Life Lesson
Keep Lid Closed — Something Horrendous Is Inside the Garbage Can
Trash has some nasty stuff in it, but this topped them all
After buying a building with an office for myself, and a rental unit, I was pleased to find my son and fiancé were willing to rent it on a month-to-month basis. It was a relief knowing I’d receive my rent on time and that someone responsible would be living there. But — even with the best of intentions — people still mess up, and they were no exception.
My son had been living at my house previous to this and my freezer was full of the foods he liked, which included steaks, chicken, chopped meat, and pork chops. When they took over the apartment I asked them if they were interested in me transferring my son’s meat to their freezer. They were both receptive and pleased to have it.
Most of the items were only a few weeks to a couple of months old, with no freezer burn, and were frozen solid.
On my next trip to the building, I brought everything from my freezer that was usable and put it into theirs. Assuming, it would be utilized shortly, as my son is a big meat-eater, I didn’t give it a second thought.
A few months later they announced they would be taking a two-week vacation and would I please keep an eye on the place and water their plants. They never mentioned throwing out the garbage for Tuesday morning’s pickup.
Two days after they left, I drove over to the building and spent most of the day in my office as I ran a business downstairs. I had a separate entrance from theirs but keys to both sides. After checking the apartment, watering plants, and locking up — I left.
We had a heat wave that week
Somewhere around the third day, I noticed an overwhelmingly ominous odor as I exited my car. It seemed to be coming from the garbage can that was on the side of the house by the stairs to the upper part of the building. I assumed at first it was just normal day-to-day garbage they weren’t able to put out because the town doesn’t want it curbside until 6:00 p.m. the night before pickup, and it was already too late for that week.
The next day it was worse, much worse. Overpoweringly so!
I feared opening the can, but I knew I had to as I thought an animal had crawled in and died. I braced myself for the worst. I backed up a bit, stretched my arm away from my body, grabbed onto the handle, and then opened it while holding my nose with my other hand.
I leaned forward to peek inside.
The can was filled with hundreds of dollars worth of chicken, ground meat, and more still in their now-swollen packages!
It instantly registered that all that expensive meat I had given them was dumped straight into the garbage can rotting in the heat. That was heartbreaking to see. What a waste! If they didn’t want it, they should have told me.
It gets worse
That was not the worst of it. There were maggots — lots of maggots, no hundreds, maybe thousands, of maggots. I could not believe what I was seeing. They ranged in size from tiny to quite large. There must have been several flies laying eggs at different times to have various sizes of maggots like that!
They were crawling around on the meat, they were up the sides of the garbage can, and then I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye, that’s when I noticed they were crawling around on the lid which I was holding in my hand — hundreds of them!
I screamed as I dropped it on the ground.
I knew I couldn’t leave it there. I carefully picked it up so as not to have anything crawl on me, and put it back on the can pressing it down to be sure it was closed tightly.
I was disgusted at what I just saw, but I dragged the whole can, rotten freezer meat, maggots, and all, into the woods on the side property for my son and fiancé to deal with when they returned.
As I climbed the stairs to my office I tried my best to keep from vomiting. I couldn’t eat the rest of the day. The vision of those crawling maggots was etched in my mind, the horrific smell still in my nose, and nothing would shake it loose.
Do I have a story for you!
When they came back I told them the gruesome story but where I expected some kind of reaction all I got was blank stares. Did they hear me? Are they tired from their trip? Did it sink in yet?
There was no acknowledgment or explanation, no apologies, nothing. I went home not knowing what happened or what they were thinking.
A few days later, upon returning to my office, I noticed a new garbage can.
The only thing I could figure is my son must have opened the can, which was most likely worse by the time he got there, and gagged because he has a weaker stomach than mine when it comes to that sort of thing, (or maybe didn’t even bother to open it), threw the whole thing in his truck and probably put it in his dumpster at work — just like that!
Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. One day when I thought he was in a good mood I asked, “What did you do with the maggot-filled garbage can when you got home?”
“Never mention it again, please.” was all he said.
What was she thinking?
What made her decide to clean the freezer right before leaving on vacation in the middle of a heat wave, leaving frozen meat in the garbage can knowing they wouldn’t be around to put it on the road for pickup, and neglecting to ask me to put it out for her? I’ll never know — but I never mentioned it again.
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