On a street are five houses, side by side, painted five different colours. In each house lives a person of different nationality. The five residents each drink a different beverage. The five residents each smoke a different brand of smokes. The five residents each have a different kind of pet.

Hints:

1. The Brit lives in the red house
2. The Swede has a dog
3. The Dane drinks tea
4. The green house is attached to the left side of the white house (directional hints are as you look from the front)
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall has birds
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next door to the man who has cats
11. The man with horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill
12. The man who smokes Players drinks beer
13. The German smokes Rothmans
14. The Norwegian lives next door to the blue house
15. The man who smokes Blends has a water drinker next door
16. The blue house is left of the green house

The Question Is: Who Owns the Fish?

Clue 16 does not contradict other clues. The blue house is "left of", but not necessarily immediately next to the green house. The red house must be between them.
Start with the houses by color, that's the easiest. The green house is to the left of the white, ok. The Norwegian is both in the first house and next to the blue house, so the blue house is second. Houses are Yellow, Blue, Red, Green, White. Filling in the obvious clues we get:
Yellow: Norwegian, Dunhill
Blue: Horse
Red: Brit, Milk
Green: Coffee
White:
Make 5 boxes with 5 slots each on your whiteboard, fill in what you know. Then, below each box put a possible pair...for example Swede/Dog can go below Green & White, but not any other because of conflicts & these 2 always go together. Then, above the boxes, put the "next to" clues where possible. You'll then see that only the Norwegian can be water, which forces a couple more "can only be" things. Finally, you end up with the German must have the fish.

Posted by FingLao on 2002-05-08 14:08:44