Found Treasure

6/17/2016 (Permalink)

The homeowner was in Arizona when she got the call that there was a fire in her townhouse in River Vale, New Jersey. SERVPRO of PARAMUS/NORTHEAST BERGEN COUNTY was called in to do the emergency board-up and later to clean some of the structure, any salvageable contents and to perform the demolition in other areas. We had been in the townhouse numerous days but could not get into the utility room due to the structure of the kitchen floor above being compromised. Eventually after the area was secured we began cleaning the utility room. During cleaning one of our technicians (Gus Calliste) found 5 cardboard boxes, small but heavy. He opened the first one and discovered a solid silver bar, it weighed 100 Ounces and was marked 99.999 pure silver. Gus opened the remaining four boxes and found the same solid silver bars in each one.

Gus took a picture and sent it to our owner, Tony Palumbo. The picture only showed four silver bars. Tony called the homeowner and told her we found four solid silver bars. She wasn’t even aware they were there but she was very grateful. She also misunderstood Tony and thought they were one ounce silver bars. Gus came back to the office and turned in the 5 silver bars. We cleaned the soot from the silver bars and made arrangements to return it to the insured/homeowner.

The day we arrived at the scheduled appointment she wasn’t home. Our technician Mike Johnson called her cell phone and she said she was stuck at the Verizon store in Hillsdale. Mike told her not to worry and he drove the big green truck out to meet her. She was absolutely shocked to discover they were 100 ounces each and that there was 5 not 4. Mike handed over the 5 bars, 100 ounces each to a delighted homeowner. 500 ounces at about $17.43 an ounce was a nice ($8715) and very unexpected surprise. She couldn’t stop thanking Gus and the crews that had been working in her house for their honesty. This was definitely one of our more interesting finds at a jobsite. Lastly for the record, she was grateful for the job we did in her home to get her on the road back to getting her home and life restored. SERVPRO of Paramus/Northeast Bergen County was happy to assist.