My wife and I just shopped at the Hampton Walmart, store number 1631 at 1900 Cunningham Drive. This was 9:15 pm, Sunday, July 17, 2005. As we went to the front of the store to check out, we saw feces in front of the jewelry counter.

I immediately went to the first employee I could find, Sandy, a blue-shirted employee eating a donut. I told her about the feces, and she went and told some red-shirted managers. I then saw her walk towards the back of the store, content her job was done.

My wife and I had to wait in line to buy our items, so I watched the jewelry counter with a kind of morbid curiousity. About 5 minutes went by and no one did anything about it, and no announcement was made over the loudspeaker. So I decided to tell a manager about the problem, people were stepping in it and spreading it around with carts. I told a red-shirted manager, who was walking with a blue-shirted employee to the self-service checkout. I informed her there was feces in the main aisle in front of the jewelry counter, and she seemed noticeably perturbed. She went to the self-serve checkout and a few minutes later made an announcement for maintenance to clean up a “spill” in front of the jewelry counter.

My wife completed checking out, and there was still no caution triangle in front of the feces, nor was anyone cleaning it up. I stood around for about 5 more minutes, and then went and told another red shirt at customer service. A blue-shirted employee from the self-service checkout followed me over to customer service and said that she was also looking for someone to clean it up.

This last red-shirted manager disappeared as well, and I returned to where my wife was standing by the door. We waited a few more minutes and finally a different red-shirted manager came through and put a caution pyramid in front of the feces.

This pyramid was about 8 feet away from the feces in its holder on the main support column. Any of the 5 employees I spoke with could have placed this caution pyramid out, had they cared enough about it. As it was, feces was tracked all over the main aisle in between the jewelry counter and the checkout counters. My wife and I left before we saw it cleaned up.

I am absolutely horrified about this situation. I understand that kids do dumb things, and I know WalMart could not help that the feces got there in the first place. The part that WalMart is to blame for is not cleaning it up in a timely manner. All the employees understood it was not some food item like grape jelly, but it was feces. It was disgusting, and was being tracked all over the store.

To document this, I took about 6 pictures with my camera phone. I will be uploading these to my website and I will be telling everyone I know about this incident. It is disturbing to think how many employees knew about this, and did nothing. I will never enter that WalMart again, and I will encourage everyone that I come in contact with to never shop there again.

Thank you for your time,
Nathan DeWitt
ps - please contact me if you would like to see the pictures.

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