A northeast Portland neighborhood is grappling with a mystery man who leaves bottles of urine in their recycling bins, dropping the containers off in the middle of the night.
Alex Van Duyn told KATU that he noticed his blue recycling bins hadn’t been picked up. “So, I went to open the blue bin. And lo and behold, there was a nice deposit of gallons size bottles of urine, to put it plainly, and there were six of them,” Van Duyn told the outlet.
He shared that the bottles are considered biohazardous and won’t be picked up. Van Duyn said he moved his bins, but the mystery man simply put his bottles in a different neighbor’s bin.
Although doorbell cameras have caught video of the man driving up and leaving the bottles, they haven’t been able to get a clear shot of the license plate.
Van Duyn told the outlet that he alerted neighbors on the social media app NextDoor, which sparked some interesting theories: “Somebody was like, maybe it’s a [crime] ring that they’ve kidnapped some people and they’re trying to get rid of their fecal matter in the most bizarre way possible.”
When he filed a police report, Van Duyn said he was told it was only considered a crime because the urine was placed in the recycling bins, not in the garbage bins.
“Human urine is typically not hazardous. It can be potentially hazardous if there is visible blood or if it originates from an individual with a urinary tract infection,” Cornell University says. “As such, urine should be treated with universal precautions.”
Van Duyn said he has been placing his bins in different places “just to see if I can get better video of him,” hoping to get a clearer shot of the man’s license plate with his camera. In the meantime, Van Duyn said, “Maybe he’s watching, I don’t know. Please stop. Please, just don’t do it anymore.”
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“It’s a lot of pee,” he said, and added with a laugh, “I mean, this guy’s really pissing me off.”
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