Neighbor Floods Family's Basement with Animal Blood and Remains
An Iowa family had to deal with a scene right out of a horror movie earlier this month after finding almost five inches of animal blood and other bio-waste in their basement.
Nick Lestina of Bagley, Iowa, said he stopped by his home to get a power drill on Oct. 3 when he discovered the gruesome scene.
Animal blood, fat and bones appear to have seeped into his family’s basement thanks to a drainage system that’s connected via a tile to the meat locker next door.
“Nobody wants to see that, smell that. I wouldn’t want that for anybody, to have that in their house,” Lestina, who had been preparing to put his home on the market, told WHO-TV.
It won’t be a cheap cleanup job, Lestina said, when considering the estimated cost to sanitize the basement. And that doesn’t include the cost to replace the family’s ruined belongings that were being stored downstairs.
“I’m looking into thousands of dollars with cleanup, over $2,000 just to sanitize the basement,” Lestina said. “I don’t have thousands of dollars to throw away at this.”
Lestina was frustrated at not just the issues with his basement, but also at what he claimed was a lack of communication and accountability from the meat locker’s owners.
“They haven’t reached out at all. In fact, they haven’t taken any accountability for it,” Lestina told WHO-TV.
“They say it’s not their fault and told me ‘good luck.’ If I want to do anything about it, it’s on my dime and my schedule.”
According to Lestina, the owners, who bought the meat locker earlier this year, were more cooperative after he went to the media.
“We don’t want to harm anybody. We’re not bad people. We’re trying to make a living, not enemies,” one of the owners, Kaitlin Dahl, told the Des Moines Register.
“I don’t know if there’s been a change of heart,” Lestina told the Register. “Now, they are reaching out and wanting to help.”
Still, the family is getting the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to investigate the situation.
“The meat locker from my standpoint has been pretty cooperative. They have worked with me to come up with a permanent solution so the animal blood, fat and all that stuff is no longer discarded down those floor drains,” DNR environmental specialist Kevin Wilken told WHO-TV.
Upon further investigation, it was discovered that on Oct. 3, the meat locker flushed blood down their floor drain after killing hogs and cattle.
“The floor drains in both buildings are connected to the same tile line,” the Register reported.
“A clog in the line most likely caused the blood to back up into the home.”
Lestina is attempting to move forward from the incident as his family live elsewhere until the mess can be cleaned up.
“I wouldn’t really wish this on anybody, but all I can do is keep moving forward and try to take care of the problem,” Lestina told WHO-TV.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
