The Mystery of the Poop in the Hallway

The scene of the crime.
The scene of the crime.

The following events are 100% true. They occurred on the evening of February 4, 2015 in the hallway outside of my condo unit.

10:09 pm: My friends are leaving my place following game night when one of them says, “What is that?” Someone else (identify unconfirmed) says, “Jamey, a dog pooped in the hallway.”

10:10 pm: I peek into the hallway to see what the fuss is all about. Indeed, there is a pile of poop in the hallway.

10:11 pm: I clean up the poop.

***

Ever since the events that unfolded last night, I’ve been trying to solve the mystery. Some facts line up, others don’t. Let’s start with my assumptions:

Assumption 1: The feces in question is dog poop.

Assumption 2: A dog deposited the poop in the hallway.

Assumption 3: The dog belongs to someone in the building, possibly someone who lives along my hall.

I don’t think it is the feces of any other species, and I doubt a dog’s owner would remove the poop from some other area and place it in the hallway. It makes sense that it’s a dog in my building, but from my floor? I’m not so sure. I only know of one dog that lives on my floor, and I haven’t seen him in quite some time.

***

So what happened here?

Every one of my theories ends with “…but who does that?!” Case in point:

Theory 1: Someone on my floor meant to take their dog outside last night, but the dog got away from them and pooped in the hallway. The person went back inside, intending to clean up the poop like any decent human being, but they got distracted by something and forgot about it…but who does that?!

Theory 2: It was snowing last night, so someone on my floor or another floor decided to let their dog poop in the hallway instead of going outside, and the person didn’t feel like cleaning it up…but who does that?!

Theory 3: One of my friends made the poop while leaving game night…but who does that?!

***

I would like to propose this mystery for season 2 of the Serial podcast. It has everything listeners want: A near-unsolvable mystery, few key witnesses, drama, love, police corruption, murder, seduction, dogs, board games, nostalgia…the list goes on.

What do you think? How did this happen? Will it happen again?

9 thoughts on “The Mystery of the Poop in the Hallway”

  1. Caught him! He confessed the whole thing!
    https://i.imgur.com/LW0McBT.jpg

    Seriously, that’s gross. How come no one saw it? It was pretty much in front of your door. Did you do something to anger your neighbors? This is close to a flaming bag of poo. I would say something to the building management. Let them know there’s such incident and hope it won’t happen again and not made by a human.

    Reply
  2. The theory of a mystery dog getting away from their owner while in the process of being taken outside is the most plausible… except for your mention of not hearing or seeing the only dog on your floor for quite some time. It could have been someone taking their dog out using the elevator instead of the stairs, and then the dog slipped away when the door opened on your floor instead of the ground level, followed by the dog running down the hallway and pooping before the owner was able to catch the dog (there’s a chance that the owner may not have even known about the poop if the dog ran back to the elevator/doorway without the owner needing to chase it down).

    It’s extremely gross and unsettling to have random poop show up outside of your door. In my old apartment building there was a girl on my floor who did not keep a close eye on her dog, or use a leash inside, and on more than one occasion her dog had accidents in the hallway that she did not clean up (super gross). I wound up reporting her to the building manager after waking up one day and discovering someone had left me a plastic bag of dog feces tied to the door handle of my apartment– my theory is that whoever did it assumed Jasper was the culprit because I lived right next to the elevator and he would bark whenever people would walk by my door, so it was clear that a dog lived there. Shortly after my reporting of the incident, signs went up that required dog owners to keep pets leashed and warnings that anyone caught leaving pet waste on the ground (inside or outside) would be fined.

    Reply
    • Katy: Yeah, I don’t think there are any dog owners on my floor anymore. That’s what makes it highly suspicious. Hopefully it isn’t a case of what happened in your previous building!

      Reply
  3. Occam’s Razor.

    It’s a well known fact that dogs love Italian wine and dystopias. Since you are undoubtedly the most likable guy in board gaming, the dog in question is probably a fan of yours. The dog was also most likely camped outside your door wanting to buy an autographed copy of your games as it was the dogs birthday. Having checked it’s horoscope for the day, (https://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/04/daily-horoscope-for-wednesday-february-4-2015/) the dog in question figured it had better wait until after 10pm to do any shopping. Shortly before 10pm, your cat sensed that the dog was outside waiting and opened the door to investigate. Expecting you, the cat simply scared the crap out of the dog. Embarrassed by the unexpected bowl movement, the dog realized that horoscopes cannot always be trusted and left without an autographed board game, thus ending it’s birthday on a sour note.

    Had I not seen your cat open a door in the background of your videos, this entire story would not be so probable. Case closed.

    Reply
    • Hope you don’t mind my playfulness, but sometimes you have to just laugh at life because it’s short and laughing is a good way to process enigmas.

      Reply
    • Dave, that might be the strongest theory yet! I have been looking to expand our dog fanbase…perhaps cats aren’t the answer to that. 🙂

      Reply

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