Utility Workers Find Signs of Kids Living in Sewer, 2 Boys 'Scurry Away'

It's all about context. Look at the list of items: a bag of chips, a pair of binoculars, a Nerf football, a pick ax, a large piece of plywood, a jacket.

Then look at where they were found: 14-feet below an open manhole cover on a street in Federal Way, Washington, a city just south of Seattle.

Context. These things might belong together, but they clearly did not belong in Federal Way's sewer system. Yet, that's where workers with the Lakehaven Utility District found them on Friday afternoon.

John Bowman, the district's general manager, has worked there 26 years.

"I have never seen anything like this, never heard about anything like this," he told Patch by phone Tuesday morning.

Bowman's workers were called to the manhole on Friday by a couple of meter readers who had noticed the manhole cover was ajar. They closed it up. Returned later. And it was open again. They closed it again. Returned a third time. It was open again.

That time they reached out for a sewer crew for help trying to figure out what was going on. After all, an 80-pound manhole cover isn't easily moved.

The sewer crew arrived and worked their way down the 14-foot ladder to the bottom. That's where they found the bag of chips, binoculars and other items.

Bowman says that as the workers cleared the items from the sewer, they noticed two boys watching them. One of the workers approached the kids and asked if they had been staying down there.

"The kids said yes," Bowman says. "They were told in no uncertain terms just how dangerous that could be. They were given a very stern talking-to. We did not get their names or a strong sense of how long they had been there."

The kids "scurried away" after that.

Bowman is aware that there has been media speculation that the kids might have been living there. He's not so sure.

"It was more clubhouse than townhouse," Bowman says, talking about the conditions. "It's a 48-inch space with two 8-inch pipes — one coming in and one going out. They had a piece of plywood laying over the center so they were not standing in the filth.

"But it doesn't look they were sleeping and living down there long-term. It was more like a place they were hanging out."

At the same time, Bowman is aware that there is a growing population of homeless in the area.

"We let the police know what we found," he says. "They're keeping an eye out. We're keeping an eye out."

Photos courtesy Lakehaven Utility District