station.
The two men who said they found the grenades were taken into custody.
Both men said they spotted packages on the street and decided to throw them away. At least two were dumped in an underground garbage container, but for unknown reasons the men brought one package to the police station.
A houseboat on Oegstgeesterweg in Leiden is sinking due to a leak. Despite enormous effort by the fire department, the house boat can not be saved, the fire brigade said on Twitter on Monday morning. The family living in the houseboat got out unharmed, NU.nl reports.
The fire department started pumping water out of the houseboat around 5:50 a.m. on Monday. But the water put so much pressure on the houseboat that the shore anchor broke, making the houseboat unstable.
Emergency services responded to Paddepoelsterweg in Groningen en masse on Sunday after a passerby reported a body in the water. Closer inspection revealed that it was not a person at all, but a realistic sex doll, the police said on Twitter.
A passerby reported the 'body' around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday. Emergency services responded with a large number of personnel, because clothes were also found on the side of the water, according to ANP. Boating traffic in the area was halted for a time.
Two king pythons were found dumped on the street in a residential neighborhood in Amsterdam on Saturday, according to Animal Ambulance Amsterdam.
The animal ambulance responded ot the residential neighborhood after receiving a report of "two large snakes" on the street. Rescuers were deployed, expecting to find grass snakes that naturally occur in Amsterdam. "On arrival we did not find grass snakes, but two king pythons." Animal Ambulance Amsterdam said on Facebook.
The police arrested a homeless Russian man in the Haagse Bos on Sunday afternoon after he was caught barbecuing an endangered blue heron, the Overbosch police said on Facebook.
Police officers responded to the Haagse Bos after receiving multiple calls about an open fire in the forest. "That is of course not allowed and despite the snow there is a considerable risk that something like that gets out of hand", the police wrote.
Michael Wolff, the author of the bestseller Fire & Fury biography about US President Donald Trump, has canceled his interviews with Dutch media scheduled for Friday, multiple media outlets report. Newspaper NU.nl said that the writer was disappointed at the way he was treated by television presenter Twan Huys and his audience during his interview on College Tour Thursday night.
A 4-year-old girl brought to the Netherlands in 2016 will not be deported to Liberia. Her lawyer told RTL Nieuws that the young girl was approved for a residence permit.
Now living in Waddinxveen, Dekontee "Deedee" Elisha Grigsby was originally born in England. Custody was given to her great-grandmother, a Dutch national, with her mother unable to provide care. After her birth, the girl was brought to Liberia, where the family has roots.
A Bulgarian woman was found without a pulse, bleeding on the street late Friday night in Zaandam after an older man entered a nearby police station to alert authorities of the stabbing. The man, also from Bulgaria, was holding a bloody knife.
Police took the 44-year-old man into custody as a suspect in the stabbing, while officers responded to the victim and resuscitated her. When police arrived, they found the woman without a pulse on the Czaar Peterstraat.
The police found a half-naked man injured in the Oudaen castle in Utrecht early on Monday morning. The man fell through the roof of the building on Oudegracht. He was taken to hospital, AD reports.
The owner of the building noticed the man on surveillance camera footage and called the police at around 3:30 a.m. When they arrived at the scene, police officers found the largely undressed man injured inside the castle. An ambulance rushed the man to the hospital, where he is being guarded by the police. He is doing well under the circumstances and did not sustain serious injuries.
A cow managed to escape on her way to the butcher and has been on the run in the small town of Lettele for six weeks. So far all of the multiple attempts to catch or kill the animal have been unsuccessful, the cow's owner said to newspaper AD.
According to the farmer, the cow and one of her siblings escaped last year when they were being transported to the butcher. A veterinarian managed to hit the younger cow with three anesthetic darts, after which she could be driven into the cattle wagon.
A bloodied, beheaded doll was found in front of the Emir Sultan Mosque in Amsterdam Noord early Thursday morning. The doll's body, found laying below the severed head attached by metal hook to a fence, had a note denouncing "Islamization" pinned to it.
"I'm asking you not to worry about this incident," mosque president Kamber Şener wrote on Facebook, saying they reported the incident to police. "I hope they will find the perpetrators as soon as they can," he continued, asking for the city to unite against such incidents.
The anti- Zarte Piet protestors arrested in November 2016 during the national arrival of Sinterklaas in Maasluis will not be prosecuted.
168 people have received the news through a letter from the Public Prosecutor this week. Their cases have been dismissed due to insufficient evidence and because they have been unjustly regarded as suspects, according to NOS
Two Dutch-Turkish families living in Zaandam have received threatening letters with swastikas, threats and heavy insults. One of them also found their front yard covered in what appeared to be blood splatters, according to Zaandam regional media outlet De Orkaan. After further inspection, what seemed like blood was actually red paint.
