A lucky woman found free sofas on Craigslist, only to find $36,000 inside a cushion

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Originally published at: A lucky woman found free sofas on Craigslist, only to find $36,000 inside a cushion | Boing Boing

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It’s nice to hear stories where everyone involved turned out to be a decent human being even when they didn’t have to be.

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I wonder if we had accurate numbers on the amount of people who stash huge amounts of cash in their homes rather than banks, how mind-boggling it would be

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That seems a little cheap for free money. I guess everyone seems happy, though.

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Depending on the age of the sofa, it’s probably rum runner money or drug money. I’m surprised the cops haven’t weighed in on this.

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Or just “grandpa was a paranoid guy who didn’t trust banks and passed away without telling anyone about his secret stash” money.

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Or the treasury of the Sofa King.

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That’s Sofa King funny. :crazy_face:

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I’m still not risking the bed bugs. GL couch hunters.

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But where did the family who put the sofa on Craigslist get it from originally?
Chain of evidence, people! :wink:

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My grandma has a sofa like that. The amount used to be in the same ballpark, but she spent quite a bit when her pension took forever to sort out after my grandfather’s death.

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There are many legitimate explanations for the cash, and fortunately California has tightened up its civil forfeiture laws a bit recently so that seizing cash assets like this requires a criminal conviction:

Whatever the cops may think, they can’t do a damn thing about it legally.

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I wonder how many stories like this are out there, but we never hear about them, because the finders keep their mouths shut.

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While yes, obviously would question the origin and potential for it to be illicit, as someone who works with the elderly I can confirm that there are a small but important subgroup who stash absolutely insane amounts of money in their home, on their person in hidden jacket pockets, buried in their backyard.

Sometimes it’s a lifelong habit, sometimes it arises understandably from experiences of poverty or persecution in their country of origin, and sometimes it’s part of a paranoia that develops in old age (this sometimes is part of/prodromal to dementia, but not always).

It’s an issue for us when we bring someone into hospital and find $50k or more in their jacket and need to convince them to let us safely store it in a safe or pass it on to a trusted NOK.

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