Printer from hell: Man regrets letting 'Satan' into his life

This printer was listed on Trade Me under the heading "Satan: Please lift this curse from me.". Photo / Trade Me

One man's effort to lift the curse of his troublesome printer has Kiwis in hysterics as he detailed his battle against the "possessed" piece of office equipment.

The printer was listed on Trade Me under the heading "Satan: Please lift this curse from me."

The seller wrote: "I purchased Satan in a Warehouse Stationery just long ago enough for the warranty to have expired. I remember the moment well. There was a strange voice in my mind, a fell voice on the air. It whispered to me, seductively. It said, "Buy this HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 instead of the slightly more expensive Brother printer you came here to get.

"I knew who it was. 'Get behind me, Satan,' I said. 'I've heard HP printers are terrible'.

"'It's on ssssale,' Satan hissed.

"I bought the printer.

"Once I got home I realised the printer was Satan. The devil had wormed his way into my previously happy life."

The seller than recounts 'Satan's' various misdeeds, including "PAPER ERROR", "PAPER JAM" and forcing the unfortunate office worker to download the HP Smart App.

Pure evil.

"I tried everything I could to get someone to exorcise the demon. The Catholics hung up on me. The Mormons ran away screaming," he wrote.

"Eventually an ancient shaman told me on his deathbed that the only way to get rid of Satan was to pass the curse on to someone else."

As always, the real story was in the comments, as the seller took the time to answer potential buyer's questions:

What names does it go by?

It goes by Beelzebub, The Dark Lord, Lucifer (The Lightbringer), Mephistopheles, Apollyon, Baal, Chancellor Palpatine, and Scotty from Marketing.

If I sprinkle it with holy water, will it die?

Gave it a go one time, as even non-cursed electronics don't love being immersed in water, holy or otherwise. This printer just spat out a page that said "WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE, BUT RISES AGAIN HARDER AND STRONGER" in Comic Sans.

Does it come with a reinforced cage for safe transport?

Yes. The printer's cage is the Earth on which we walk; it can no longer ascend to the heavens, to walk among the bright stars whose light it kindled in the time before time.

Does it know how to microwave fish in an office?

It is the Original Sinner: when the very first fish was microwaved, it was by Satan's hand. Later, he lied that it was Becks from accounts, and lo, from that moment she found herself uninvited to the office Christmas function.

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The auction echoes one of Trade Me's most popular auctions of all-time, Kāpiti' film-maker Nick Ward's attempt to sell his possessed printer in 2013.

In this case, the seller has said that he plans to donate the funds raised to Australian bush fire relief, through the Australian Wildlife Rescue organisation.

"If a dumb gag I thought of at 10 pm last night when the goddamn thing refused to print a photo can actually go towards helping some of the poor critters that have been hurt by the bushfires, I'd be truly happy," he said in a comment posted online.