By Tim Arnett
WABASH,Indiana – Here’s a wild story to get you ready for the weekend. Monday morning before 9 am as I walked up Wabash Street to enter the courthouse for the Wabash County Board of Commissioners meeting, a county employee spotted something strange in the road. As I approached up the hill, I saw the employee kick the item in the street and, as it slithered its way to the curb, it quickly became apparent what it was. It was . . . a toy . . . of an adult nature. And right out on the street for anyone to see. The county employee and I looked at each other for a moment and shook our heads. How in the world did that thing get there?
But it sat there. Almost all day. The two or three times I drove by the courthouse it could be seen by the curb. In fact, the Wabash Street Department did not come and pick up the thing until after 3 pm. The incident got me thinking: what crazy things have the Wabash Street Department picked up from city streets over the years?
When I arrived at street department HQ off Manchester Avenue to find out, quite a few city workers were more than willing to tell me their horror stories regarding such items around town. Last summer, one was suctioned cupped to a no parking sign by the museum on Market Street as an obvious prank. Several have been sucked up from the bottom of leaf piles when city leaf pick up trucks make their rounds every fall.
Several workers said they see everything from used underwear to used diapers in the middle of the road. And then there’s the human waste that shows up on curbs during spring clean up week. If you’re eating right now, I’m sorry. And then there’s the bed bugs all over the mattress street department workers have to carry away. Wabash Street Department Foreman Tyler Niccum on the nightmare department workers face during spring clean up week.
While all this sounds pretty funny and weird, the stuff street department workers find can be very dangerous. Street department veteran Gary Miller said that the most dangerous thing workers have to deal with is used needles down in catch basins and in leaf piles. He said that no one has been accidentally stuck but the potential is there. Drug users throw these used needles down in the drains, Miller said, thinking no one will ever know.
And then there’s the sad stories. Mainly dogs who have been killed in the streets to the tune of at least two or three every year. Superintendent Scott Richardson said that the department will keep the carcass if they see the dog has a tag. He called the reunion of the owners with their dead dogs the “hard ones” to watch.