The $1m Mattress
“An Israeli woman threw out an old mattress – not realising it was stuffed with her mother’s $1million life-savings. The culprit, identified only as Anat, had bought the new bedding as surprise for her elderly relative. But when her mother found out about her gift she ‘almost fainted’ before revealing the contents of the mattress. Over the years, she had crammed it full with Israeli shekels and American dollars. Her stash amounted to $1m. Anat ran outside to discover the bedding had already been taken away by rubbish men, sparking a frantic – and so far fruitless – search through tons of waste at three landfill sites in Tel Aviv. Yitzhak Borba, a manager at one of the dumps, said she appeared ‘totally desperate’ but the mattress was hard to find amid the 2,500 tonnes of rubbish left every day.” w/ photos
