It's ALIVE! VIDEO: Garbage Man Finds Shocking Surprise in Box Destined for the Landfill

It was the day before Thanksgiving 2021. The mid morning sun shining through the elevated window of the garage made me squint each time I walked past with another armful of debris to load into my dump trailer. Where were my shades? Always losing them. This was my final clean out job for the week and I was just finishing it up to get prepared for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend.

The small shed I was cleaning out was full of the normal clutter. Half crumpled cardboard boxes and trash bags, some torn open by animals, lined the floor and walls. I was just about half finished cleaning the shed out when something caught my attention. I was sure I’d heard…a scratching sound?

There was definitely a scratching sound, ever so faint, coming from inside the shed. At first I thought it must have been a tree branch or something outside, but this was definitely inside the shed. I just didn’t know where. As I dug through the debris, the sound didn’t stop. It just continued as I rummaged through. Soon I found that the scratching, without a doubt, was inside a cardboard box full of linens at my feet.

The question was, what was inside? A mouse, maybe? No. Too strong. A rat? I hoped not, but, I felt like it would have stopped scratching when it heard me rustling toward it. A squirrel? I didn’t think so. It was still scratching. Hmmmm. Obviously there was an animal inside, and it sounded to me like it was trapped at the bottom of the box. What could have been much worse for this unknown creature, was that this particular box had been wet and moldy and was destined for landfill. Clearly, I had to intervene in this situation. So I had to look inside the box.

Our company is a junk removal company, so we have run into lots of strange things. From the unique to the amazing. This particular event, however, was new to me at the time. We weren’t in the business of animal control, but it seemed like I was about to try my hand at it.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in this box, but I was 100% sure I wasn’t interested at all in a series of rabies shots for a bite wound the night before Thanksgiving. I needed to lift the fabric items in the box to see what this thing was, but I wasn’t taking any chances. From the size of the box, it couldn’t have been all that big, but bats aren’t all that big either. So I grabbed the most tried and true instrument of curious inspection we’ve used throughout the ages…a stick.

I didn’t want to hurt it, whatever it was, so I began to lift the mixed layers of quilts and sheets up gently and very slowly. My hope was that, whatever it was, would just run out and go home. But that’s not what happened at all. To my jaw-dropping surprise, what I revealed inside wasn’t some rabies infested rodent at all. It was three tiny kittens. Mewing for their mama, which was nowhere in sight.

Immediately I knew I couldn’t just leave them there and they definitely weren’t trash. I called the home owner about it, but they said they had no idea where they’d come from. They also expressed that they didn’t want anything to do with them and almost seemed a little displeased. It was at this point I had to make a choice. I knew that, technically, these kittens were not my responsibility. By policy, Anderson Hauling does not remove live or dead animals during our junk removal clean outs. However, knowing that technicality still didn’t make the decision cut and dry. Truthfully, I’ve got a soft spot for living creatures of all kinds, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave their fate up to chance. I wasn’t sure the homeowner was going to handle it the same way I would, and it wasn’t really a lot of trouble to just take them to safety until I could contact the local humane society to make sure all was done that could be done.

My wife, Lauren, also has the same kind of passion for providing aid to animals in trouble when we can. She wouldn’t turn any animal away, but cats in particular? She has a REAL love for cats. Before I finished this job, I needed to get these kittens some help. So I called Lauren. I was careful to open the call letting her know that we cannot keep anymore animals. At the time, we had a dog and two cats (both of which were rescues) in a small house with a five piece family. Once my disclaimer was out and she understood, I told her what I’d found. She was cautiously giddy, and said she’d come right away to pick up the kittens. “Here we go,” I thought.

Lauren took the kittens home, wrapped in a blanket she’d brought and placed inside a box. My then six year old held them in his lap, happily peeking and chirping about how cut they were the entire car ride home.

Once they left, I was able to finish the job. I cleaned up the rest of the junk and tossed it all into the dump trailer. Once the doors to the trailer were closed, I finished sweeping up the dirt from the concrete floor into a scoop shovel and tossed it into the trailer.

Before I returned home, thankfully, Lauren had found a safe place for the kittens and they all remained together. The kids had cuddled them and loved them so much, but, in the end, our place wouldn’t have suited them. We just didn’t have the room. Lauren did have a good solution to the problem, though. She contacted a friend, who was affiliated with a local no kill shelter. Together, the shelter and the local humane society found the kittens forever homes. These kittens were taken in and avoided being dumped at the landfill. It was a happy ending for the them, and a good feeling for us. It was also a good lesson. The experience brought awareness to the possibility of this happening. We encourage everyone to be cautious about what’s inside of the boxes, bags and totes you’ve got scheduled to go to the dump. It could be ALIVE! 😊