The Worst Thing Ever Found In An IKEA Bag

Well, here's a news tidbit straight out of a horror story: A Swedish woman found the bones of 80 people stored in IKEA bags. That doesn't make me want to run out and get any reasonably-priced couches or undeniably tasty Swedish meatballs from the furniture giant anytime soon.

Kicki Karlén was minding her own business, poking around the Kläckeberga church in southern Sweden, when she lifted up a tarp only to find giant, blue IKEA bags stuffed to the brim with human skeletons that used to be buried under the church floorboard (which, if you ask me, is still pretty creepy). Apparently, the church ripped up the floor concealing the bones as part of a remodel, which means they had been sitting there since 2009. Karlén posted a photo of the IKEA remains on her blog, along with a furious rant about the discovery of, you know, 80 human being stored in bags.

"How would you feel if it was your grandmother or grandfather?" Karlén wrote on the blog. The answer to that? Probably pretty weird. I don't think my grandparents know what an IKEA even is.

And the thing is, no one aside from Karlén seems really bothered by this. Swedish news site The Local spoke to archaeologist Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay, who worked on the excavation project five years ago.

Our mission was to document and rebury the bones, which may be as much as 500 years old. But the reburial was delayed and I have no idea why. The plan was to rebury them as soon as possible, but that's up to the church. The county board said they couldn't leave church ground, and it became complicated.

So things "became complicated" and they left bones sitting under a tarp. In IKEA bags. If that still makes you squirmy, Papmehl-Dufay says that, actually, as far as bone-storage devices go, IKEA bags aren't that bad.

It's not standard practice, definitely not for archaeologists, but the Ikea bags aren't actually that bad. They'd be great for stopping the moulding process. But it can't be that good to have them in the basement for so long.

Well, now you know. If you need to store a bunch of bones (we won't speculate on why), you can put them in the exact same vessel that once housed a really cute frame and throw pillows that tied the living room together perfectly.