A bunch of stuff just stopped working...

Today, about half of the lightbulbs  burnt out and the boiler stopped working.

Coincidence?  Ghosts? 

Power surge?     I swear the wiring in my parents' house must be faulty...I've NEVER seen so many light bulbs burn out in such a short period of time! 

When you say the bulbs burned out, have you actually replaced the bulbs and the lights are working now? 

Do you have a switch in your fuse board (or whatever it's called)? Usually something trips the switch and you have to turn it back on.

In our place (listed building renovated into flats in 2001) we replace lightbulbs monthly. They keep burning out... and not just one, but all of them, every couple of days apart! no way I'd invest in energy saving bulbs here--would be detrimental to my wallet!

My microwave sparked a flash of some kind.  The microwave stopped working for good and it blew half the lights/outlets in the house.  Literally all the lights in the right side of the house weren't working.  Go to the breaker box and I bet it's the switch. 

Usually something trips the switch and you have to turn it back on

That's why I asked if the bulbs had actually been verified as blown or whether they'd just stopped working. 

Quite often when one bulbs blows it will trip the circuit breaker at the distribution panel, which obviously will then knock out everything else which is on that same circuit.  It's not unusual for a boiler to be wired on a lighting circuit, as it draws only a small amount of power.

All fixed now... The bulbs popped one by one as I turned on the lights in various rooms.  The boiler just needed re-pressurising.  I didn't check the breaker box at the time, as it was dark and scary.  Everything was fixable in the morning.

I'm sticking with the ghost explanation...

Thanks for the suggestions, though!

No, it's probably ghosts!   

These things usually happen in threes! lol

The bulbs popped one by one as I turned on the lights in various rooms. 

Unless it was a huge coincidence that all those bulbs were ready to expire, it sounds as though you might have had a temporary over-voltage problem on your supply.   That could be caused by a transient condition somewhere in the network, or it could be indicative of a connection somewhere in the street which is starting to fail.

If it happens again, it would warrant further investigation.