Bloody hell! Iowa basement soaked with 5-inch blood flood

What a bloody mess! That’s certainly one expletive that could be used to describe the blood-soaked basement of an unfortunate family in Iowa.

But while there’s certainly nothing good about the situation for Nick Lestina and his family of seven in Bagely, Iowa, it could be worse: At least it’s not human blood flooding the basement of their home.

That’s straight from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which confirmed that the 5-inch-deep trough of soupy, festering slime was indeed animal blood, fat, and bones. And such a hazardous scene necessitated bringing in the Department of Health, too.

According to Nick Lestina, via NBC affiliate WHO-TV, that bloody mess came from his next-door neighbors, Dahl’s Meat Locker, dumping the dripping remains of hog and cattle down a floor drain, which just happens to be connected to the Lestinas' pipes. Pipes attached to a house that Lestina was hoping to put on the market — a plan that is currently on hold, for obvious reasons.

While Dahl’s might have seemed like a pretty obvious culprit, Lestina said that they had been far from responsive. “They haven’t reached out at all. In fact, they haven’t taken any accountability for it,” said Lestina. “They say it’s not their fault and told me ‘good luck.’ If I want to do anything about it, it’s on my dime and my schedule.”

That’s from WHO-TV’s report on Monday. Which elicited a public response from Dahl’s claiming miscommunication and hoping to “clear the air” about what happened. Apparently the meat locker has new owners, who had the place fully inspected and were just following a decade or so of precedent set by the previous owners — to disastrous effect.

"We're taking responsibility for it. It wasn't our fault, we didn't intentionally put the blood down there. We didn't want this to happen. We feel for them. I'd be just as mad as they are in their shoes," said co-owner Kaitlin Dahl in a WHO-TV report from Wednesday.

Literal concrete steps have been taken to ensure this kind of blood flood doesn’t happen again, and it sounds like Dahl’s is working with its insurance company to make sure the Lestinas aren’t out of pocket, and are willing to dip into their own if need be.

"We are arguing with our insurance company to try to get them to cover it; otherwise we will financially assist the Lestinas," she said.
 
Hopefully the Lestinas are made right by all parties involved, and still get the rights to the horror film based on this dreadful experience.