Event organizers across the country tout the bright‑blue, sturdy, portable polyethylene units commonly called porta‑potties as the perfect on‑site restroom solution. These rugged little toilets also prove indispensable on construction sites and in municipal park programs. Yet, when you start digging into the 10 bizarre objects that have been discovered inside them, the story takes a surprisingly wild turn.
10 Bizarre Objects Found in Porta Potties
10 Undelivered Mail
Residents of Macomb Township, Michigan, had been nagging the post office about missing letters when a construction crew unearthed a shocking stash in December 2016: a whole batch of mail tucked inside a public porta‑potty. The wayward USPS carrier had apparently bypassed the proper mailboxes and dumped the correspondence straight into the portable restroom.
The misplaced parcels turned an unassuming blue toilet into a mailbox of sorts, turning the contents a deep navy hue from the odor‑neutralizing chemicals added to the unit. Hundreds of locals missed holiday cards, checks, coupons and other mail‑order items until the blue‑tinged bundles were recovered.
Federal investigators quickly zeroed in on the letter carrier, who later resigned and now faces felony mail‑theft charges. Some of the salvaged mail was sanitized and delivered, while the rest will have to be reissued.
9 Meth Lab
In February 2013 a foul odor wafted from a golf‑course porta‑potty in Purcell, Oklahoma, prompting staff to investigate. Inside they discovered a collection of sports‑drink‑style bottles brimming with volatile chemicals—an unmistakable sign of a makeshift methamphetamine lab using the “shake‑and‑bake” technique.
Three containers were recovered, but two detonated before officers could secure the scene, sending shards of plastic flying. Detectives warned that had a patron been inside at the moment of explosion, the injuries could have been severe.
Although the interior of the toilet was scarred, investigators lifted fingerprint evidence that gave them a solid lead, suggesting more than one individual may have been involved in the illicit operation.
8 Drugs And Drug Paraphernalia
A leisurely August 2016 walk with his dog turned into a surprise for a Rogue River, Oregon resident when he opened a public porta‑potty near the Anna Classick Park tennis courts and found it sheltering several thriving marijuana plants.
Police Chief Ken Lewis mused on possible motives, suggesting the greenery might have been stashed for transport, hidden for later pick‑up, or simply abandoned. The plants, placed between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., were promptly seized.
Not long after, a separate discovery in Rochester, New York’s Don Samuel Torres Park revealed a porta‑potty overflowing with heroin‑related paraphernalia. After a photographer flagged the scene, city officials ordered the removal of the portable toilets for the winter months, heeding the mayor’s call to curb drug activity.
7 Fireworks
July 2015 saw a smoking porta‑potty in Ottawa, Canada, puffing out a distinct burnt‑powder smell that set off alarms among passersby. Firefighters arrived to find the unit still smoldering, but no open flame.
Chief Jeff Carner reported finding only the charred remnants of firework paper inside the enclosure, concluding that someone had detonated a firecracker inside the portable toilet.
Authorities have yet to identify a suspect, and the incident remains an odd footnote in the city’s fire‑safety records.
6 Camera
On October 10 2015, Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, witnessed an odd twist of fate when James Francis Mazor tried to hide a tiny camera inside a coffee cup left in a Wiard’s Orchards and Country Fair porta‑potty. The hidden device inadvertently captured a few self‑portraits before it was discovered.
Mazor was swiftly arrested on felony charges for installing a surveillance device and for allegedly spying on an unclothed individual—both serious offenses under Michigan law.
The portable toilet was only in place for a single day, and the only footage the camera managed to record was the perpetrator’s own face.
5 Suspicious Package
On a bright June morning in 2016, a sanitation employee cleaning a Buffalo, New York, porta‑potty along the Canalside waterfront discovered a mysterious package. The find prompted a police‑controlled robot to retrieve the item for further analysis.
Authorities shut down the popular park at 8:00 a.m., deploying a HAZMAT team and the city’s bomb squad. The sealed container held an unknown liquid, but it proved non‑explosive, allowing the venue to reopen at 2:00 p.m. in time for a scheduled concert.
Despite thorough testing, the hazardous‑materials unit could not pinpoint the substance’s origin. Police are combing through security footage to determine who placed the package in the restroom and why.
4 Pipe Bomb
In July 2013 a sanitation worker in Lakewood, Washington, made a chilling discovery when a routine pump‑out revealed a pipe bomb concealed inside a portable toilet. The find prompted officials to evacuate roughly 50 nearby residents and businesses as a precaution.
Bomb technicians later neutralized the device, noting that the fuse had apparently burned out before it could detonate, sparing the community from potential disaster.
3 Fetus
On June 11 2008, a sand‑and‑gravel crew in Weld County, Colorado, experienced a shocking equipment failure when the vacuum pump stalled upon encountering a third‑trimester fetus lodged inside one of the site’s two porta‑potties.
Investigators could not determine how long the fetal remains had been in the toilet, noting that the unit had been last serviced just two weeks prior to the incident.
County officials hope the ensuing autopsy will clarify whether the fetus was stillborn or alive at birth, a determination that could trigger criminal charges against the mother.
2 Newborn
In July 2009, long‑shore park in Cambridge, Maryland, became the unlikely backdrop for a dramatic birth when Candy Vigneri went into labor inside a public porta‑potty at Long Wharf Park. After the delivery, she asked a nearby construction worker for a cigarette and warned a passerby not to use the restroom, declaring, “I just had a baby in there.”
The passerby promptly dialed 911 while Vigneri retrieved her newborn from the waste tank. The infant was coated in a blue antibacterial chemical and was unresponsive when emergency crews arrived.
Vigneri was arrested on July 1 2009 on charges of child abuse and reckless endangerment. The baby survived, was treated, and was placed under the care of county social services upon discharge.
1 Corpses
Several dead bodies have been found in porta‑potties.
A porta‑potty behind the Chapaton Pumping Station at the Lake St. Clair, Michigan, boat ramp contained a decomposing body. Although the identity of the man and the cause of death remain undetermined, authorities believe that the corpse, discovered on April 20 2014, might be that of a homeless man who’d used the toilet as a shelter against the frigid winter cold.
In Cincinnati, Paul Brown Stadium beefed up emergency personnel in October 2015 after a construction worker found the corpse of an unidentified male in one of the venue’s porta‑potty units. Earlier in the week during a Chiefs‑Bengals game, a fan collapsed in another public toilet and died at a local hospital.
In May 2007 in Hewitt, Texas, the badly decomposed body of a young woman who’d gone missing a few days earlier was identified as that of Southern Methodist University student Meaghan Bosch, age 21. At first, police believed that she had died of a drug overdose and was placed inside a construction site porta‑potty.
However, the investigation of her death made police suspect murder and possibly rape by James McDaniel, an ex‑con whom she may have dated. Her body was transported 158 kilometers (98 mi) south from Dallas to the Hewitt construction site and left in the porta‑potty. Only her cell phone, shoes, and purse were taken.
Gary Pullman lives south of Area 51, which, according to his family and friends, explains “a lot.” His 2016 urban‑fantasy novel, A Whole World Full of Hurt, was published by The Wild Rose Press. An instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he writes several blogs, including Chillers and Thrillers: A Blog on the Theory and Practice of Writing Horror Fiction and Nightmare Novels and Other Tales of Terror.