Woman Terrified After 'Mutant Potatoes' Take Over Her Flat During Lockdown

A woman from France was given a fright upon returning to her flat after months away to find 'mutant potatoes' had taken over the gaff.

Donna Porée, from Caen, had bought a €2.50 (£2.25) bag of potatoes from a Super U supermarket back in March, but as lockdown measures were announced in the country, she hastily fled to quarantine with her boyfriend on the other side of town.

Of course, when leaving your flat in a rush, you make sure you've got your phone, wallet, keys; but the sack of potatoes on the kitchen shelf is the last of your worries.

However Donna probably didn't envisage lockdown lasting as long as it did, and after finally returning to her flat last month, the 22-year-old discovered that the unassuming spuds had grown huge alien-like vegetable tentacles and spread across her flat.

Communications manager Donna said: "As I opened the front door, I noticed a strange shape at the back of the kitchen.

"As the light was off and shutters down, I didn't realise it was the potatoes. It was only after opening the shutters that I took note of this extraordinary sight.

"I was terrified at first, but after realising what it was I laughed a lot and shared a video of the plant on Snapchat.

"My friends couldn't stop laughing. They found the whole situation unbelievable."

The potatoes were not keen to budge though, having been left home alone for months. The shoots had grown through the bag and between the kitchen worktop and the wall of the flat, and Donna had to spend hours cutting the shoots to remove the mutant Maris Pipers (I'm not actually sure if they were Maris Pipers, but it's alliterative, and that's what matters).

Donna said: "I wanted to extract the bag of potatoes from the counter-top seals, but it wasn't easy.

"The shoots had fixed in place in the joints and were difficult to remove. I ended up having to cut some of the shoots out with scissors and I had to fill in the holes they made."

Donna shared a photo of the monster Maris Pipers (I'm sticking with it) on Twitter with the tweet receiving almost 200,000 likes from shocked/repulsed/amused people from across the globe.

The moral of the story then: next time you have to hastily evacuate your home prior to the introduction of quarantine measures designed to mitigate the spread of a pandemic - make sure you chuck your tatties out, or take them with you.

As for Donna though, she hasn't let the malformed Maris Pipers put her off potatoes.

She said: "I replanted the potatoes in my vegetable patch and today they're growing once again.

"I'm eager to see what will come out of the ground."

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: Viral, Food, lockdown, Funny, Community

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey