THE FUNNIEST TRUE STORY I HAVE EVER READ
This is a true story from THE MADISON COURIER newspaper in Madison, Indiana where I used to live. I think it is one of the funniest true stories I have ever read and will no doubt be the subject of conversations for decades to come.
The case of the uninvited visitorPeggy VlerebomeCourier Staff Writer
The scene was just as George Mayfield had described it on the telephone: There was a dead bull in his bathroom.It had been there about six weeks, and smelled pretty bad, he said. Accurate again.The stench was not as bad as it was two weeks ago when he returned from wintering in Florida, though. His daughter and son-in-law had returned with him, intending to help him fix up the place so he could move out of "the big house" and down the hill into the bungalow, which was a rental house that hadn't had tenants for a couple of years.
First, the tall grass and undergrowth around the bungalow had to be mowed."We were starting to Bush Hog and mow," Mayfield said Friday morning. "My son-in-law made one pass around the house and came up where I was and said there was something terribly wrong in the house."The front door of the cottage was locked. Two of the four windows on the front had been broken, the bathroom window on the left and a living room window next to the door. Neither window was completely broken out.They unlocked the door and entered. Inside was a smelly, grisly sight. A large cow paddy was on the wood living room floor. To the right, one of the two bedrooms had cow manure ground into the carpet and splattered up the walls several inches. But the walls were otherwise unmarked, showing no sign that a panicked bull might have thrashed around in there.All that manure, though, didn't explain the stench, so Mayfield's son-in-law followed his nose across the house to the bathroom. The door wouldn't open. They busted it open and saw a large, dead animal.
Mayfield called the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Tony Klein came out to Mayfield's on Interstate Block Road near County Road 800-W. In the bathroom, they saw how the bull had fallen on its left shoulder, evidently breaking the toilet as it fell. A piece of the toilet mechanism lay on the bull.Within two hours, Klein returned to Mayfield's to say he had found the owner, Edward Frederick of Hanover. Frederick said Friday evening that he's not 100 percent sure the dead bull in Mayfield's bathroom is the bull that disappeared from his son-in-law's herd about four weeks before Mayfield came home from Florida.But he's 90 percent sure because he had gone over to Mayfield's and saw a big bull dead in the bathroom; he was missing a bull; no one else had reported a bull missing; and all his efforts to find his bull had been fruitless. He had advertised in The Madison Courier, had gone from door to door inquiring if anyone had seen his bull or leaving a flier if no one was home, and had posted fliers at the Kent General Store and all around the area.When the bull had been gone about a month, he reported it to the sheriff's office because by then he figured it must have been stolen. Within a couple of days, the sheriff's office notified him that his bull had been found dead in George Mayfield's bathroom.
His bull had been staying with his son-in-law's herd not far from Mayfield's. The fence across a creek on the farm had washed out, possibly providing an escape route, Frederick said his son-in-law discovered."He was a good bull," Frederick said. "He was good breeding stock." The bull was born in 2004 and was a registered Limousin weighing about 1,600 pounds, he said. Some time back, the bull had pulled out the registration tag on its ear, he said, so that wasn't available to use for identification.A neighbor of his son-in-law had seen the bull loose and had kept him on his property, and called Frederick's son-in-law to tell him so he could go get it. "Apparently he didn't get there fast enough," Frederick said, because a day or two later the neighbor turned the bull loose, figuring it would return to the herd.
So now Mayfield had a dead bull in the bathroom of the bungalow he wanted to call home.A couple of weeks went by when nothing much happened in the way of insurance, but the weather was hot and the smell from the bungalow was strong, wafting out the broken windows and permeating everything it touched.Frederick's liability-insurance carrier turned to the local franchise for Servpro, whose slogan is "Like It Never Even Happened."Duane Schmidt, who is manager of the Servpro of Madison, Lawrenceburg and Versailles franchise owned by his wife, Nina, went to Mayfield's earlier this week to check out the unusual job request. He had never heard of such a cleanup request, and no one else at Servpro he talked to had, either.He said the odor ranked right up there for awfulness with the freezer full of shrimp he removed from the Elks Club after the fire last August.The way to get rid of odor, or anything else noxious such as mold, is to remove the sources, he said.The place to start would be to remove the stinking bull from the bathroom.
That is easier said than done. The dangers in such a situation are blood-borne diseases, such as diseases the legions of flies on the bull carcass could carry, and airborne toxins such as anthrax, Schmidt said.The danger is highest when a dead animal is moved, he said. Schmidt called in another national cleanup company, Aftermath Inc.Ordinarily, Aftermath workers from Ohio would be sent, but Rick Bartz said he and Greg Moffett were sent from Plainfield, Ill., the corporate headquarters for Aftermath in the United States, because no one in Ohio wanted the job."This is the first time we've done anything like this," Bartz said. No one at Aftermath had ever heard of such a cleanup request. Usually they deal with human beings who have been dead a while or died messily. The dead bull odor wasn't as bad as they are used to dealing with, they said.Bartz and Moffett donned blue protective, hooded suits, two pairs of gloves, plastic foot covers over the enclosed feet of the suits and carbon respirators, and headed indoors. They didn't have a plan. "This is going to be one of those think-on-your-feet days," Bartz said.
The bull's grave was waiting. Mayfield's friend Gene Sutton of Sutton Builders had come over with his backhoe in the morning. In the sweet-smelling woods around the corner from the bungalow, he scooped out red clay until he hit limestone.He also cleared the shrubs that had grown up in front of the bathroom window in case the workers intended to move the dead bull out through the window. While Mayfield and Sutton waited for Bartz and Moffett to get their gear together, Sutton, with the touch of a practiced surgeon with a scalpel, used his backhoe to clear away the shrubbery and vines from the entire front of the bungalow so there would be room to maneuver the carcass.Inside the bungalow, Bartz and Moffett were getting their first close look at the job at hand.Loud noises were coming from the bathroom. "He's pretty hollow," one of them shouted through the respirator mask covering his face. "Wheeeewwww."They thought they might be able to drag the bull out and put it on Sutton's backhoe for delivery to the grave. The carcass was sticking to the floor, so that could be a problem.
Nina Schmidt went to get a portable generator in case they needed to use their electric saw to cut up the carcass.In the end, the carcass was pretty well dried out, and was mostly hide and bones and not very heavy, so they tied a rope around it, dragged it out the front door and loaded it on Sutton's backhoe. He took the bull to the grave and covered it.But how did the bull end up in Mayfield's house, much less dead in his bathroom?Since the door was locked, one theory is that the bull barged through a window. Frederick has talked to several people about this, and they are of the same opinion as he is: "They have never heard of a bull going through a window."Another theory among those waiting for the removal Friday was that someone broke into the bungalow, then unlocked the door and took the bull inside.How and why, and what happened inside the bungalow are mysteries."It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen," Frederick said.
The case of the uninvited visitorPeggy VlerebomeCourier Staff Writer
The scene was just as George Mayfield had described it on the telephone: There was a dead bull in his bathroom.It had been there about six weeks, and smelled pretty bad, he said. Accurate again.The stench was not as bad as it was two weeks ago when he returned from wintering in Florida, though. His daughter and son-in-law had returned with him, intending to help him fix up the place so he could move out of "the big house" and down the hill into the bungalow, which was a rental house that hadn't had tenants for a couple of years.
First, the tall grass and undergrowth around the bungalow had to be mowed."We were starting to Bush Hog and mow," Mayfield said Friday morning. "My son-in-law made one pass around the house and came up where I was and said there was something terribly wrong in the house."The front door of the cottage was locked. Two of the four windows on the front had been broken, the bathroom window on the left and a living room window next to the door. Neither window was completely broken out.They unlocked the door and entered. Inside was a smelly, grisly sight. A large cow paddy was on the wood living room floor. To the right, one of the two bedrooms had cow manure ground into the carpet and splattered up the walls several inches. But the walls were otherwise unmarked, showing no sign that a panicked bull might have thrashed around in there.All that manure, though, didn't explain the stench, so Mayfield's son-in-law followed his nose across the house to the bathroom. The door wouldn't open. They busted it open and saw a large, dead animal.
Mayfield called the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Tony Klein came out to Mayfield's on Interstate Block Road near County Road 800-W. In the bathroom, they saw how the bull had fallen on its left shoulder, evidently breaking the toilet as it fell. A piece of the toilet mechanism lay on the bull.Within two hours, Klein returned to Mayfield's to say he had found the owner, Edward Frederick of Hanover. Frederick said Friday evening that he's not 100 percent sure the dead bull in Mayfield's bathroom is the bull that disappeared from his son-in-law's herd about four weeks before Mayfield came home from Florida.But he's 90 percent sure because he had gone over to Mayfield's and saw a big bull dead in the bathroom; he was missing a bull; no one else had reported a bull missing; and all his efforts to find his bull had been fruitless. He had advertised in The Madison Courier, had gone from door to door inquiring if anyone had seen his bull or leaving a flier if no one was home, and had posted fliers at the Kent General Store and all around the area.When the bull had been gone about a month, he reported it to the sheriff's office because by then he figured it must have been stolen. Within a couple of days, the sheriff's office notified him that his bull had been found dead in George Mayfield's bathroom.
His bull had been staying with his son-in-law's herd not far from Mayfield's. The fence across a creek on the farm had washed out, possibly providing an escape route, Frederick said his son-in-law discovered."He was a good bull," Frederick said. "He was good breeding stock." The bull was born in 2004 and was a registered Limousin weighing about 1,600 pounds, he said. Some time back, the bull had pulled out the registration tag on its ear, he said, so that wasn't available to use for identification.A neighbor of his son-in-law had seen the bull loose and had kept him on his property, and called Frederick's son-in-law to tell him so he could go get it. "Apparently he didn't get there fast enough," Frederick said, because a day or two later the neighbor turned the bull loose, figuring it would return to the herd.
So now Mayfield had a dead bull in the bathroom of the bungalow he wanted to call home.A couple of weeks went by when nothing much happened in the way of insurance, but the weather was hot and the smell from the bungalow was strong, wafting out the broken windows and permeating everything it touched.Frederick's liability-insurance carrier turned to the local franchise for Servpro, whose slogan is "Like It Never Even Happened."Duane Schmidt, who is manager of the Servpro of Madison, Lawrenceburg and Versailles franchise owned by his wife, Nina, went to Mayfield's earlier this week to check out the unusual job request. He had never heard of such a cleanup request, and no one else at Servpro he talked to had, either.He said the odor ranked right up there for awfulness with the freezer full of shrimp he removed from the Elks Club after the fire last August.The way to get rid of odor, or anything else noxious such as mold, is to remove the sources, he said.The place to start would be to remove the stinking bull from the bathroom.
That is easier said than done. The dangers in such a situation are blood-borne diseases, such as diseases the legions of flies on the bull carcass could carry, and airborne toxins such as anthrax, Schmidt said.The danger is highest when a dead animal is moved, he said. Schmidt called in another national cleanup company, Aftermath Inc.Ordinarily, Aftermath workers from Ohio would be sent, but Rick Bartz said he and Greg Moffett were sent from Plainfield, Ill., the corporate headquarters for Aftermath in the United States, because no one in Ohio wanted the job."This is the first time we've done anything like this," Bartz said. No one at Aftermath had ever heard of such a cleanup request. Usually they deal with human beings who have been dead a while or died messily. The dead bull odor wasn't as bad as they are used to dealing with, they said.Bartz and Moffett donned blue protective, hooded suits, two pairs of gloves, plastic foot covers over the enclosed feet of the suits and carbon respirators, and headed indoors. They didn't have a plan. "This is going to be one of those think-on-your-feet days," Bartz said.
The bull's grave was waiting. Mayfield's friend Gene Sutton of Sutton Builders had come over with his backhoe in the morning. In the sweet-smelling woods around the corner from the bungalow, he scooped out red clay until he hit limestone.He also cleared the shrubs that had grown up in front of the bathroom window in case the workers intended to move the dead bull out through the window. While Mayfield and Sutton waited for Bartz and Moffett to get their gear together, Sutton, with the touch of a practiced surgeon with a scalpel, used his backhoe to clear away the shrubbery and vines from the entire front of the bungalow so there would be room to maneuver the carcass.Inside the bungalow, Bartz and Moffett were getting their first close look at the job at hand.Loud noises were coming from the bathroom. "He's pretty hollow," one of them shouted through the respirator mask covering his face. "Wheeeewwww."They thought they might be able to drag the bull out and put it on Sutton's backhoe for delivery to the grave. The carcass was sticking to the floor, so that could be a problem.
Nina Schmidt went to get a portable generator in case they needed to use their electric saw to cut up the carcass.In the end, the carcass was pretty well dried out, and was mostly hide and bones and not very heavy, so they tied a rope around it, dragged it out the front door and loaded it on Sutton's backhoe. He took the bull to the grave and covered it.But how did the bull end up in Mayfield's house, much less dead in his bathroom?Since the door was locked, one theory is that the bull barged through a window. Frederick has talked to several people about this, and they are of the same opinion as he is: "They have never heard of a bull going through a window."Another theory among those waiting for the removal Friday was that someone broke into the bungalow, then unlocked the door and took the bull inside.How and why, and what happened inside the bungalow are mysteries."It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen," Frederick said.
posted by dddonna @ 6/23/2007 01:41:00 PM
2 comments
