Workers struck lucky by discovering a large amount of gold hidden under the floor of a house in Sacramento - but they were honest enough to hand it over to their clients, who had no idea it was there.

While installing an HVAC system in September, Steve Ottley and his partner came across 12 large baby food jars filled to the brim with gold dust.They gave the hoard to the homeowners and it has since been valued at around $300,000.

No one yet knows who left the stash behind or why it was abandoned. The owners of the house, unaware they had been sitting on such a treasure, declined to be interviewed about their windfall.

They will certainly feel they got a good deal on their home improvement - the job which cost them around $6,500 brought a 'rebate' worth nearly 50 times that amount.A surprised Ottley told CBS Sacramento of the moment he made the discovery: 'I looked at it and said, "I think that's gold".'

The heating engineer was right - and he still has not got over his shock. 'I still can't believe it today. It's unreal. We kind of just looked at each other and said "wow",' he explained.

Ottley admitted that he had been tempted to take the gold himself for a second. But having been the victim of theft in the past, he realised the right thing to do was to give it to its owners, and his honesty was applauded by his boss.

'The money wasn't ours to keep and I don't believe you get a chance very often to do something radically honest, to do something ridiculously awesome for someone else and that is a lesson I hope to teach to my children,' Ferrin said.

To read the complete article, see:Honest workers uncover mystery $300,000 gold stash hidden under floorboards... and hand it over to grateful homeowners(www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237903/Honest-workers-uncover
-mystery-300-000-gold-stash-hidden-floorboards--hand-grateful-homeowners.html)