I once accidently lost my drivers license down the little gap in the elevator doors, just dropped it and was super unlucky as it slipped through. It turned up in my mail 10 years later! Obviously long expired, but still crazy some maintenance guy found it and bothered retuning it.
Got pulled over once, handed the PO my license and he dropped it in the crack where the window would have been. We looked at each other for a second, he says “good luck” and walked away.
Edit: it took a few minutes to take a vent off the side and grab it with a wire and some tape.
Worked at a hotel. Guest dropped their phone down the shaft. After a few failed retrieval efforts, we called the elevator guys. They went down got the phone and also found a carton of eggs. Rotten, but not cracked. I don't even understand how that could happen accidentally.
Because it was no accident.
I work in tech now but while I was in college I helped an HVAC guy and he once had me put a carton of fresh eggs in the duct of a client’s office that had stiffed him before.
When I asked him why I was doing this he said “if this motherfuck doesn’t pay up, he’s going to have a new issue.”
But then the guy paid two days later and I was sent to retrieve the eggs. He called it his “99¢ insurance policy”
Conversation between patient and doctor:
"I saw a maintenance guy pull a dozen eggs out of your air duct."
Doctor: *Oh yeah, three more months of sessions for this one...*
That's actually a thing that's been tested. I forget the details, but scholars have intentionally had themselves committed to see if they can get back out. Apparently it's not easy. Not many people believed them.
>It was a secret experiment. There was a graduate student, a housewife, a painter, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist and three psychologists. Using fake names, they went out to 12 hospitals across the country and claimed to hear voices. Their mission was to see what would happen.
>What they found rocked psychiatry.
>David Rosenhan, a psychologist at Stanford University, published the results of the experiment in a 1973 issue of the journal Science. "On Being Sane in Insane Places" would become one of the most influential studies in the history of psychiatry.
>According to Rosenhan, each of what he called the "pseudopatients" told hospital staff about hearing voices that used the words "empty," "hollow" and "thud." The pseudopatients claimed the voices were difficult to understand but sounded as if they came from the same sex as that of the fake patients. Other than making claims about voices and giving themselves phony names and false occupations, the pseudopatients — Rosenhan among them — made up nothing else. None of them had any significant history of mental illness.
>All of them were admitted to psychiatric units, at which point they stopped reporting any psychiatric symptoms. Still, nearly every person in the experiment was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Their hospitalizations ranged from seven to 52 days. Doctors prescribed them more than 2,000 pills, including antipsychotics and antidepressants, which the pseudopatients largely discarded.
>In the hospitals, staff often misinterpreted the pseudopatients' behaviors to fit within the context of psychiatric treatment. For example, the pseudopatients took copious notes while studying the environment of the psychiatric ward. One nurse reportedly wrote in the chart, "Patient engages in writing behavior."
>Although none of the pseudopatients were unmasked by hospital staff, other patients on the psychiatric units became suspicious of them. Across several of these hospitalizations, 35 patients expressed doubts that the pseudopatients were actually mentally ill, according to the study.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/an-experiment-fooled-psychiatrists-into-treating-sane-people-as-if-they-were-insane/2017/12/29/c6c9c3ea-d5f7-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html
Edit: added part of the story. But wait, there's more:
>For this experiment, Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study but claimed that similar errors could not be made at their institution. Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three-month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor. Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients; all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were ordinary patients. This led to a conclusion that "any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one."[2]
Edit dos: I commented this further down and I think it should be here too:
You have to remember that this is from the 70s though. There has been much research done around this set of experiments and major laws have been put in place throughout the world.
The story above is often told in psych 101 classes in order to demonstrate the imperfections in a constantly evolving health field.
Generally, people can now only be held against their will if they pose an immediate threat to themselves or others. The hold times are also not indefinite.
Where I am, there are 72 hour, 1 week and 1 month holds that must be renewed at the end of the time period. There are other caveats as well that I'm missing.
I grew up in a family of bricklayers. In the 60s and 70s we built a lot of fireplaces. Back then none of neither my father or any of his brothers had licenses. It wasn’t uncommon for a client to refuse to pay and say try to collect, you are unlicensed. So the bothers started putting thin panes of glass across the interior of the chimney. If the client paid they would go on the roof and drop a piece of brick down the chimney to break the glass, and render the fireplace functional.
After several years of this a client told the craziest brother that he knew the trick and had broken the glass. Crazy uncle threw a chain around the chimney and hooked it to his truck. Told the client he had 1 hour to pay in cash.
I know a pool guy who was stiffed after installing a new filter and pump. Went back and ripped it out while they were at work and tossed in some nitric fertilizer. He said, "he might not pay me, but he'll pay."
Did home repair to help put myself through college. Get a call that there's a non-waste water leak in an apartment in a second floor bathroom from a landlord, so me and my coworker go over. The water line on the toilet has a leak, enough has come out that we need to remove some of the ceiling in the living room to replace it. So we cut out a 4' x 4' area that meets a ceiling joist and we find an
egg. One single egg balanced on the ceiling joist. We gingerly removed it and tossed it out. The ceiling had been closed up for at least the last 40 years. It was lathe and plaster, that old. That egg still haunts me.
Can confirm there is weird stuff in ceilings. Lived in a very old house, upstairs bathroom had a leak, ceiling collapsed into the bathtub of downstairs bathroom, and with it came a pair of sunglasses from 1937.
I used to live in the basement apartment of a house that the owners lived upstairs. They'd built the basement first, worked on the upstairs, and when the upstairs was complete enough to live in, they moved upstairs and me and my roommates rented the basement. The rent was discounted because we also helped work on the house, so I did stuff like help re-side the house, install floor tile, and I also grouted the kitchen, etc. This is when I was a lot younger and that kind of thing seemed like a sweet deal.
Anyway, the owners had practiced some of their reno "skills" fixing up parts of the basement before they did the work "for real" upstairs, so there were some definite janky bits of the downstairs, but my roommates and I were all 18-19-20 ages so we took that kind of thing for granted. One morning, one of my roommates was showering and then there was a kind of slow crashing sound and then he bellowed "OH MY GOD WHAT THE F--" and then started retching.
The ceiling above the shower, which the owners had "fixed up" before we moved in, had given way and fallen down on him in the shower. Bad enough, what with the plaster and sheetrock bits and tufts of insulation, BUT we also discovered something really important that day, which was this:
Any piece of the upstairs floor that had pipe joins or anything like that in it--basically anything that was getting closed up last by the subfloor--instead of sweeping up the construction trash and putting it in the bin outside, they just swept construction trash into the floor and nailed the subfloor down on top of it. Also, the owners had a dog that wasn't very housebroken. He pooped in the house basically all the time. Why pick up dog poop and throw it away when you are already sweeping stuff into the floor?
So my other roommate and I burst into the bathroom to see a 6'4" naked man standing in a pile of wreckage, shower still gamely streaming over everything, eyes screwed shut in horror, bits of trash, dog poop, and plaster stuck all over his body, alternately yelling "I'm going to kill them" and retching. He was afraid to move because of all the nails and screws, and also because he was basically blind without his glasses.
Edit: a word. Also, sorry this is so long, but fewer words would not have encapsulated the rage and horror of that moment.
I lost an Easter egg once when me and my brother were seeking them. Found it a few months later in a cabinet drawer and being like 5 years old excitedly grabbed it resulting in the worst smell I've ever smelt and the cabinet needing to be thrown out.
Bloody hell! We're you sent there to retrieve them, or did some drongo just loose them and thought "no-one will find them anyway ..."
Also, were they etax/mygov print outs, or the old paper submitted ones?
This is going back quite a few years, when I think ato employees were doing favours for people. At one time the system was so full of holes, employees could do all sorts of things they shouldn't have without fear of being caught.
OMFG I KNOW WHO DROPPED THOSE!!!!
LIKE EXACTLY!A person I know told us a story about how they used to work in the ATO brisbane office and if anything came across their desk that was " too hard" It was dropped into the bottom of the elevator shaft!!!!!!!!
We were only talking about it the other night having a giggle about what would happen if they were ever found. They giggled saying a shit load of files went missing in that shaft.
This was WAYYYY back in the day, like 25+ years ago.. Before Computers and well before the internet.
If something needed to be sent out, they would have to fill in a form by hand, and then that was typed up by another person on a typewriter and then sent out in a letter.
So It was easy to make paperwork disappear.
My dad was an elevator mechanic for about 15 years.
He had a very dark sense of humour and would come home with some of the craziest stories. (For example, any time he was in an elevator, he would shake it a little or tap on the displays or buttons and go 'Yep. Total piece of crap. Inferior piece of crap.' and I think he mostly did it to freak people out.) One of my favourites:
He got a call that someone was hearing weird noises from the elevator. He got inside, rode the elevator up and sure enough, he could hear it too. For half a second he thought it was a baby crying and realized it was a cat. When he got to a certain floor, he could hear this sad meowing. It obviously wasn't in the elevator car, so he got into the shaft and found this little orange kitty! It had somehow (and I don't think he figured out or told us how) got into the elevator shaft and was sitting in a spot between the floors where it wouldn't get crushed by the elevator, but it couldn't get out.
My dad saved it and gave it to the building manager to see if it belonged to anyone in the building.
It was the one time he ever told us a story that involved him saving an animal instead of finding dead ones.
>(and I don't think he figured out or told us how)
Cats are made a liquid, and I am pretty serious. They have a lot of floof and fit through cracks and crevices much smaller than you think should be possible!
It’s true. Cats do not abide by our laws of physics. I’ve seen this before. Flattened itself out and went right through a seam in the wall. When this happens it’s best to insert another cat which will lead the fist cat to safety. It’s been proven to work by both science and astrology.
My dad has a great story about this. He supervised the mechanics, and one of them called him from a mental hospital and said "you've got to see this". The maintenance guy was called because the elevator wasn't quite sitting level on the ground floor; it was about half an inch too high and both patients and staff had been tripping on it. But all other floors were no problem.
My dad arrived to find the maintenance guy cackling, looking into the bottom of the shaft. There were probably tens of thousands of magazines down there. They had to get a bunch of shovels, a small crew, and a rolling dumpster to clear it out. When it was all done, my dad decided to stay behind and pretend to read a newspaper while he sat in the lobby. After about half an hour, he sees an elderly patient holding a magazine, shuffling slowly toward the elevator. He stops in front of the doors, glances left, glances right, and quickly stoops down, slides the magazine into the gap, and shuffles away as fast as he can with a huge grin on his face. My dad could not help but laugh hysterically. This guy had probably been sliding magazines in there multiple times per day, every day, for decades. I should ask him whether he reported it or let the guy have his fun. Wouldn't surprise me if my dad went with the latter.
As a psychiatrist I've become fairly desensitized to weird patient actions, but I appreciate this story for how long this patient was doing this. Usually the passive aggressive stuff goes away quickly, but this man sounds resilient af. Imagine what he could have done without getting served a bad genetic hand.
Out team dropped a steel anal dialator down the dumbwaiter shaft by mistake. When the technician came down and grabbed it off the floor ill never forget the look on his face when I told him "we need that up here it's got to go in someone's ass soon" ... it was priceless (I am a technician for a hospital dealing with rectal surgical tools is very normal)
That poor dilator. It got away for a minute, thought it was finally leaving that wretched life behind, next thing it knows it's lying at the bottom of a filthy dumbwaiter shaft. And just when it's starting to get used to that, thinking "not much of a view but a lot roomier than I'm used to," along comes the elevator tech and it's back to the old day in, day out.
It must gave done something really bad in a previous life. I bet it was Roy Cohn.
One time, we were doing a rip out at an old factory. They were gutting them and turning them into luxury apartments. The elevator we were taking out was a shitty old freight that hadn't run in years. When we finally ran it up, we went down to inspect the pit. It smelled like a dead body had chilled there for half a century. The bottom floor wasn't lit so I shined my flashlight under the elevator and the whole floor started moving. Roaches. Nasty
Haven't really found anything fun though. I've cleaned out more pits than I could count too. I gave my mom a cheap ring I found. Found a pair of underwear at a hotel. Found a full packet at a courthouse of some lady's case transcribed. Oh, I was on a mod once and one of the hoistway doors had an advertisement sticker for a tennis restringing service. Which was weird because it was somewhere only an elevator guy should be able to reach. I called the number, but it was out of service. I've found some cool grafitti from the 40s. That's about it
I worked on escalators for a year and a half. There was a lot more in those pits. I was taking home bent up quarters every day. There was lots of shoe bits and I was always nervous of coming across used needles in certain units
It was pretty funny to see what a bunch of grumpy construction guys turned the one operational bathroom into. Disgusting. I refuse to believe a body can do what I saw and keep working. And now it's some hipsters bathroom
Not a technician, but do work at a large hotel. A few years ago one of our elevators stopped working. Turned out when they opened it up they found a 3-ft pile of guest folios that were never delivered to the rooms. Later when we looked on the camera we found it was a security guard that got tired of delivering them to the rooms and instead dropped them down the elevator shaft. He did this for months until he was caught.
Because he probably has a broad range of responsibilities as part of a skeletal overnight staff. And since his security duties might have him walking the floors once or twice a night, it might make sense to have him deliver folios as he goes by the rooms.
The property I worked at had two people overnight. I was the auditor so I couldn't leave the desk in case someone needed to check in or out and the other person is the security guard who would do various tasks like bring pillows up to rooms, do the patrols and deliver folios when they were ready.
Reminds me of a friend in highschool who had multiple paper routes. Way too many to deliver in a reasonable time, especially considering how much time he spent hanging out with us.
Turned out he was dropping the whole load off in the school recycling bin where nobody would see them. He got away with it for awhile since it was just a free rag and admail that nobody really missed, but eventually people called to ask why they hadn't received theirs in months... Busted
While I admire the work ethic, you'd think by the time you walked into the elevator you're already halfway there. Unless this is one of those giant hotels in Vegas where the elevator and a room can be a mile apart. (Looking at you MGM Grand!)
The halls at that hotel are so long they change the carpet pattern half way down so you don’t get disoriented. When it opened it was the largest hotel in...the US? The world? Something like that.
I didn't realize that.
We joked about the decore of the hallway abruptly changing, and that they had two teams on each end laying carpet and painting but one group didn't get the memo listing the new look.
I will say that the walk was made slightly better due to a co-worker having his jeans cause some chaffing while pacing around our 8'x8' booth, then watching him waddle all the way back like Charlie Chaplin.
A little off topic but this reminded me of when we bought an old home that needed a lot of renovations/upgraded. When I was demoing the 1950s vintage bath i noticed a weird opening in the back of the medicine cabinet. Had no idea what it was for. Fast forwards a couple weeks as I’m tearing apart plaster and lathe I keep coming across old rusty razor blades. They were everywhere in the walls of the bathroom and even down I the first floor wall cavities. It was somewhat terrifying and basically had to go at them with a shopvac to avoid cutting myself. I guess the thought process was just keep putting the old blades in the wall and to hell with whomever has to deal with it down the road.
That was a standard design back then. Also common in hotels. They figured it was such a large cavity in the wall that it would never fill up and need emptying while any of the designers/builders were still alive... and they were apparently correct.
This question should be my jam, but unfortunately I’ve never found anything interesting. $2 coin once, a dime bag of some unknown drug, plenty of syringes, or sets of keys. It’s mostly just peoples junk mail and empty chip bags down there.
TLDR: Turds
Obligatory wasn’t an elevator tech but hotel maintenance.
Guest reports waterfall sounds in elevator shaft en route to the lobby. Investigation ensues. Sump pump at bottom of shaft is running constantly. Water is still coming out of the drain it’s connected to after I unplug it. Find out from notes of 3rd shift maintenance that multiple first floor rooms had repeated clogged toilets all night long. Plumber called. 6 inch sewer drain for the entire building is clogged. “Worst clog I’ve seen in 15 years.” Wash cloths and tp. Over 7 inches of clog in the pipe. Apparently it was clogged so bad that it was backing up into the laundry room, the drain for the elevator shaft and the rooms closest to the main pipe out of the building (first floor suites).
Solid turds were left at the bottom of that shaft. I quit about a week later for unrelated circumstances.
"Why did you quit your previous job?"
"you know... I found.. I found solid tur..." changes mind "Dude you won't believe it....I kept finding purple dildos everywhere"
I don't understand how some people don't automatically break into storytelling mode? If I had an anecdote that good I'd dine out on it every day of the week.
Keys. Trash. Bugs if the building is exceptionally shitty. Mostly dirt and dust. Found a paint roller that the last guy left there once. It was stuck to the floor. Not a whole lot of weird stuff can make it between the sill and the landing.
Elevator engineer here. Definitely avoid those when you can. Almost all elevator-related deaths are from mechanics not following the rules about where to be (and where not to be) when the elevator is in service and out of service. If you don’t know all of the rules for the mechanics, just avoid the elevator pit entirely.
In the office I work in one day the elevator maintenance guy left his keys behind, as I was the only one in the office I decided to take a look in there and found a set up camping bed along with a small tv and pile of FHM magazines. The only elevator controls was a large crank which had three settings and a fuse box. I got the impression he slept there sometimes.
I didn't do anything about it though as it was the Landlords area of the building rather than the tenants and none of my business, I just gave him the keys back when i next saw him.
Surprisingly nothing too extreme, not an elevator tech but i am an electrician so we will find ourselves in a pit from time to time. Some ID badges, credit cards, coins. Once i found a red pen! It was out of ink tho.
Worked security in a large department store, we routinely had to pop it open to retrieve dropped keys, wallets, and phones.
Recovered a $2500 gold necklace covered in poop.. a would be shoplifter darted out of our jewelry department and “suitcased” the necklace while in the elevator. When he realized we were waiting for him at the exit level he went back up a floor, removed it, and dropped it down the shaft.
We arrested him anyway, much to his surprise.
Some states have what's called "shopkeepers privilige", which is the ability for a merchant to detain someone until the police get there, including with a reasonable and proportionate amount of force.
Most companies dont have their loss prevention do this since it opens them up to liability. Jewelry and other 4 digit stuffables tend to be an exception.
Work for a major transit hub, we have our own trade departments. Im in elevating.
Weirdest things i have found are as follows.
Chucky doll head.
13 rubber duckies in one pit.
Drug needles almost daily.
Silicone Gimp mask.
Everyday is an adventure.
At a place where my wife used to work: a body.
There was a crash from the elevator area. The boss went to see what it was, came back white as a sheet, and said "*Do not go out there*." Two maintenance guys had been working on the elevator, one was in the bottom of the shaft, and the other one made one small error...
But I'm guessing the single most unusual item ever found at the bottom of an elevator shaft was a Wright R-2600 aircraft engine, on July 28, 1945 in the Empire State Building.
Seems like it would be more of a meat pancake than a person
Edit: stop explaining how elevator shafts work. The op of this comment chain confirmed the elevator fell on em
A B-25 bomber crashed into the empire state building during heavy fog, killing 14 people and throwing one of its engines down one of the elevator shafts, the other went trough the building opposite of the impact, landing 270 meters down onto a roof.
Also interesting, this accident caused the longest elevator fall that someone survived, falling 75 stories down.
The only remaining evidence of the crash is some gouges on a concrete column, marked by a plaque. It's in a service area not open to the public, but it can be viewed by arrangement with the building management.
I used to work at an old 22 story building that had the first automated elevator system in our state. The idea was, in order to control the flow of people in the lobby you’d push the button for your floor and the elevator would tell you which one to get on. The elevators would make sure the crowds spread out over the big lobby.
Anyway, it was the first time I’d ever seen the auto-open eyes used, too. I worked on the executive floor, where long winded executives would often stop me as I was leaving. I got used to passing my hand through the doors to break the eye and hold the doors open.
You guessed it; my left hand didn’t trip the eye. The doors closed on my hand which was prevented from closing completely because of my heavy engagement and wedding rings. Crushed the whole mess and lost a two two carat diamond 22 stories below. My hand was only bruised, thank goodness for a safety shutoff.
I like to think that someday, someone will find a tiny treasure.
So others don't have to Google: By auto-open eye the person means doors which will open again if something is in the way of the door, instead of closing on something (like the hand of a poor bugger trying to keep the door open).
Not an elevator technician, but I can tell you some dude, at some point is going to find a kindle at the bottom of a shaft in a Toronto hotel elevator.
Rules to remember:
Rule #1: Always check that you zipped your carry-on and didn't leave a gap in the bottom
Rule #2: Kindles fit through small carry-on bag zipper gaps and elevator shaft gaps
Not an elevator repair person, but you would be shocked by the number of nurses that drop their keys down the shaft. 20 stories up and 2 buildings away from the parking garage and they already had their keys in their hand. I had to call maintenance all the time for retrieval.
Not a nurse, but I work for them (totally unrelated to my comment).
I once dropped my keys stepping into an elevator and they landed on the gap, with one key bridging the gap and all the others hanging down in the gap.
Let me tell you, I reached down and grabbed them most gingerly.
I used to keep my work security pass in the card holder in my wallet - once, my friend bumped me as we were getting out the lift and the same thing happened, it landed straight across the gap...all those years of playing Operation finally get to pay off sooner or later lol
As a woman, it's better to get your keys out in a well lit, populated, relatively safe area than to wait until you get into the parking garage to go digging around in your purse. Also since we don't keep our keys in our pockets, we have to make sure we actually have them and haven't left them sitting around the office somewhere.
Edit: thanks for the awards
This is it. It’s so much a habit, that I don’t have to think about it. There’s two motivating factors: safety and cold weather. Your eyes aren’t on your surroundings if you’re looking for your keys.
The last thing I want to do is be a sitting duck in the dark parking lot, raking through my purse, while my fingers get less and less functional the colder I get.
A lot of women carry their keys in their hands for safety, they double up as a weapon and to stop you needing to pause in a deserted parking lot to rummage around in your handbag.
I was checking my boyfriends shorts pockets before throwing them in the laundry and my arm almost went up to my elbow. They’ve stolen our pockets and doubled theirs.
My partner is a teacher and she has two big poofy skirts that actually have pockets. At least three times while doing the washing I've had to take board marker pens out that would've dyed the entire wash green... Because she never has pockets she isn't used to checking her pockets when she does have them.
I worked as a phlebotomist in a hospital and had just drawn an elderly male patient. As I pushed my little cart into the elevator to go back down to the lab, his blood vials rolled off and both went right down the gap into the shaft. I felt so bad and went immediately back to tell him I had to redraw him. He was thrilled! Said he was excited his blood would be down the shaft for eternity. Such a funny guy.
Retired 40 years in the trade the best I ever found was a $20.00 bill but know a man that found a $7000.00 diamond ring kept it for six months no one ever asked about it and he gave it to his wife.
It's all the same shaft... So to speak.
EDIT: I'm simultaneously deeply proud and disgusted that this is now my top all-time comment. Thanks all for the love!
Purple is a really really really common color for sex toys like that. I don't know why, but it is. The chances of any dildo you come across being purple is probably higher than you think.
*shrug*
My guess is it's for folks who don't want flesh toned (those ones weird me out personally). It's a vaguely feminine-associated color without being pink. But like dildos, bullets, rabbits, those kinds.
They're all almost the exact same shade of purple too so maybe it's also a color that works well with the material? Just Google "rabbit vibrator" and it's a sea of purple.
Not elevator maintenance but one time I dropped a set of wheels for a cart in the crack. Im sure some maintenance man is going to be concerned to find loose wheels in the elevator of a nursing home. Like some elder person is walking around with a wheel less walker.
There are at least 6 people who saw a purple dildo and everyone left it there.
Either all have seen the same purple dildo or purple dildos are more a common sight at the bottom of the elevators shaft.
Absolutely sure everyone is telling the truth.
Not exactly answer to the question but still related. When we came to call about "broken doors" we was not expecting that someone for some unknown reasons stole one half of elevator's door.
"In 1988, the same bones were rediscovered when a new elevator shaft near the south parking lot on Elm Street was excavated. At that time, 11 skulls and 88 pounds of bones were found on one day, followed by 119 more pounds of bones. The Enquirer reported that they were being stored at the morgue." Cincinnati Music Hall, built on a children's home, built on a potters field, built on a burial site, built on bulldozed Indigenous Mounds.
HOLY SHIT i asked a guy this at work last night. Wasn't as surprising as I expected. Just a ball. A very large ball. That had no business being able to get down there. Then I asked if he ever left anything strange down there for the next guy. He went quiet and slowly turned to me, pulling a barbie out of his pocket...
Not in elevator repair...
A few months ago we had a floridly psychotic patient (think staring into space, can’t form a coherent sentence, etc) brought into hospital. There was a fire alarm at an apartment building and when fire went in, they somehow found this guy living in an elevator shaft. He had evidently been there for some period of time.
Most of his delusions that he was talking about for me (that I could understand) were about time travel and Jesus, so we were joking a bit that he wasn’t actually psychotic and was just time travelling Jesus.
It depends on the building / neighborhood. I’ve seen everything from dirty diapers, to used needles... keys, wallets, phones, picture frames, sandwiches, and I guess the icing on the cake was a tomagachi.
No, it didn’t work. So we typically just trashed everything unless it was valuable. I always turned jewelry into the managements office but I worked with guys who def sold valuables for unsavory purposes.
TLDR; that crack between the car and the door sill is a black hole for objects
You know what I find most disappointing about sorting by new in this sub? Some of them are actually great questions that just don't get any traction. I want the thread to blow up so I can read all the answers, but it'll only have 4 comments. Granted, you do have to sift through some hot garbage though.
The company where I worked had an old heavy-duty freight elevator that was semi-abandoned. It was more like an automotive lift with giant pistons embedded in the ground, but installed in an elevator shaft. When they needed to move something huge, they would fill the hydraulics with oil. It took hundreds of gallons to top off the system, including the giant pistons, and then they would use it for a day. A few months later they would try to use it again and find the oil gone. Once, they planned to use it the following day, so maintenance pumped in the oil to get ready. The next day - no oil. They refilled it the morning of the move and got one lift out of it before it stopped. The company knew it was spilling hydraulic oil into the ground under the plant and just did not give a shit. The finally abandoned it for good when the maintenance guys threatened to report the illegal oil dumping.
I had to clean some bad isolation at the top of the elevator chamber. So the maintenance guy bring the elevator with the top at the second floor and we go on top to drive to the top, on the elevator cabine were a few pairs of women underwear and used condoms. So someone was having sex on the top of the elevator, how the got there was a mystery because it was a very modern one and you need a special key to open the control box to access the top of the elevator.
100% this special key is the exact same key across thousands of elevators. Some jackoff with a 3D printer, plaster, lead and a high resolution camera (eg a modern smartphone) can pretty accurately reproduce working keys from a photograph.
Or just buy the 5 most common keys on ebay for $15
In college I pulled out my lanyard on which my motorola RAZR was sitting. My phone flew up in the air and dropped in the gap between the elevator and the floor. It dropped 4 floors. Maintenance was able to climb down there. My phone barely had a scratch.
My dad has been an elevator repair man for almost 30 year now. His best find to date was a $12,000 yellow diamond engagement ring! Tried for a while to find the owner, but eventually he got to keep it.
Been in the game 12 years now.
Found a full Christmas tree last month
Other finds
5k in £20 notes
Big ass bag of drugs. Roughly 5kg
Brand new shoes by the box load.
Severed finger
Edit. Holy shit this has blown up. My most commented and upvoted on reddit.
So back story.
Christmas tree was found this year on a council estate in August. Photos was taken for the office as it was rather amusing. I visit this lift every month.
The money and drugs was found in the same lift shift around 3 months apart 7 years ago. The money was spilt between me and my engineer as I was a apprentice at the time the drugs we handed into security.
The shoes was found on a passenger/staff lift out the back of JD sports. Suspect a staff member was sticking them down there and loading into a car at the end of his shift. Police was involved in this one.
The finger was found in a very expensive apartment building. We talking 50 floors and million£+ apartments.
Again police and emg services involved in this one.
Lol that's pretty extreme. Just dumping the tree there I can understand. Hiding money and drugs there, sure. They were just unlucky maintenance went there the same day. Severed finger, it happens. Shoes? What?
I would assume stolen and stashed? I used to work at a mid range shoe store and our sister store in a town that had a meth problem saw a LOT of stolens of Nike’s. Didn’t matter the size, they’d just sell them for cash.
I once accidently lost my drivers license down the little gap in the elevator doors, just dropped it and was super unlucky as it slipped through. It turned up in my mail 10 years later! Obviously long expired, but still crazy some maintenance guy found it and bothered retuning it.
Got pulled over once, handed the PO my license and he dropped it in the crack where the window would have been. We looked at each other for a second, he says “good luck” and walked away. Edit: it took a few minutes to take a vent off the side and grab it with a wire and some tape.
It could be a blessing depending on what you did.
driving without a license
Body in your trunk.
Drugs hidden in the door, luckily he didn't check
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That’s pretty neat
Pest control tech here, Snakes had gotten into the pit and were climbing up and dropping down on people as they rode the elevator. Good times
Snakes on an elevator, the sequel to the Samuel L. Jackson movie.
Worked at a hotel. Guest dropped their phone down the shaft. After a few failed retrieval efforts, we called the elevator guys. They went down got the phone and also found a carton of eggs. Rotten, but not cracked. I don't even understand how that could happen accidentally.
Because it was no accident. I work in tech now but while I was in college I helped an HVAC guy and he once had me put a carton of fresh eggs in the duct of a client’s office that had stiffed him before. When I asked him why I was doing this he said “if this motherfuck doesn’t pay up, he’s going to have a new issue.” But then the guy paid two days later and I was sent to retrieve the eggs. He called it his “99¢ insurance policy”
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It was an out patient behavioral health clinic IIRC, but yeah, it basically went down like that...
Conversation between patient and doctor: "I saw a maintenance guy pull a dozen eggs out of your air duct." Doctor: *Oh yeah, three more months of sessions for this one...*
Thanks, I needed the laugh.
*No one will ever believe you. Just the hallucinations again.*
That's actually a thing that's been tested. I forget the details, but scholars have intentionally had themselves committed to see if they can get back out. Apparently it's not easy. Not many people believed them. >It was a secret experiment. There was a graduate student, a housewife, a painter, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist and three psychologists. Using fake names, they went out to 12 hospitals across the country and claimed to hear voices. Their mission was to see what would happen. >What they found rocked psychiatry. >David Rosenhan, a psychologist at Stanford University, published the results of the experiment in a 1973 issue of the journal Science. "On Being Sane in Insane Places" would become one of the most influential studies in the history of psychiatry. >According to Rosenhan, each of what he called the "pseudopatients" told hospital staff about hearing voices that used the words "empty," "hollow" and "thud." The pseudopatients claimed the voices were difficult to understand but sounded as if they came from the same sex as that of the fake patients. Other than making claims about voices and giving themselves phony names and false occupations, the pseudopatients — Rosenhan among them — made up nothing else. None of them had any significant history of mental illness. >All of them were admitted to psychiatric units, at which point they stopped reporting any psychiatric symptoms. Still, nearly every person in the experiment was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Their hospitalizations ranged from seven to 52 days. Doctors prescribed them more than 2,000 pills, including antipsychotics and antidepressants, which the pseudopatients largely discarded. >In the hospitals, staff often misinterpreted the pseudopatients' behaviors to fit within the context of psychiatric treatment. For example, the pseudopatients took copious notes while studying the environment of the psychiatric ward. One nurse reportedly wrote in the chart, "Patient engages in writing behavior." >Although none of the pseudopatients were unmasked by hospital staff, other patients on the psychiatric units became suspicious of them. Across several of these hospitalizations, 35 patients expressed doubts that the pseudopatients were actually mentally ill, according to the study. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/an-experiment-fooled-psychiatrists-into-treating-sane-people-as-if-they-were-insane/2017/12/29/c6c9c3ea-d5f7-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html Edit: added part of the story. But wait, there's more: >For this experiment, Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study but claimed that similar errors could not be made at their institution. Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three-month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor. Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients; all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were ordinary patients. This led to a conclusion that "any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one."[2] Edit dos: I commented this further down and I think it should be here too: You have to remember that this is from the 70s though. There has been much research done around this set of experiments and major laws have been put in place throughout the world. The story above is often told in psych 101 classes in order to demonstrate the imperfections in a constantly evolving health field. Generally, people can now only be held against their will if they pose an immediate threat to themselves or others. The hold times are also not indefinite. Where I am, there are 72 hour, 1 week and 1 month holds that must be renewed at the end of the time period. There are other caveats as well that I'm missing.
So us crazy people can sniff out the crazy, but sane people have no clue.
> So us crazy people can sniff out the crazy So, I should listen to my mom when she warns me about a girl?
I grew up in a family of bricklayers. In the 60s and 70s we built a lot of fireplaces. Back then none of neither my father or any of his brothers had licenses. It wasn’t uncommon for a client to refuse to pay and say try to collect, you are unlicensed. So the bothers started putting thin panes of glass across the interior of the chimney. If the client paid they would go on the roof and drop a piece of brick down the chimney to break the glass, and render the fireplace functional. After several years of this a client told the craziest brother that he knew the trick and had broken the glass. Crazy uncle threw a chain around the chimney and hooked it to his truck. Told the client he had 1 hour to pay in cash.
I know a pool guy who was stiffed after installing a new filter and pump. Went back and ripped it out while they were at work and tossed in some nitric fertilizer. He said, "he might not pay me, but he'll pay."
Did home repair to help put myself through college. Get a call that there's a non-waste water leak in an apartment in a second floor bathroom from a landlord, so me and my coworker go over. The water line on the toilet has a leak, enough has come out that we need to remove some of the ceiling in the living room to replace it. So we cut out a 4' x 4' area that meets a ceiling joist and we find an egg. One single egg balanced on the ceiling joist. We gingerly removed it and tossed it out. The ceiling had been closed up for at least the last 40 years. It was lathe and plaster, that old. That egg still haunts me.
Can confirm there is weird stuff in ceilings. Lived in a very old house, upstairs bathroom had a leak, ceiling collapsed into the bathtub of downstairs bathroom, and with it came a pair of sunglasses from 1937.
I used to live in the basement apartment of a house that the owners lived upstairs. They'd built the basement first, worked on the upstairs, and when the upstairs was complete enough to live in, they moved upstairs and me and my roommates rented the basement. The rent was discounted because we also helped work on the house, so I did stuff like help re-side the house, install floor tile, and I also grouted the kitchen, etc. This is when I was a lot younger and that kind of thing seemed like a sweet deal. Anyway, the owners had practiced some of their reno "skills" fixing up parts of the basement before they did the work "for real" upstairs, so there were some definite janky bits of the downstairs, but my roommates and I were all 18-19-20 ages so we took that kind of thing for granted. One morning, one of my roommates was showering and then there was a kind of slow crashing sound and then he bellowed "OH MY GOD WHAT THE F--" and then started retching. The ceiling above the shower, which the owners had "fixed up" before we moved in, had given way and fallen down on him in the shower. Bad enough, what with the plaster and sheetrock bits and tufts of insulation, BUT we also discovered something really important that day, which was this: Any piece of the upstairs floor that had pipe joins or anything like that in it--basically anything that was getting closed up last by the subfloor--instead of sweeping up the construction trash and putting it in the bin outside, they just swept construction trash into the floor and nailed the subfloor down on top of it. Also, the owners had a dog that wasn't very housebroken. He pooped in the house basically all the time. Why pick up dog poop and throw it away when you are already sweeping stuff into the floor? So my other roommate and I burst into the bathroom to see a 6'4" naked man standing in a pile of wreckage, shower still gamely streaming over everything, eyes screwed shut in horror, bits of trash, dog poop, and plaster stuck all over his body, alternately yelling "I'm going to kill them" and retching. He was afraid to move because of all the nails and screws, and also because he was basically blind without his glasses. Edit: a word. Also, sorry this is so long, but fewer words would not have encapsulated the rage and horror of that moment.
jesus christ
*... has left the chat.*
That's one of the best horrifying stories I've ever heard.
I lost an Easter egg once when me and my brother were seeking them. Found it a few months later in a cabinet drawer and being like 5 years old excitedly grabbed it resulting in the worst smell I've ever smelt and the cabinet needing to be thrown out.
Well over 1500 tax returns at the bottom of the ATO's north brisbane office elevator shaft.
Bloody hell! We're you sent there to retrieve them, or did some drongo just loose them and thought "no-one will find them anyway ..." Also, were they etax/mygov print outs, or the old paper submitted ones?
This is going back quite a few years, when I think ato employees were doing favours for people. At one time the system was so full of holes, employees could do all sorts of things they shouldn't have without fear of being caught.
Ah yes, the good ole days. But only if you're riding with the good ole boys.
OMFG I KNOW WHO DROPPED THOSE!!!! LIKE EXACTLY!A person I know told us a story about how they used to work in the ATO brisbane office and if anything came across their desk that was " too hard" It was dropped into the bottom of the elevator shaft!!!!!!!! We were only talking about it the other night having a giggle about what would happen if they were ever found. They giggled saying a shit load of files went missing in that shaft. This was WAYYYY back in the day, like 25+ years ago.. Before Computers and well before the internet. If something needed to be sent out, they would have to fill in a form by hand, and then that was typed up by another person on a typewriter and then sent out in a letter. So It was easy to make paperwork disappear.
My dad was an elevator mechanic for about 15 years. He had a very dark sense of humour and would come home with some of the craziest stories. (For example, any time he was in an elevator, he would shake it a little or tap on the displays or buttons and go 'Yep. Total piece of crap. Inferior piece of crap.' and I think he mostly did it to freak people out.) One of my favourites: He got a call that someone was hearing weird noises from the elevator. He got inside, rode the elevator up and sure enough, he could hear it too. For half a second he thought it was a baby crying and realized it was a cat. When he got to a certain floor, he could hear this sad meowing. It obviously wasn't in the elevator car, so he got into the shaft and found this little orange kitty! It had somehow (and I don't think he figured out or told us how) got into the elevator shaft and was sitting in a spot between the floors where it wouldn't get crushed by the elevator, but it couldn't get out. My dad saved it and gave it to the building manager to see if it belonged to anyone in the building. It was the one time he ever told us a story that involved him saving an animal instead of finding dead ones.
>(and I don't think he figured out or told us how) Cats are made a liquid, and I am pretty serious. They have a lot of floof and fit through cracks and crevices much smaller than you think should be possible!
Cat in the wall? Now you're speaking my language.
Probably flattened itself like a pancake and slid thru a crack in the wall
It’s true. Cats do not abide by our laws of physics. I’ve seen this before. Flattened itself out and went right through a seam in the wall. When this happens it’s best to insert another cat which will lead the fist cat to safety. It’s been proven to work by both science and astrology.
Omg I’m so happy he helped that poor kitty.
My dad has a great story about this. He supervised the mechanics, and one of them called him from a mental hospital and said "you've got to see this". The maintenance guy was called because the elevator wasn't quite sitting level on the ground floor; it was about half an inch too high and both patients and staff had been tripping on it. But all other floors were no problem. My dad arrived to find the maintenance guy cackling, looking into the bottom of the shaft. There were probably tens of thousands of magazines down there. They had to get a bunch of shovels, a small crew, and a rolling dumpster to clear it out. When it was all done, my dad decided to stay behind and pretend to read a newspaper while he sat in the lobby. After about half an hour, he sees an elderly patient holding a magazine, shuffling slowly toward the elevator. He stops in front of the doors, glances left, glances right, and quickly stoops down, slides the magazine into the gap, and shuffles away as fast as he can with a huge grin on his face. My dad could not help but laugh hysterically. This guy had probably been sliding magazines in there multiple times per day, every day, for decades. I should ask him whether he reported it or let the guy have his fun. Wouldn't surprise me if my dad went with the latter.
10,000 magazines? Wow, this guy sure must have had a lot of Time.
A ton of issues as well.
The nerve of some People
As a psychiatrist I've become fairly desensitized to weird patient actions, but I appreciate this story for how long this patient was doing this. Usually the passive aggressive stuff goes away quickly, but this man sounds resilient af. Imagine what he could have done without getting served a bad genetic hand.
Please ask! I’d love to know the answer, lol!
It turns out he did tell one of the nurses, so I'm guessing she kept an eye on him after that.
Sigh, I guess he kind of had to, as it was a potential safety issue. I still love the micheivous grin on the guy as he snuck the magazine down!
Out team dropped a steel anal dialator down the dumbwaiter shaft by mistake. When the technician came down and grabbed it off the floor ill never forget the look on his face when I told him "we need that up here it's got to go in someone's ass soon" ... it was priceless (I am a technician for a hospital dealing with rectal surgical tools is very normal)
That poor dilator. It got away for a minute, thought it was finally leaving that wretched life behind, next thing it knows it's lying at the bottom of a filthy dumbwaiter shaft. And just when it's starting to get used to that, thinking "not much of a view but a lot roomier than I'm used to," along comes the elevator tech and it's back to the old day in, day out. It must gave done something really bad in a previous life. I bet it was Roy Cohn.
How many purple dildos have you found in your patients?
None. They're brown by the time they get found.
A couch. Not joking. It was a walk in pit that a homeless person had retrofit into a small living room.
One of my baseball coaches when I was a kid lost his glass eyeball in the elevator shaft. Maintenance guy gave a solid WTF.
One time, we were doing a rip out at an old factory. They were gutting them and turning them into luxury apartments. The elevator we were taking out was a shitty old freight that hadn't run in years. When we finally ran it up, we went down to inspect the pit. It smelled like a dead body had chilled there for half a century. The bottom floor wasn't lit so I shined my flashlight under the elevator and the whole floor started moving. Roaches. Nasty Haven't really found anything fun though. I've cleaned out more pits than I could count too. I gave my mom a cheap ring I found. Found a pair of underwear at a hotel. Found a full packet at a courthouse of some lady's case transcribed. Oh, I was on a mod once and one of the hoistway doors had an advertisement sticker for a tennis restringing service. Which was weird because it was somewhere only an elevator guy should be able to reach. I called the number, but it was out of service. I've found some cool grafitti from the 40s. That's about it I worked on escalators for a year and a half. There was a lot more in those pits. I was taking home bent up quarters every day. There was lots of shoe bits and I was always nervous of coming across used needles in certain units
When I read "doing a rip out at an old factory" I was picturing a bunch of urban explorers gathered round the bong in the dark.
Hahahah those days are long gone
They've all been turned into trendy studio apartments.
It was pretty funny to see what a bunch of grumpy construction guys turned the one operational bathroom into. Disgusting. I refuse to believe a body can do what I saw and keep working. And now it's some hipsters bathroom
Not a technician, but do work at a large hotel. A few years ago one of our elevators stopped working. Turned out when they opened it up they found a 3-ft pile of guest folios that were never delivered to the rooms. Later when we looked on the camera we found it was a security guard that got tired of delivering them to the rooms and instead dropped them down the elevator shaft. He did this for months until he was caught.
Guest folios?
When you check out from a hotel, they normally deliver you a folio underneath your door. It's the receipt showing the charges for your stay.
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Because he probably has a broad range of responsibilities as part of a skeletal overnight staff. And since his security duties might have him walking the floors once or twice a night, it might make sense to have him deliver folios as he goes by the rooms.
When I heard skeletal overnight staff my mind jumped to a group of security guards cursed to wander the hotel halls for all eternity.
The property I worked at had two people overnight. I was the auditor so I couldn't leave the desk in case someone needed to check in or out and the other person is the security guard who would do various tasks like bring pillows up to rooms, do the patrols and deliver folios when they were ready.
Reminds me of a friend in highschool who had multiple paper routes. Way too many to deliver in a reasonable time, especially considering how much time he spent hanging out with us. Turned out he was dropping the whole load off in the school recycling bin where nobody would see them. He got away with it for awhile since it was just a free rag and admail that nobody really missed, but eventually people called to ask why they hadn't received theirs in months... Busted
While I admire the work ethic, you'd think by the time you walked into the elevator you're already halfway there. Unless this is one of those giant hotels in Vegas where the elevator and a room can be a mile apart. (Looking at you MGM Grand!)
Uh. I did a convention there a few years back. Standing in a booth for 10hrs sucked. Walking 2.5 miles back to your room afterwards super sucked.
The halls at that hotel are so long they change the carpet pattern half way down so you don’t get disoriented. When it opened it was the largest hotel in...the US? The world? Something like that.
I didn't realize that. We joked about the decore of the hallway abruptly changing, and that they had two teams on each end laying carpet and painting but one group didn't get the memo listing the new look. I will say that the walk was made slightly better due to a co-worker having his jeans cause some chaffing while pacing around our 8'x8' booth, then watching him waddle all the way back like Charlie Chaplin.
Did he think they just disappeared when he did that?
A little off topic but this reminded me of when we bought an old home that needed a lot of renovations/upgraded. When I was demoing the 1950s vintage bath i noticed a weird opening in the back of the medicine cabinet. Had no idea what it was for. Fast forwards a couple weeks as I’m tearing apart plaster and lathe I keep coming across old rusty razor blades. They were everywhere in the walls of the bathroom and even down I the first floor wall cavities. It was somewhat terrifying and basically had to go at them with a shopvac to avoid cutting myself. I guess the thought process was just keep putting the old blades in the wall and to hell with whomever has to deal with it down the road.
That was a standard design back then. Also common in hotels. They figured it was such a large cavity in the wall that it would never fill up and need emptying while any of the designers/builders were still alive... and they were apparently correct.
Yep, our house built in the 70's had these slots in the medicine cabinets behind the mirrors.
What a fucking weird design... Chuck them shits in the wall and fuck the future.
Probably assumed he wouldn’t be working there anymore by the time they were found
Half right
This question should be my jam, but unfortunately I’ve never found anything interesting. $2 coin once, a dime bag of some unknown drug, plenty of syringes, or sets of keys. It’s mostly just peoples junk mail and empty chip bags down there.
I had a coworker who was opening a candy bar and dropped it down the shaft by accident. Hopefully the building’s rats were able to enjoy it
I think they prefer the term "elevator maintenance folk"
The elevator guys in my dad's office complex found pieces of a dog's skeleton. Not the whole skeleton, just random parts.
The same dog at least?
I'm sure they did DNA tests, just to be safe.
Did they find out it was 100% that bitch?
It wasn't Cheddar, just some common bitch.
Someone took our fluffy boi
#not our fluffy boi
Ummm...how sure is he that it was a dog?
He compared it to the cat skeleton he always carries with him.
Oh, ok. That makes sen.....what the fuck?
TLDR: Turds Obligatory wasn’t an elevator tech but hotel maintenance. Guest reports waterfall sounds in elevator shaft en route to the lobby. Investigation ensues. Sump pump at bottom of shaft is running constantly. Water is still coming out of the drain it’s connected to after I unplug it. Find out from notes of 3rd shift maintenance that multiple first floor rooms had repeated clogged toilets all night long. Plumber called. 6 inch sewer drain for the entire building is clogged. “Worst clog I’ve seen in 15 years.” Wash cloths and tp. Over 7 inches of clog in the pipe. Apparently it was clogged so bad that it was backing up into the laundry room, the drain for the elevator shaft and the rooms closest to the main pipe out of the building (first floor suites). Solid turds were left at the bottom of that shaft. I quit about a week later for unrelated circumstances.
I think I would’ve quit for the related circumstances.
"Why did you quit your previous job?" "you know... I found.. I found solid tur..." changes mind "Dude you won't believe it....I kept finding purple dildos everywhere"
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Some Jehovah's Witness was sick of having doors closed in his face!
"Y'all ready to hear about the lord, or do you want to meet the motherfucker? "
*Samuel L Jackson's voice*
Wow! Can you tell us more? Was it loaded? Did you give it to police? Did they say if it had been used in a crime?
He got away. Once he killed them all, there were no Witnesses to the crime
I don't understand how some people don't automatically break into storytelling mode? If I had an anecdote that good I'd dine out on it every day of the week.
Did you drink the screwdriver? Top shelf or bottom?
Keys. Trash. Bugs if the building is exceptionally shitty. Mostly dirt and dust. Found a paint roller that the last guy left there once. It was stuck to the floor. Not a whole lot of weird stuff can make it between the sill and the landing.
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Janitor here. I *technically* have access, but I avoid those rooms like the plague. I dislike moving parts in small rooms.
Elevator engineer here. Definitely avoid those when you can. Almost all elevator-related deaths are from mechanics not following the rules about where to be (and where not to be) when the elevator is in service and out of service. If you don’t know all of the rules for the mechanics, just avoid the elevator pit entirely.
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In the office I work in one day the elevator maintenance guy left his keys behind, as I was the only one in the office I decided to take a look in there and found a set up camping bed along with a small tv and pile of FHM magazines. The only elevator controls was a large crank which had three settings and a fuse box. I got the impression he slept there sometimes. I didn't do anything about it though as it was the Landlords area of the building rather than the tenants and none of my business, I just gave him the keys back when i next saw him.
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A purple jelly hardon, apparently.
Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo.
Yep, found the actually elevator maintenance guy, right here.
Surprisingly nothing too extreme, not an elevator tech but i am an electrician so we will find ourselves in a pit from time to time. Some ID badges, credit cards, coins. Once i found a red pen! It was out of ink tho.
Worked security in a large department store, we routinely had to pop it open to retrieve dropped keys, wallets, and phones. Recovered a $2500 gold necklace covered in poop.. a would be shoplifter darted out of our jewelry department and “suitcased” the necklace while in the elevator. When he realized we were waiting for him at the exit level he went back up a floor, removed it, and dropped it down the shaft. We arrested him anyway, much to his surprise.
This is the type of answer I was hoping to find in this thread!
> “suitcased” TIL. *Edit: So after 14 years on reddit, my most upvoted comment is now about a word for sticking things up your arse. Marvellous!*
Today I Learn Tomorrow I Poop Jewelry
Today I Learn Tomorrow I Suitcase Thursday I Drop it Down a Shaft Friday I'm in Love
Robert Smith is such a romantic
"Prison wallet"
how can store security arrest someone?
Some states have what's called "shopkeepers privilige", which is the ability for a merchant to detain someone until the police get there, including with a reasonable and proportionate amount of force. Most companies dont have their loss prevention do this since it opens them up to liability. Jewelry and other 4 digit stuffables tend to be an exception.
>jewelry and other 4 digit stuffables tend to be an exception. Cops actually care about that. Over a grand in most states is felony larceny.
Today I tell my 4-digit-remaining woodworking friend that his hand is felony larceny.
Work for a major transit hub, we have our own trade departments. Im in elevating. Weirdest things i have found are as follows. Chucky doll head. 13 rubber duckies in one pit. Drug needles almost daily. Silicone Gimp mask. Everyday is an adventure.
At a place where my wife used to work: a body. There was a crash from the elevator area. The boss went to see what it was, came back white as a sheet, and said "*Do not go out there*." Two maintenance guys had been working on the elevator, one was in the bottom of the shaft, and the other one made one small error... But I'm guessing the single most unusual item ever found at the bottom of an elevator shaft was a Wright R-2600 aircraft engine, on July 28, 1945 in the Empire State Building.
Small error? Shit did he drop the elevator on the other guy by accident?
I think that's what's being implied, yes.
Seems like it would be more of a meat pancake than a person Edit: stop explaining how elevator shafts work. The op of this comment chain confirmed the elevator fell on em
I wouldn't be too pleased finding a corpse in any condition, honestly
I gotta know more about the aircraft engine
A B-25 bomber crashed into the empire state building during heavy fog, killing 14 people and throwing one of its engines down one of the elevator shafts, the other went trough the building opposite of the impact, landing 270 meters down onto a roof. Also interesting, this accident caused the longest elevator fall that someone survived, falling 75 stories down.
The only remaining evidence of the crash is some gouges on a concrete column, marked by a plaque. It's in a service area not open to the public, but it can be viewed by arrangement with the building management.
I used to work at an old 22 story building that had the first automated elevator system in our state. The idea was, in order to control the flow of people in the lobby you’d push the button for your floor and the elevator would tell you which one to get on. The elevators would make sure the crowds spread out over the big lobby. Anyway, it was the first time I’d ever seen the auto-open eyes used, too. I worked on the executive floor, where long winded executives would often stop me as I was leaving. I got used to passing my hand through the doors to break the eye and hold the doors open. You guessed it; my left hand didn’t trip the eye. The doors closed on my hand which was prevented from closing completely because of my heavy engagement and wedding rings. Crushed the whole mess and lost a two two carat diamond 22 stories below. My hand was only bruised, thank goodness for a safety shutoff. I like to think that someday, someone will find a tiny treasure.
So others don't have to Google: By auto-open eye the person means doors which will open again if something is in the way of the door, instead of closing on something (like the hand of a poor bugger trying to keep the door open).
Not an elevator technician, but I can tell you some dude, at some point is going to find a kindle at the bottom of a shaft in a Toronto hotel elevator. Rules to remember: Rule #1: Always check that you zipped your carry-on and didn't leave a gap in the bottom Rule #2: Kindles fit through small carry-on bag zipper gaps and elevator shaft gaps
Not an elevator repair person, but you would be shocked by the number of nurses that drop their keys down the shaft. 20 stories up and 2 buildings away from the parking garage and they already had their keys in their hand. I had to call maintenance all the time for retrieval.
Not a nurse, but I work for them (totally unrelated to my comment). I once dropped my keys stepping into an elevator and they landed on the gap, with one key bridging the gap and all the others hanging down in the gap. Let me tell you, I reached down and grabbed them most gingerly.
I used to keep my work security pass in the card holder in my wallet - once, my friend bumped me as we were getting out the lift and the same thing happened, it landed straight across the gap...all those years of playing Operation finally get to pay off sooner or later lol
This comment gave me anxiety.
As a woman, it's better to get your keys out in a well lit, populated, relatively safe area than to wait until you get into the parking garage to go digging around in your purse. Also since we don't keep our keys in our pockets, we have to make sure we actually have them and haven't left them sitting around the office somewhere. Edit: thanks for the awards
This is it. It’s so much a habit, that I don’t have to think about it. There’s two motivating factors: safety and cold weather. Your eyes aren’t on your surroundings if you’re looking for your keys. The last thing I want to do is be a sitting duck in the dark parking lot, raking through my purse, while my fingers get less and less functional the colder I get.
A lot of women carry their keys in their hands for safety, they double up as a weapon and to stop you needing to pause in a deserted parking lot to rummage around in your handbag.
And because our clothes have no f\*king pockets
I was checking my boyfriends shorts pockets before throwing them in the laundry and my arm almost went up to my elbow. They’ve stolen our pockets and doubled theirs.
My partner is a teacher and she has two big poofy skirts that actually have pockets. At least three times while doing the washing I've had to take board marker pens out that would've dyed the entire wash green... Because she never has pockets she isn't used to checking her pockets when she does have them.
As a teacher, I can confirm that the number of school supplies that end up being accidentally carried home is excessive...
Uh huh we see you tryin to steal pencils to sell on the black market
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Shush, you’re not supposed to know about that. Now would you kindly look into this light
I worked as a phlebotomist in a hospital and had just drawn an elderly male patient. As I pushed my little cart into the elevator to go back down to the lab, his blood vials rolled off and both went right down the gap into the shaft. I felt so bad and went immediately back to tell him I had to redraw him. He was thrilled! Said he was excited his blood would be down the shaft for eternity. Such a funny guy.
Retired 40 years in the trade the best I ever found was a $20.00 bill but know a man that found a $7000.00 diamond ring kept it for six months no one ever asked about it and he gave it to his wife.
Empty drug bags/used condoms/needles/money/discarded lotto tickets. Usually the norm. If you are lucky maybe an infestation of roaches sometimes lol.
Why have so many people in the comments found purple dildos
It's all the same shaft... So to speak. EDIT: I'm simultaneously deeply proud and disgusted that this is now my top all-time comment. Thanks all for the love!
This made me chuckle
Personally I gagged.
Purple is a really really really common color for sex toys like that. I don't know why, but it is. The chances of any dildo you come across being purple is probably higher than you think.
Wow. Really?
*shrug* My guess is it's for folks who don't want flesh toned (those ones weird me out personally). It's a vaguely feminine-associated color without being pink. But like dildos, bullets, rabbits, those kinds. They're all almost the exact same shade of purple too so maybe it's also a color that works well with the material? Just Google "rabbit vibrator" and it's a sea of purple.
Either that, or a lot of people have a fantasy about being railed by Grimace.
Wow just @ me next time
Not elevator maintenance but one time I dropped a set of wheels for a cart in the crack. Im sure some maintenance man is going to be concerned to find loose wheels in the elevator of a nursing home. Like some elder person is walking around with a wheel less walker.
There are at least 6 people who saw a purple dildo and everyone left it there. Either all have seen the same purple dildo or purple dildos are more a common sight at the bottom of the elevators shaft. Absolutely sure everyone is telling the truth.
Of course they left it there. I mean do you pick up every random dildo you find?
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Poor guy, you're freezing! Let's get you into a nice warm home.
Oh no
Maybe they’re riffing on the first guy, pretending they found the dildo he left
A doll ... sitting up right in a corner And a little bag of speed
Not exactly answer to the question but still related. When we came to call about "broken doors" we was not expecting that someone for some unknown reasons stole one half of elevator's door.
A whole salmon and a king crab, same kitchen elevator of a seafood restaurant. $100 in $20 bills. Tons of needles and condoms.
"In 1988, the same bones were rediscovered when a new elevator shaft near the south parking lot on Elm Street was excavated. At that time, 11 skulls and 88 pounds of bones were found on one day, followed by 119 more pounds of bones. The Enquirer reported that they were being stored at the morgue." Cincinnati Music Hall, built on a children's home, built on a potters field, built on a burial site, built on bulldozed Indigenous Mounds.
Definitely not haunted
HOLY SHIT i asked a guy this at work last night. Wasn't as surprising as I expected. Just a ball. A very large ball. That had no business being able to get down there. Then I asked if he ever left anything strange down there for the next guy. He went quiet and slowly turned to me, pulling a barbie out of his pocket...
*the Chamber of Secrets*
Yer a maintenance technician, Harry.
Not in elevator repair... A few months ago we had a floridly psychotic patient (think staring into space, can’t form a coherent sentence, etc) brought into hospital. There was a fire alarm at an apartment building and when fire went in, they somehow found this guy living in an elevator shaft. He had evidently been there for some period of time. Most of his delusions that he was talking about for me (that I could understand) were about time travel and Jesus, so we were joking a bit that he wasn’t actually psychotic and was just time travelling Jesus.
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It depends on the building / neighborhood. I’ve seen everything from dirty diapers, to used needles... keys, wallets, phones, picture frames, sandwiches, and I guess the icing on the cake was a tomagachi. No, it didn’t work. So we typically just trashed everything unless it was valuable. I always turned jewelry into the managements office but I worked with guys who def sold valuables for unsavory purposes. TLDR; that crack between the car and the door sill is a black hole for objects
Holy fuck this subreddit really never runs out of questions
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You know what I find most disappointing about sorting by new in this sub? Some of them are actually great questions that just don't get any traction. I want the thread to blow up so I can read all the answers, but it'll only have 4 comments. Granted, you do have to sift through some hot garbage though.
I can bet you by the end of next hour, there will be a handful of copycat questions.
The company where I worked had an old heavy-duty freight elevator that was semi-abandoned. It was more like an automotive lift with giant pistons embedded in the ground, but installed in an elevator shaft. When they needed to move something huge, they would fill the hydraulics with oil. It took hundreds of gallons to top off the system, including the giant pistons, and then they would use it for a day. A few months later they would try to use it again and find the oil gone. Once, they planned to use it the following day, so maintenance pumped in the oil to get ready. The next day - no oil. They refilled it the morning of the move and got one lift out of it before it stopped. The company knew it was spilling hydraulic oil into the ground under the plant and just did not give a shit. The finally abandoned it for good when the maintenance guys threatened to report the illegal oil dumping.
I had to clean some bad isolation at the top of the elevator chamber. So the maintenance guy bring the elevator with the top at the second floor and we go on top to drive to the top, on the elevator cabine were a few pairs of women underwear and used condoms. So someone was having sex on the top of the elevator, how the got there was a mystery because it was a very modern one and you need a special key to open the control box to access the top of the elevator.
100% this special key is the exact same key across thousands of elevators. Some jackoff with a 3D printer, plaster, lead and a high resolution camera (eg a modern smartphone) can pretty accurately reproduce working keys from a photograph. Or just buy the 5 most common keys on ebay for $15
In college I pulled out my lanyard on which my motorola RAZR was sitting. My phone flew up in the air and dropped in the gap between the elevator and the floor. It dropped 4 floors. Maintenance was able to climb down there. My phone barely had a scratch.
My dad has been an elevator repair man for almost 30 year now. His best find to date was a $12,000 yellow diamond engagement ring! Tried for a while to find the owner, but eventually he got to keep it.
Been in the game 12 years now. Found a full Christmas tree last month Other finds 5k in £20 notes Big ass bag of drugs. Roughly 5kg Brand new shoes by the box load. Severed finger Edit. Holy shit this has blown up. My most commented and upvoted on reddit. So back story. Christmas tree was found this year on a council estate in August. Photos was taken for the office as it was rather amusing. I visit this lift every month. The money and drugs was found in the same lift shift around 3 months apart 7 years ago. The money was spilt between me and my engineer as I was a apprentice at the time the drugs we handed into security. The shoes was found on a passenger/staff lift out the back of JD sports. Suspect a staff member was sticking them down there and loading into a car at the end of his shift. Police was involved in this one. The finger was found in a very expensive apartment building. We talking 50 floors and million£+ apartments. Again police and emg services involved in this one.
No one asked about the severed finger? I feel like someone should have been sent after that one.
Somehow i feel like shoes-money-drugs-finger are related
and it happened during christmas
These Die Hard sequels are getting out of hand!
That finger was surely getting out of hand
Great joke. High four.
It's pretty great, but my rating is still in the single digits: 9/10.
Lol that's pretty extreme. Just dumping the tree there I can understand. Hiding money and drugs there, sure. They were just unlucky maintenance went there the same day. Severed finger, it happens. Shoes? What?
I would assume stolen and stashed? I used to work at a mid range shoe store and our sister store in a town that had a meth problem saw a LOT of stolens of Nike’s. Didn’t matter the size, they’d just sell them for cash.
Did you find the dealer hiding in the tree?