‘I rushed out of there’: Ballard contractor makes explosive discovery while remodeling bathroom

SEATTLE — A contractor remodeling a Ballard home made an explosive discovery. He found a grenade while ripping out a bathtub on Tuesday.

Seattle Police’s bomb squad was called in and determined the grenade wasn’t live. However, Polar Bear Construction owner, Vadim Kharkhavyy, said he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

“My first thought was to get out of there,” said Kharkavyy.

He said he was working on a third-floor bathroom and had just ripped the bathtub out when he saw the grenade between the studs.

“I rushed out of there, took a breath, and actually went back in and recorded the situation,” he said. “I zoomed in on my phone and took a closer peek, I’m like that’s an actual freaking grenade.”

Finding something hidden and long forgotten in walls and floors is something Kharkavyy’s seen a lot of in his 10 years on the job. Usually, it’s old magazines or newspapers.

“But nothing like this, this was big,” he said. “Nobody knew [it was there].”

“There was a little compartment that was found after we demoed the bathtub in the back of the closet,” he continued. “So somebody actually opened that compartment and put it back there.”

Vadim said he lost three hours of work because of the discovery Tuesday afternoon. He also said he’d rather lose time than potentially lose his life.

“In a situation like that you can’t - you got to take things seriously,” he said. “Whether it’s a bomb, whether it’s a grenade, it’s an explosive. I have kids and a wife at home so I’d rather play it safe than sorry.”

He also said the investigators at the scene told him where the grenade may have come from and how it got into the walls.

“They mentioned something about WWII and how veterans came home and they brought weapons and stuff with them and somebody stored it there and possibly forgot about it,” said Kharkavyy.

KIRO 7 asked Seattle Police if it’s legal for anyone to have an inert grenade like the one found in the Ballard wall. They pointed KIRO 7 to the ATF website where it reads:

Unloaded or dummy grenades, artillery shell casings, and similar devices, which are cut or drilled in an ATF-approved manner so that they cannot be used as ammunition components for destructive devices, are not considered NFA weapons.

The following weapons are regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA):

• A shotgun having a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length.
• A weapon made from a shotgun if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length.
• A rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length.
• A weapon made from a rifle if such a weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length.
• Any other weapon, as defined in subsection (e).
• A machinegun.
• Any silencer (as defined in section 921 of title 18, United States Code).
• A destructive device.

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