Woman throws out old mattress... with mother's $1m life savings stashed inside

Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 8:17 AM

10th June 2009

An Israeli woman threw out an old mattress -  not realising it was stuffed with her mother's $1million life-savings.

The culprit, identified only as Anat, had bought the new bedding as surprise for her elderly relative.

But when her mother found out about her gift she 'almost fainted' before revealing the contents of the mattress.

Desperate search: The woman scours a landfill in Tel Aviv for the missing mattress

Over the years, she had crammed it full with Israeli shekels and American dollars. Her stash amounted to $1m.

Anat ran outside to discover the bedding had already been taken away by rubbish men, sparking a frantic - and so far fruitless - search through tons of waste at three landfill sites in Tel Aviv. 

Yitzhak Borba, a manager at one of the dumps, said she appeared 'totally desperate' but the mattress was hard to find amid the 2,500 tonnes of rubbish left every day.

Workers search for the mattress that reportedly contains one million dollars on the landfill site of Efeh, Tel Aviv

He said he had increased security at the site to keep would-be treasure hunters at bay.

For her part, Anat said it could be worse. 'My mother told me that I should just leave it,' she todl Army Radio.

'It is a very, very sad story - but I've been through worse.

'It's a matter of proportion in life. People need to know how to accept the good and the bad.'