'Disabilities aren't always visible': Woman with multiple sclerosis finds dog waste smeared on car in handicap-accessible spot

Hope Schreiber
·Writer
Shellie Nichol Chandar, who has multiple sclerosis, said that her vehicle and placard were attacked because she is not obviously”handicapped. (Photo: HGO)
Shellie Nichol Chandar, who has multiple sclerosis, said that her vehicle and placard were attacked because she is not obviously”handicapped. (Photo: HGO)

In 2012, Shellie Nichol Chandar was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. According to Chandar, stress exacerbates her symptoms, which have only gotten worse since her mother-in-law was involved in a serious accident two weeks ago. Chandar’s left leg gives her difficulty, which makes it hard for her to walk.

On Saturday, Chandar, a Realtor, may have appeared to be healthy as she parked in a handicapped spot when she went to show prospective clients a new home. She and her clients were in the home for 10 minutes, she said, but when she returned to her vehicle, she realized there was “just poop all over” her car.

According to Chandar, who shared photos of the incident on Facebook, such reactions are par for the course for those with a disability placard. She told ABC7 News, “My clients were running late, so I sat down on the curb. I did notice some people giving me ‘the look’ when I got out of my car, and I’m pretty used to that, because I get it a lot.”

The photos have been blurred by ABC7 News.

“This was so really violent, and so cruel and so crude to do that,” Chandar told the outlet. “I just felt like I needed to do it in hopes that the person that did it would actually see the video and feel kind of ‘poopy’ themselves.”

Before meeting her clients, Chandar had come from seeing her mother-in-law, who is currently in the hospital and is paralyzed. “We left her, and I went to go meet my clients an hour later after seeing her suffering,” Chandar said. “That really hurt more, because it took a lot to get ready that day after seeing my mother-in-law go through therapy.”

The realtor is a mother of eight, and says her mother-in-law is an integral part of their lives. Chandar is also an advocate for her nonprofit, Project Foster Care.

Chandar had one message to the person who did this: “Just consider the fact that disabilities aren’t always visible, and that they don’t realize what it took for me that day to just get up and go meet clients and go around for the day.”

She told the news outlet that she didn’t reach out to police and isn’t searching for the person responsible, but Chandar hopes that they will revise their opinion of people with disabilities and those whose disabilities are not apparent. “I don’t know what happened to them that day that made them so very angry with me,” she said.

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