Vibrator causes a stir on rubbish dump

While a group of women were gleaning items for recycling from the Hermanus rubbish dump, they heard a mechanical ticking sound coming from one of the rubbish bags.

Thinking it could be a bomb, they ran away, calling out to the manager "bomb, bomb!".

Adolf Hansen, manager of the dump, went to investigate.

"I heard a sort of a trrr-ticking sound. I didn't really want to touch it because I thought it's possible it could be a bomb. Once some of the workers here found a hand grenade and came and told me: 'We don't know what this thing is.'"

"Well, it was a big drama at that time and we called the police and they called the bomb squad from Stellenbosch and they came and took the hand grenade away."

"So now I thought if I call the police it's going to be a big drama like that again and maybe it's not a bomb anyway because it sounded a bit like a clock. But it is my job, so I thought I would just tear the bag open a bit, and then there I saw what it was - a vibrator, the batteries still working," Hansen said.

He recognised what it was immediately, he said, because he had seen vibrators "more than once" before. This one, he said, was "middle-sized".

Hansen laughed when he saw it, and told the women recyclers there was no danger of an explosion. But they were puzzled, he said, and wanted to know what it was. Hansen explained as best he could and they looked at him and said: "We don't know this thing".

Nor did they think it was an item to be retained for recycling.

If the vibrator was still in good working order, why did the owner throw it away?

"Well," said Hansen, "maybe the owner has now found someone."