[Magdalen] St. Joseph statue?

[Grace Cangialosi]

Does anyone know the origin of the practice of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the yard when you’re trying to sell a house?
I was talking to a former parishioner who had just put her house on the market and jokingly suggested she do this, and she was horrified. She wanted to know where such a superstition came from, and I told her I didn’t know. She’s the same person who told me I shouldn’t be doing yoga, because it’s one of those pagan things, so I should have known better than to suggest desecrating the statue of a saint!  
But her question got me to wondering about the origin of the custom. I never heard of it before I got on this list...