Bonnie bought a bag of birdseed. She left it in her apartment (#5) before she went to work, intending to fill the feeder that afternoon. But when she got back, the bag of birdseed was gone!

  There were four other people living in the same apartment building as her, all of whom were avid birdwatchers like Bonnie. One of them must have done it. Look at the clues below. If you know everybody's name, apartment number (#1 through #4), and favourite bird, you will know who is guilty.

1. The guilty person's apartment number is not numbered one higher or one lower than Hal's.
2. Joe's favourite bird is the crow; his apartment number is one lower than that of Ike (who doesn't like robins).
3. The guilty person's apartment is not #3 (the number of the finch-lover's).
4. Gil is neither at apartment #1 nor the wren-lover.

Whodunit?

Ok, I might be missing something (after all, I overlooked the fact that Dolphins and Hummer both had an H in them), but I don’t think there is enough information for a solution. Here’s why…

Let’s look at Joe for a while. He likes crows. Since his apt number is one less than Ike’s, this means that Joe cannot be in apt #4 (likewise Ike cannot be in apt #1). Also, since Joe likes crows he is not the finch-lover, so Joe is not in apt #3. So Joe can only be in apt #1-2 and Ike can only be in apt #2-3.

Then I just started putting people into apartments and looked at their "restrictions"… I came up with 3 different housing arrangements that are legal, each indicating a different person as the guilty party. Here, watch:

IF Hal is in apt #1, then Joe HAS to be in apt #2, and Ike HAS to be in apt #3. This leaves Gil in apt #4 (legal). Ike has to like finches since he’s in apt #3 (legal). Since only the wren and robin are left, and since Gil doesn’t like wrens, this means Gil has the robin. This leaves Hal with the wren (legal). In this case, the guilty party cannot be in apt #2 because that is 1 higher than Hal. So the guilty party is in apt #4 (since he’s not in apt #3). That’s GIL (as in Gil-ty)

Hal can’t be in apt #2… one of either Joe and Ike will always be in apt #2

IF Hal is in apt #3, then Joe and Ike have to be in apts #1 and #2, respectively. Again, this puts Gil in apt #4 (legal). Hal has to like finches since he’s in apt #3 (legal). Since only the wren and robin are left, and since Gil doesn’t like wrens, this means Gil has the robin. This leaves Ike with the wren (legal). In this case, the guilty party cannot be in apt #2 or #4 since those are 1 higher or lower than Hal. So the guilty part is in apt #1. That’s Joe.

IF Hal is in apt #4, then Joe and Ike could be in apts #1 and #2, or in apts #2 and #3. But if they are in #2 and #3, this puts Gil in #1 which the problem says isn’t the case. Therefore, Joe is in apt #1, Ike is in #2, and Gil is in #3 (legal). Gil has to like finches since he’s in apt #3 (legal). Since only the wren and robin are left, and since Ike doesn’t like robins, this means Ike has the wren. This leaes Hal with the robin (legal). In this case the guilty party cannot e in apt #3 for two reasons. But the guilty party could be in apt#1 OR apt #2.

Since we are supposed to find a solution, I suppose we could eliminate the case where Hal is in apt #4 since that leaves two possibilities (kind of like those olympic games where we are told the reporters are able to figure out who did what – that eliminates the cases that have two possibilities). But this still leaves two cases with different results for the guilty person.

So, am I missing something?

Posted by nikki on 2004-10-21 12:50:43