MANHOLE MYSTERY’S SOLUTION STUNS

Homeless boys had toys, bed in Wash. sewer

Last Friday in Federal Way, Wash., a city to the south of Seattle, utility workers came across a manhole that refused to stay closed.

Meter readers with Lakehaven Utility District first noticed the sewer cover left ajar. They pushed it shut; to fall down an open manhole, after all, could mean injury or worse. It proved to be a stubborn grate. Later in the day — twice — workers found the manhole open again.

The third time, the meter readers had enough, summoning the Lakehaven sewer crew, who decided to investigate how a 36-kilogram metal slab could behave like a screen door with a busted latch.

What the crew found was even stranger. At the bottom of the four-metre descent was a cache of kids’ items, miscellany that belonged in a rec room: a pair of binoculars, snacks and toys. They discovered clothes, too, and a makeshift bed made out of plywood.

“This should not happen at all,” Ken Miller, a product engineering manager with Lakehaven Utility District, told KIRO 7 News. “This is where all our waste goes from our houses and our businesses.”

Finally, the crew noticed the two boys watching. They appeared to be about 12 or 13. When approached, one said he had been living within the manhole.

Miller was shocked. “I’ve been doing this kind of work for over 30 years, and I’ve never, never come across it before,” he said. “No one should be down there … this could have been life and death.”

People in the neighbourhood said the kids had been occasionally spotted above ground. Though the manhole had been seen uncovered at various times throughout the past month, it was unclear if or how long the children had been living in the sewer, if they had run away from home or were using the sewer to play.