A non-profit shop in Haverhill, Massachusetts, has issued a public plea for people to stop dumping their junk outside.
Two months ago, someone illegally dumped "useless junk" outside the Ruth's House thrift shop in Lafayette Square, according to manager Kimberley Smyly.
She told the Eagle-Tribune the store had to spend money to get rid of things like a broken vacuum cleaner, a mattress and old appliances.
The store, which is open Tuesday through Saturday, will take clean donated things.
"Our mission is to clothe needy families in greater Merrimack Valley," Smyly said. "If it's something you give to a friend or your mother, we'll take it."
But on Monday when the store was closed, Smyly said surveillance video captured a red pickup truck pulling up to the store and with "a heap of stuff" that she said was filthy with rat or mice feces.
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"That's just not the type of thing that we want to accept in our store," Smyly said. "We work so hard and to have something like that additionally thrown on my staff, it's just, you know, it's heart-wrenching."
The video camera outside the store, unfortunately, wasn't working but the man who lives above the store was able to come through when his camera captured the culprit.
"I was like, 'we're going to nail him,'" said upstairs tenant Raymond Challis.
The red truck with white fencing and a lawnmower on the back was captured on Challis' surveillance entering the store's lot full, then leaving empty with the pile of trash behind.
"We have the license plate so we're hoping the police and everybody — we all work together and nail this guy," Challis said.
Until then, the store has to clean up the mess yet again.
"We're here to help people and that takes us away from doing that," Smyly said.
