Closer inspection reveals that a dead body has been stashed away. All have been the subject of an urban legend involving hotel occupants who fall blissfully to sleep, only to wake up to an awful stench coming from either under the bed or inside the mattress. In a eulogy, managing partner Peter Lauwers called Hoy “one of the best and brightest” at the firm. The pane finally broke and sent him plummeting to his death.

On July 9, 1993, Hoy made his signature tackle against the window to impress some visiting law students. This hobby was actually practiced by Garry Hoy, a senior partner in an area law firm with an office on the 24th floor. This practice caught up with him eventually, as he crashed into a window and went sailing to his death. Sooner or later, Toronto residents hear the tale of a lawyer who had a peculiar fondness for running full-bore into his office windows to demonstrate how strong they were. While he denies involvement in other cases, it’s clear Rand’s activities had a heavy influence in the word-of-mouth stories that followed. He had once worked at Willowbrook, a defunct mental institution. Rand, it turned out, may have been connected to a rash of child disappearances in the 1970s.

In 1987, Andre Rand was put on trial and convicted for a child abduction. Parents no doubt eased their kids’ fears by telling them no such monster existed.īut he did.

Cropseyįor years, kids living in and around Staten Island raised goosebumps by relating the tale of “Cropsey,” a boogeyman who lived in the woods and made a nocturnal habit of disemboweling children. In Seattle, the issue is common enough that public officials have given advice on what to do in case you encounter one (close the lid and flush). One aquatic rodent bit the rump of a female victim in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1999. And yes, rats can be somewhat testy when they complete their journey. The animals are attracted to sewage lines due to undigested food in feces and can travel through pipes before emerging through an opening and into your bathroom. While alligators and crocodiles have been found in New York, they’re generally released and found above ground, and it’s thought that New York is too cold for them to survive for very long.) But finding a rodent in your toilet, inches from very vulnerable areas of your body, is a particular kind of domestic terror-and one that happens to be possible.ĭrain plumbing for toilets is typically three inches in diameter or more, plenty of space for a rat to climb up. These are most often told about New York. Urban legends about animals in sewers have been a staple of scary stories, particularly the one about baby alligators being flushed down toilets and then growing to adult size in waste channels. Turning on the light, you see a rat looking back at you from the bowl. Groggy with sleep, you lift the lid and position yourself over the toilet. Liudmila Chernetska/iStock via Getty Images Plus