Plumbers Find Lost Gold During Bathroom Remodel

'We were pumped when we found it, of course'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 2, 2016 5:23 PM CST
Plumbers Find Lost Gold During Bathroom Remodel
   (Shutterstock)

Plumbers haven't found this much gold since the last time King Koopa kidnapped Princess Toadstool. But this is no Mario Bros. plot: Alif Babul and his apprentice of two days, Dean Materi, were tearing apart a residential bathroom in Calgary last month when Materi made an unusual discovery, the Calgary Herald reports. “I saw a gold shimmery thing on the ground, and I thought it was a copper light fixture,” Materi says. “But when I went to shovel it up, it seemed kind of heavy. I picked it up and it was a gold brick.” It's a good thing the brick caught his eye, otherwise the two plumbers would have thrown out a kilogram of gold worth approximately $50,000, according to CBC News.

Babul believes the homeowners had hidden the gold by their jacuzzi tub for some reason. "Who stores gold bars underneath their tub, right?" he tells CBC. "Kinda crazy." The homeowners admitted they had misplaced the bar, and Babul and Materi returned it to its rightful owners … eventually. "My wife and I had a long chat about that," Babul tells CBC. "I said to my wife, 'I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's the right thing to do.'" Now the plumbers are hoping for some good karma in exchange. “We were pumped when we found it, of course,” Babul tells the Herald. “Seeing the economy the way it is right now, it kind of sucks that we had to give it back." (A mother and son were found dead after inheriting a $480,000 gold bar.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X