15 people share what their small town is trying to cover up.
We've all seen the TV shows. A cunning detective sets out to solve case after case in a sleepy town full of secrets.
We already know that the cute shopfronts and handpainted houses are always a front for human drama, corruption, and tragedy. And it's not just confined to the small towns and a rural haunts on television. The drama is real.
In a popular post on Ask Reddit, people shared what their small town is currently trying to cover up.
1. From Rachel1578:
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.
2. From Back2Bach:
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.
3. From Next-Rutabaga-5060:
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 caused 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.
4. From River_tamm:
That the water in an area is clearly causing 'mysterious brain disease' where people just like...suddenly can't walk and s**t. 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
5. From KimBass2:
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 k*led 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.
6. From Antidumbthoughts:
The fact that a few years ago a local PD officer liked to make young women he’d find out after dark, parade around his car in their bra and panties, to make sure “they didn't have drugs.”
He was fired but it embarrassed the town pretty bad.
7. From Squigglepig52:
More like a century or trying to minimize it. Not 'my' hometown, but very close to where I grew up. The Donnelly Massacre. Later 1800s, local family pisses of community, basically a l*nch type mob. No hanging, but home invasions and beating d*aths, plus burning farms, ki**ing most of the family.
It's kind of well-known, now, but Lucan kept it on the down low for a long long time.
Bonus trivia - Lucan is within the region showed in 'Letterkenney', and is a rival hockey team. And yeah, it really is like Letterkenney out here.
8. From Jamescovey:
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.
9. From Deranker240:
Some of the best players from the high school's football team nutted on a cup and poured it on another player while he was sleeping. Everybody knows what happened but everyone acts as if nothing happened.
10. From Ok_Coconut_2699:
Small town drama at its best. I live in a town of about 1500 people. They don't even attempt to cover it up.
We elected a new mayor, lesser of the two evils type situation. He ended up gutting the whole city staff and rehiring all of his own personal friends. We didn't have a police department and subcontracted to a neighboring city. He canceled that contract and started our own police department, problem was he hired police that were never actually trained by any American police academy.
He brought over three guys from the tribal police, which I guess legally have no jurisdiction on non-tribal property (I don't really know the legal stuff so don't ask). So now we have a fake police department, all of the neighboring cities are now against us and our raging mayor and maniac police department. Now the mayor gets caught dumping his personal trash in a creek using a city-owned truck/trailer.
And our fake police refused to do anything about it because they were his best friends. At this point, the city was done with him. If he didn't step down I think people would of been outside city hall with flaming pitchforks.
Now we elected a new mayor who is attempting to clean up the last one's mess but now he is being accused of burning down a building in the city that he wanted gone, the fun never stops.
11. From Deb_Mack:
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.
12. From meshuggahdaddy:
The mayor of my small town in France 'hired' members of his family. When an inspection came up he had people working on the government offices sign documents saying that the family was regularly at the offices and working hard, which ofc they weren't.
France loves this stuff, look at Fillon.
13. From young_and_dumb_babe:
My small town school with a graduating class of 65 is being investigated for a teacher-run s*x ring.
14. From The68Guns:
We (Stoneham, MA) has an almost comical rate of corruption. One was a youth leader and everyone loved him (until his was outed for graft). Another Chief just had to retire for not paying rent. I've never had an issue with them, but it's always in the news.
15. From tkcool73:
Pastor at my church had become a local icon and even had a stretch of highway named after him. It recently came out that he s*xually ass*ulted a woman back in 2010. Luckily he had just recently retired and a new pastor had taken over about a year prior to it all coming out.
The next Sunday we were all curious how things were going to play out at the service. New pastor didn't hold back, and devoted the whole service to talking about it. Old pastor left town and hasn't been heard from since.