Most people have probably had fantasies about finding a large amount of cash.

You think it would be fun? Think again. When a contractor in Ohio was tearing out bathroom walls in an old house he was remodeling for a friend, he found two ancient metal boxes containing $182,000 in Depression era cash. Because he tried to do the right thing, his life has been miserable ever since:

CLEVELAND -- A contractor who found $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in a bathroom wall has ended up with only a few thousand dollars, but he feels some vindication.

The windfall discovery amounted to little more than grief for contractor Bob Kitts, who couldn't agree on how to split the money with homeowner Amanda Reece.

It didn't help Reece much, either. She testified in a deposition that she was considering bankruptcy and that a bank recently foreclosed on one of her properties.

And 21 descendants of Patrick Dunne -- the wealthy businessman who stashed the money that was minted in a time of bank collapses and joblessness -- will each get a mere fraction of the find.

In this case, there's also the principle of "you can't get blood from a stone," because the homeowner spent much of the money, and now claims unknown parties stole the rest:

A month after The Plain Dealer reported on the case in December 2007, Dunne's estate got involved, suing for the right to the money.

By then there was little left to claim.

Reece testified in a deposition that she spent about $14,000 on a trip to Hawaii and had sold some of the rare late 1920s bills. She said about $60,000 was stolen from a shoe box in her closet but testified that she never reported the theft to police.

Kitts said Reece accused him of stealing the money and began leaving him threatening phone messages. Marcinkevicius doesn't believe the money was stolen but said he couldn't prove otherwise.

Reece's phone number has been disconnected, and her attorney Robert Lazzaro did not return a call seeking comment. There were no court records showing that Reece had filed for bankruptcy.

Kitts said he lost a lot of business because media reports on the case portrayed him as greedy, but he feels vindicated by the court's decision to give him a share.

"I was not the bad guy that everybody made me out to be," Kitts said. "I didn't do anything wrong."

He's often asked why he didn't keep his mouth shut and pocket the money. He says he wasn't raised that way.

$182,000 makes it easy to be wrong.

Frankly, if I hired a contractor who found that kind of money in my bathroom wall, and was honest enough to tell me about it, I'd be glad to split it 50/50 and avoid the newspapers.

But I guess then we'd both be wrong. If only two wrongs made a right!

MORE: According to the Wikipedia article on treasure trove law, the contractor was entitled to the money:

A majority of state courts, including those of Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin, have ruled that the finder of treasure trove is entitled to it.