Redditor j_breezy_ wanted to discuss what sinister tales cities and towns have to tell, so they asked:
"What’s your small town trying to cover up?"
Secrets, secrets, secrets... all towns have them.
All people have them.
The Land
Fox Death GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"There's a lively discussion about whether or not to repurpose land from an abandoned cemetery by exhuming those interred there and reburying them elsewhere. A commercial developer wants to build condos on land currently occupied by the cemetery."
Back2Bach
Do It Right The First Time...
"The city attempted to seize land to lay piping down without paying for it or permission, force homeowners to maintain it, and then force the homeowners to pay for the work and a large hook-up fee. It caused a huge ruckus, and the city was forced to go through the proper procedures to buy the land, lay the pipes, and fix and pay for any damages caused by the pipe laying."
"You see most folks in that area of town had septic tanks. The city wanted to charge more people for utilities so basically went around the voters to force the pipes through, claiming the people on the back of the properties wanted to be connected to the city. This wasn’t true and they faced a few dozen lawsuits because they fraudulently condemned septic tanks to force people onto the city line."
"My family ended up helping force the city to negotiate and do things properly. The stupid part of all of this, if they had just done it right the first time, they would have saved millions in labor, experts, and lawsuits and next to nobody would have cared."
Rachel1578
'Red Flagged'
"Not trying to necessarily 'cover it up' but the fire department doesn’t have an engine and the township board has not approved any of the ones that have been submitted to get a 'new' engine (not brand new cause those are expensive but ones that are useable). The board also thinks that the department doesn’t need to have safe gear."
"They’ve also said that the trucks do not need repairs and this has been going on for awhile, which has cause the issue of the engine being 'red flagged' (meaning it had to be taken out of commission). My father in law is the fire chief and my other half is on the department."
Next-Rutabaga-5060
The Mystery
"That the water in an area is clearly causing 'mysterious brain disease' where people just like... suddenly can't walk. I put 'mysterious brain disease' in quotes because a google search will tell you it's cyanobacteria, and the area has a giant plant that is clearly dumping stuff in the water to cause these issues."
"But the entire province's government just shrugged their shoulders and said 'wow that's weird, too bad all the cases have nothing in common!' (They all are from this one area of the world reporting this) and moved on with our lives. Here's the WIKI PAGE because it's big enough news that it gets it's own wiki page I guess: Mysterious Brain Disease"
River_tamm
Wasted
half life tech GIF by Feliks Tomasz KonczakowskiGiphy"Radioactive waste. Port Hope, Ontario. Cameco AKA Eldorado Nuclear (The people who processed the uranium used for the nuclear bombs in WW2) used to bury the waste all over town or send it straight into lake Ontario. Years/billions of dollars later and the problem still isn't solved."
Ro7ard
How many towns are toxic wastelands? It's a disgrace.
Marshed
"I’ve got a few…"
"The Quakers leased a large piece of land to glass makers for centuries. The land is basically in a marsh. As the Industrial Revolution took off, the manufacturing methods caused significant pollution. The large corporations that manufactured there never really updated the methods to comply with EPA."
"The site has been seeping chemicals into the watershed for a very long time. Just up the river is one of the first chemical production sites for DuPont. They dumped directly into the river. The old guys in the area talk about trucking thousands of barrels out of the site and dumping them into lakes, gravel pits, and quarries."
Jamescovey
Eminent Domain...
"Not a small town by any stretch of the imagination, but I live in a poor midsized city bordering a larger city, which has the full spectrum. They keep building stadiums, amusement parks, etc here. The city pulls eminent domain on several square blocks, runs everyone who lives there out, and gives the land to a developer for almost nothing."
"Then they waive all property and sales tax for several decades, longer than the facility will be in use. Almost nobody here votes, the few that do are unaware of the tax waivers, so it keeps going on despite the fact that there's literally no benefit to the city or the city government."
"We have higher taxes than our neighbor, but no public transit, way worse roads, and regular problems with power and water. But the city council and mayor are rich as f**k. I'm sure that's got nothing to do with it."
PM_ME_YOUR_FERNET
True Crime
"This is a sad one to me. There was an older couple here who ran a halfway house for troubled kids who’d recently gotten out of juvie, they fostered a few as well. They were loved in the community, wonderful people."
"One of them had an older brother who was a gangbanger in the nearest big city. During a visit, he snuck his 15 year old younger bro a handgun. Younger bro ended up holding up a local gas station and killed three people."
"One of them was my friend’s cousin."
"The foster parents lost whatever credentials they needed to do what they did, the kids went back into the system, and the giant house has been abandoned since around 2009."
KimBass2
A Dead End
"The fact that it's slowly dying, and has been for the last 10+ years. No amount of downtown renovation on the mom and pop craft shops or new fast food and cheap retail stores can change the fact that all the big industrial companies left town and there has been no attempt to replace them and no job opportunities other than... the fast food, cheap retail stores and mom and pop craft shops."
"This town (the whole county, really) is a dead end. Also, the tap water has WAY too much chlorine and other garbage in it and 9 times out of 10 your laundry will end up getting bleach stains. That's been a complaint for 20 years or more."
ZormkidFrobozz
Good Lord
"About 10 years ago a lot of homeless people disappeared and when the police did the investigation they found out a guy was kidnapping and eating those people. Police found his hideout and found a half eaten body and bones from another person. People don't like to talk about it but everyone knows what happened."
Deb_Mack
Some places have just too many secrets.
Do you have any some town secrets to share? Let us know in the comments below.
With Pepperoni....
GiphyIn my town we had the Mayor's daughter drive drunk through a pizza place and get out of the car and walk up to the counter and try to order. It was on the news for like 1 day and then disappeared completely. The place just opened back up. sh3nto
It Never Happened.
The superintendent of my hometown school district got a DUI IN A SCHOOL ZONE and used his wealth and influence in the community to not only get out of jail time, but to get the arrest completely scrubbed from his criminal record. He's sued multiple people for slander for mentioning it publicly because, as far as the official record is concerned, it "never happened." astaten0
The Dungeon.
There's a dungeon under the abandoned yellow house in the park that was used by the current owner's great grandfather. He admitted on his death bed that he was the cause of 13 disappearances from the 1910's to the 1930's. Issue is, we don't know who the 13 victims are since the surrounding area has had hundreds of disappearances over the decades and we have nothing to go off of except a period of nearly 30 years. Plus, no one wants to think about a relative or ancestor being locked up in there. AnneAuthor
The Spot.
A gazebo was removed from the town green because it became a place late at night where people were regularly caught having sex.
It was a beautiful gazebo - with comfortable benches (like church pews) where people could relax in the warm weather and enjoy the town green. But… no more. Back2Bach
Dude was DEVASTATED.
GiphyOne day I see a bunny. But like a HUGE bunny. I thought it was normal sized but as I got closer I realized I was wrong. Thing was an absolute unit. Like medium sized dog. As time went on I would occasionally see more and more of these gigantic mutated rabbits.
So turns out this guy had a couple of pet giant rabbits and then moved out to college. The official story his parents gave him was that his beloved pet rabbits got sick like a week after he moved out and had to be put down. Dude was DEVASTATED.
My guess is that the rabbits weren't put down and were instead released. Now I'm not sure if Flemish Giants can interbreed with wild bunnies, but everyone swears that even the local bunny population is composed of mega bunnies. And the parents are low key kind of hated by everyone now for being nasty to their child. MisterComrade
Under the Rug.
About 3 years ago a young lesbian couple came up missing. They found their car half submerged in the river but no sign of the girls. They found them a week later in the river dead with bullet wounds in their heads. It devastated the town when it happened but I feel like it got covered up quickly so it wouldn't scare off any tourists.
They made a small memorial near the river for the girls, and it's been vandalized beyond repair twice now. In the other town I lived in, the mayor's wife killed an elderly couple on Christmas Eve while driving drunk. She never did any time. Completely swept under the rug, but he didn't get reelected thankfully. ravenclawpoetry
Change of tone......
Change of tone on this one but I figured I'd share anyway! I grew up in a tiny farm town in PA. On Christmas Eve, one of the local farmers would go to all the houses with kids and climb on the roof and walk around for a minute or two to keep our belief in Santa alive and well. It's hilarious cause he never asked, just always did it every year. It obviously wasn't talked about much so that the kids never caught on, but was truly so cute. cashewcheez
The Cover-Up.
Young local lawyer is kidnapped in the middle of the night at gunpoint and ordered to tie up her husband. There is a man in jail for the kidnapping but she has never been found. Happened in the early 90s and the theory is she was killed to cover up corruption in the court system. She was supposedly going to the DA about some shady stuff. Lnzy1
Compacting....
Two guys robbed one of those car compacting places, where they mash up old vehicles into giant metal bricks.
They went in at night, dropped off by their gfs to go get parts and scrap to sell I guess. They'd done it before, the owner found out and waited for them one night.
Shot both in the backs of the heads, put their bodies in a car and crushed it up.
The truck didn't come to pick up the metal for a couple days so the one with their bodies sat out in the heat, the officers only found them after the gfs telling police they dropped them off there and couldn't find them again. They checked the place and found them from the smell.
I remember before the two guys were found, missing posters of them were all over the town. Zerobeastly
The Insanity.
There's someone who has been killing people in my town and their bodies have been found, around the same time every year in a large lake. Nobody talks about it but people are being kidnapped, beaten, tortured and murdered by this sicko! It's insane. Ardie_BlackWood