A Creepy Discovery

[BristolCavendish]

A guy at work bought his first house about a year and a half ago. It was built around the early 1920s and while not necessarily a 'fixer-upper', being only a 2BR/1B dwelling he is planning on adding some rooms being that there is adequate yard space for a remodeling. His family/household currently consists of himself, his wife and their two young boys aged 5 and 7 who currently share a bedroom.

That said, one afternoon the seven-year old discovered that inside his bedroom closet was a 'lift-off' section of hardwood flooring and being naturally curious, he raised it to see if there was anything down below. What he uncovered were two bronze-like 'cubes' with screw-top lids. Now in the mind of a youngster that age, he probably figured that he had found some sort of 'secret treasure' so he opened up both containers and poured the contents onto the bedroom carpeting. About a half-hour later, his mother discovered the boy sifting through the ashes and totally freaked out.

A number of subsequent problems and issues arose, most notably what to do with the contents. Turns out that in cases such as this (unidentified remains), they are supposed to be turned over to the county coroner's office for identification. So the mother vacuumed up all the ashes which were now mixed and waited for a representative from the coroner's office to come pick them up. In addition, a brief departmental inspection of the premises/discovery site was conducted in order to complete their report.

Though she used a Dyson (which is a pretty good vacuum cleaner), the representative from the coroner's office advised her that there would still be some residue remaining in the carpeting. So now they have to replace the entire wall-to-wall carpeting in the house being that the matching rug color/material was originally purchased as a 'close-out' and is no longer available. My suggestion was to forego the new carpeting and refurbish the oak hardwood floors but the couple prefers the warmth and damping nature of carpeting.

In retrospect, you can't really blame the kid for his natural curiosity and while the discovery led to some additional household expenditures as well as death-related protocols, I found this account somewhat amusing in addition to being somewhat creepy. I'm just glad/fortunate that something like this didn't occur at my house.