HARPSWELL, Maine (WGME) -- A couple buying a home in Harpswell got more excitement than they bargained for when a World War II artillery shell was found on their property Tuesday afternoon.
Paul and Lisa Evrard bought their retirement home the day before Thanksgiving, but only after the bomb squad removed the shell found on their property.
"We wanted to come to Maine for peace and quiet. So that was exactly the opposite of what we expected," says new homeowner Paul Evrard.
Paul figured he would just clean out the shed himself, but his wife insisted they have the brokers do it. So when they got here Tuesday, that's when they found the artillery shell inside.
David Johnson Jr., a property manager who was hired to clean out the shed, picked up the shell. He then realized it could be a live explosive.
He said to himself, "'Okay, this isn't a piece of artwork. It's a little more complete.' So, at that point, with it already in my hands, I walked outside, and I laid it down in the driveway."
"If he had a chance to think that one through again, I don't think he'd carry it out," says Ron Hutchins of Harpswell Realty Group.
Hutchins says encountering potential explosives was never covered in his real estate classes.
"Not one minute was ever spent on what to do when you find a live ordnance, or what could be a live ordnance," Hutchins says.
Johnson says the shed was full of interesting items from the previous owner.
"The woman obviously collected things. In fact, there were other artillery shells in there, but they were all empty. They'd been turned into lights and lamps," Johnson says. He told us he had just laid the shell down when the broker and new homeowners drove in the driveway.
"The five words you never want to hear on your final walkthrough: 'They've called the bomb squad.' And at that point, we just wanted to get out of everybody's way," says Paul Evrard.
"We just stayed away," Lisa Evrard told us. "Just shocked".
Oddly enough, the state police bomb squad says shells like this are more common in Maine than you may think.
"We get ordnance calls pretty regularly in Maine. Probably about 40 to 50 a year," says Sgt. Pat Pescitelli of the Maine State Police Bomb Squad. "Back in World War II, they were shipping these on boats, shipping these on planes. Over the years, though, the explosives in them can degrade. So we're very hesitant to go hands-on initially."
The bomb squad could see a fusing system inside the shell when they x-rayed it. At that point, they decided not to take any chances.
They moved the artillery shell to a safe location, and after setting off a controlled charge, they found there were no explosives in the artillery shell. A dud, as they say, but not a future lamp.