Puzzles/Logic puzzles/5 Houses/Solution

Puzzles | Logic puzzles | 5 Houses | Solution

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The German keeps fish.

Reasoning

Number the houses from left to right. We have the following information:

Clue	1	2	3	5	6	7	8	9	11	13	14
House							3	1			2
Colour	red			green		yellow					blue
Nationality	English	Swede	Dane					Norwegian		German
Cigar					Pall Mall	Dunhill			Blue Master	Prince
Drink			tea	coffee			milk		beer
Pet		dogs			birds

The green house is not number 2, which is blue. Consequently and from clue 4, it is not 1 or 5. The green house resident drinks coffee, therefore the house is not 3 (whose resident drinks milk). Therefore the green house is 4, and the white house is 5.

This leaves determining the colours of houses 1 and 3. The red house is not number 1 (residents are English and Norwegian respectively) so 3, and house 1 is yellow.

House	1	2	3	4	5
Colour	yellow	blue	red	green	white
Nationality	Norwegian		English			Swede	Dane			German
Cigar	Dunhill							Pall Mall	Blue Master	Prince
Drink			milk	coffee			tea		beer
Pet						dogs		birds

From clue 12, horses are kept in the grounds of house 2. The Norwegian doesn't drink tea (the Dane does) or beer (the Blue Master smoker does) so water. Hence from clue 15, the Blend smoker lives in house 2. We now have:

House	1	2	3	4	5
Colour	yellow	blue	red	green	white
Nationality	Norwegian		English			Swede	Dane			German
Cigar	Dunhill	Blend						Pall Mall	Blue Master	Prince
Drink	water		milk	coffee			tea		beer
Pet		horses				dogs		birds

from which most of the information easily falls into place:

House	1	2	3	4	5
Colour	yellow	blue	red	green	white
Nationality	Norwegian	Dane	English	German	Swede
Cigar	Dunhill	Blend	Pall Mall	Prince	Blue Master
Drink	water	tea	milk	coffee	beer
Pet		horses	birds		dogs

Finally, clue 10 tells us that the Norwegian keeps cats, and the German keeps fish.