New Bedford Man Fills Toyota Camry With Mulch and Somehow Pulls It Off

There’s “working smarter, not harder," and then there’s whatever New Bedford resident Mason Oliveira just pulled off with his 2001 Toyota Camry.

After Oliveira's wife Ashley posted a video on Facebook showing the family sedan absolutely stuffed with loose fresh mulch, reactions started pouring in almost immediately. Some people called it genius. Others questioned his sanity, and I had so many questions.

When I first saw the photos, my immediate thought was, “There is absolutely no way that car is surviving this from all that weight.”

Turns out, not only did the Camry survive, but Oliveira said this isn’t even the first time he’s done it. In fact, according to him, hauling mulch in the back of his sedan has become somewhat of a routine every other year.

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Portuguese Ingenuity at Its Finest

Oliveira told me the trusty Camry has about 95,000 miles on it and cost him just $1,200 around five years ago when he bought it from a coworker whose grandmother could no longer drive. Instead of spending money renting a truck or bothering friends to borrow theirs, he decided to make do with what he already had.

So naturally, he lined the trunk and back seat with tarps and got to work.

READ MORE: This Portuguese Papo Secos Saved New Bedford Man Over a Thousand Dollars

The mulch itself came from another coworker in Freetown who had extra to give away for free. Oliveira drove over around 8 a.m., shoveled mulch directly into the trunk, filled five-gallon buckets for the back seat area, and somehow managed to transport roughly a yard to a yard and a half of mulch home inside the Camry.

Yes, inside the Camry.

Surprisingly, It Worked

According to Oliveira, the car handled it better than expected, although he admitted the rear tires rubbed a little over bumps on the ride home. Still, he said cleanup only took about five minutes with a vacuum and insisted the whole thing was completely worth it.

Honestly, I kind of respect it.

There’s something hilariously relatable about refusing to inconvenience anybody, saving money where you can, and finding a wildly creative way to get the job done. As Mason proudly put it during our conversation, “You got to do what you got to do," and somewhere, every Portuguese dad on the SouthCoast probably nodded in approval.