A WOMAN binned her mother's old mattress - not realising it was stuffed with $1million in cash.

The daughter thought she would surprise her elderly mum by throwing out the mattress and replacing it with a new one.

When her mum came home and saw her "gift", she "nearly fainted" and told her daughter that she had binned her entire life savings - the equivalent of around £615,000.

Since then, the daughter has been sifting through rubbish at three landfill sites near Tel Aviv, Israel, trying to find the old mattress.

So far, the search has turned up nothing.

Yitzhak Borba, manager at one of the dumps, said the daughter - known only as Anat - was "totally desperate" when she turned up.

He said the mattress would be hard to find among the 2500 tons of rubbish that arrived at the Efeh site every day.

Yitzhak has arranged increased security, including overnight guards, at the dump to keep would-be treasure hunters away.

The old woman had stashed her cash - in US dollars and Israeli shekels - in the mattress because she had suffered "traumatic experiences with banks" and no longer trusted them.

She said: "It was all my money in the world." When she told her daughter about the cash, she rushed outside to retrieve the mattress. But the binmen had already taken it away to the Hiriya dump in the south of Israel.

Anat hurried to the waste disposal site to find the mattress had been shipped to one of two larger landfill areas, along with another 3000 tons of rubbish collected that day.

A search of the first site, Ganei Hadas, proved fruitless so she moved on to Efeh, close to the Dead Sea.

Last night, Anat was coming to terms with the fact that someone may have found the mattress before her.

But she appeared to be taking the loss in good spirits.

Envelope She said: "My mother told me that I should just leave it.

"It is a very, very sad story but I've been through worse.

"It's a matter of proportion in life. People need to know how to accept the good and the bad."

http://www.dailyrecord.co...-21431542/

i had a customer frantic today coz they had lost their wallet. it turns out it had fallen out of his pocket and a honest person found it, found a ph no inside and called the customer.


hopefully, this mattress will turn up- and be returned to its rightful owner.

there are good ppl in the world



note to self- never throw a mattress away b4 checking its contents
[Edited 6/11/09 4:53am]

prb said:

[/b]



I once found a briefcase a man had left in a restaurant, it had £100's in cash. I handed it into the restaurant owner and luckily it was returned to the owner. It could have been so different.

When my Grandma died, while my Mum and Aunt were sorting out her things, they noticed some jewellery had gone missing and couldnt find it anywhere. They hunted high and low, hoping it hadnt been stolen or perhaps my Grandma had sold or given it away.
Anyway the pharmacy phgoned my Mum up saying they had found alot of gold in an empty pill container.
My Mum had handed all the unused medication back to the pharmacy, not realising thats where my Grandma had hidden some of her jewellery..

Wow...that's to bad.

what i think is sad about that is the fact that she is eldery and was sleeping on that money every night when she could have been out spending it.

Im just wondering wouldnt the daughter know what her mum was doing with all her money? mum does not have a bank account so where does daughter THINK $$ is?

mum & daughter should be communicating better! i sure wouldnt be taking the loss in good spirits.

.

REDFEATHERS said:

i love hearing stories like yours- there should be more of it in the world

angelcat said:

u cant take it with u

So did they ever find the mattress?

^^^I take that as a, no?