Owning a home is a dream come true for many people. If you want to afford a typical home in the US now, you need to earn $120,000. Back in early 2020, you needed an income of just $63,000. With how expensive (and limited) property is in this day and age, putting down a deposit feels like a massive leap forward.
And when you finally get your keys and unlock the front door, it’s like the start of a new era. However, unless it is a completely new building, you might find some surprises, shocks, and mysteries inside. Homeowners spilled the tea about the strangest, creepiest, and most outlandish discoveries they made inside their homes, and we’ve collected their best stories to share with you. Secret rooms? Hidden panels? We’ve got all of this and more.
#1
After moving into our new house, we found around $14,000 behind the toilet. Apparently the person who lived in the house before us did not believe in banks.
Image source: Grahamtg21, jcomp / Magnific (not the actual photo)
#2
A cat..the house we purchased had a closet under the basement staircase. During the final walk through I felt the compulsion to open the door out of curiosity. Seeing that it was a closet with no light I decided to shine a light to see how far back it went, in most narrow part I saw two glowing eyes and was able to make out the outline of a cat. When we called the owners thinking they’d be so relieved, they had acted surprised saying “we searched all over for him, and had just figured we ran away during the move”. As we proceeded with the closing procedures, they continuously offered for us to take the cat saying their apartment wouldn’t allow pets and they had no where to take him. It got to the point where our realtor had to tell them to stop. I like to imagine it’s all happen stance and they didn’t just decide to lock the poor cat up in a closet for us to find.
The worst part is, we didn’t move into the house until a few days later. If I hadn’t randomly decided to shine my flashlight inside the closet, that poor cat would have suffered.
Image source: AwHereItGoesWasTaken, wirestock / Magnific (not the actual photo)
#3
The previous owner’s wife had passed away not long before we purchased the house. About a week after we took possession, the realtor called us and asked if we’d found the owner’s wife’s wedding ring in the master bedroom closet. We had not. A few years later, we were cleaning on top of the kitchen cabinets and found the ring. Why it was on top of the kitchen cabinets we will never know. We were able to track down the owner and return it, however.
Image source: sentientmeatpopsicle, Roman Derrick Okello / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The reality is that your deposit, mortgage, and utilities aren’t the only costs you’ll have to cover when you finally own property. There are lots of hidden costs that can really hit your wallet where it hurts if you’re a first-time homeowner.
Investopedia explains that some hidden costs, such as property taxes, fees, and homeowners’ insurance, are routine and inescapable. Meanwhile, other costs like upkeep and repair are unpredictable and occasional.
Some of the highest costs of homeownership are related to roof upkeep and repairs, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), electrical systems, and plumbing.
#4
My kids found a crawl space up in a bedroom. They found Ken dolls with their hands melted and razors embedded. I did my best to lighten the freakishness and joked that Sid must have lived there.
Image source: rackfocus, julee_juu / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#5
My parents bought a home that used to be a funeral parlor almost 100 years ago. Dad had never questioned why there was a second bulkhead that went nowhere and when there was a bust pipe they finally had to cut it open
Inside we found a small walled off room that had hundreds of old bottles, odd equipment, chemicals/perfumed salts, stained glass windows from the original building and a few old ledgers + accounting books. Parents had no use for it and a local antique shop owner/town historian happily took it when offered.
We had received some cool old copies of photos of how the house originally looked a few years later.
Image source: KnittyViki, CHUTTERSNAP / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#6
We bought our house in September last year. About this time last year our cat started playing with this little wooden thing he found. We had no idea what he was playing with but when we walked over to see what it was, it turned out to be a little Dreidle. We had never seen it before but that’s when our cat let us know he was Jewish.
Image source: Cocoa121, Roland Scheicher / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
Furthermore, where you live matters a lot. For example, in areas that are more at risk of natural disasters, you can expect to pay lots more for insurance.
“Typically, homeowners insurance doesn’t cover ‘acts of God,’ meaning that you’ll need to purchase extra coverage against disasters like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Even water damage from storms is very rarely covered in a basic homeowners policy,” Investopedia warns.
Moisture is a massive enemy of structural integrity. It attracts termites to the wood in your building. Meanwhile, damp and humid areas are wonderful for mold to spread its nastiness. If your HVAC system is contaminated, it can actually spread the mold throughout your entire home.
#7
My cousin found an honest to gosh hidden room. A bookshelf swung forward and revealed an unfinished place under the stairs. It had a water glass and some star wars books from 1996 in it.
Image source: Its_Curse, Martinvl / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#8
I found a hidden room. It was a big room that had been finished out, except for the central heat. When I say big, it was easily 15 ft x 30 ft.
Here is what was in the room:
* A boxing speed bag in the corner with a pair of boxing gloves hanging nearby.
* Over two dozen women’s wigs on fake heads.
* Two mannequins. Both of them were bare, but neither seemed to mind.
* About twenty garbage bags full of stuff.
* A pile of women’s panties/knickers. At least thirty pair.
* About twenty hat boxes.
Image source: DisastrousContact, Mike Cox / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#9
When my family moved to Salem, dad bought an old Victorian house that used to belong to a doctor.
The attic was goldmine for kids! (until dad looked into it and threw it all away). The best thing was a human fetus in a jar.
Image source: gardano, Marcelo Leal / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
If you’re a homeowner, what are the weirdest, coolest, or most unsettling things that you’ve ever discovered in your property? Meanwhile, if you’re renting, what are the oddest or creepiest things you’ve found that the previous tenants left behind? What are the strangest things that your neighbors have ever done?
On the more grounded side of things, what are some unexpected and hidden homeownership costs that genuinely shocked you?
Share a few of your experiences in the comments after you’ve upvoted the stories you enjoyed the most.
#10
A .38 revolver, hidden in a closet. Had a police officer friend run the serial number. Turns out it was stolen in a home burglary in 1973. We found it in 1998.
Image source: sausageslinger11, d3images / Magnific (not the actual photo)
#11
Hanging on the wall in the unfinished, closed off part of the attic, we found a matted portrait of a man staring angelically off into space as he cradled a deer. Upon closer inspection we realized the man had an arrow through his hand where it lay over the deer, having protected it from injury. We call him Deer Man.
Image source: salamandersassafras, salamandersassafras
#12
A spider nest. Hit it with my shoe and out crawl 200 baby spiders going into all directions and cravices of the house. 6 years later and we are still [finding] a spider a day.
Image source: jaehwahh, Luis Fernández García / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#13
An old friend of mine grew up in the house I now own. I had no idea, but he struggled with severe mental illness from around high school on. His mom left a few boxes behind in the garage and one of them was full of all his old arrest info, letters from his parole officer, and most depressingly…a letter from the judge recommending he be remanded to a psychiatric facility instead of prison. Apparently he lived his adult years in a home for schizophrenics and died a few years ago. The whole thing was just very sad.
Image source: ebjoker4, Kadarius Seegars / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
When I lived in a townhouse a few years ago, my roommate and I noticed a message scratched into the side of the refrigerator. “Find the x”. We searched that place high and low, never found an X. I really hope it was someone messing with us because if I moved out and never found the buried treasure I’m gonna be pissed.
Image source: demicus, Raymond Petrik / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#15
When i was 16 my friends dad bought and sold houses and would pay us to clean them out. In one particular house we found a 2 man horse costume, a male blow up doll, bag of pot, and sockem boppers. Anyways we had a great weekend running around our neighbor hood in the horse costume with a blow up doll on top.
Image source: snorls, ArthurHidden / Magnific (not the actual photo)
#16
10 years I’ve lived in my house, but until recently had never been in the attic. It’s a push up hatch, rather than a pull down/ladder combo, so it wasn’t very accessible. There was a weird smell one day, and I was afraid something may have passed away up there, so I pulled out a ladder, lifted the hatch and poked my head up there to check it out. Right next to the hatch in the attic was a huge pile of what looked like stuffing, but turned out to be a gigantic (6 or 7 foot) stuffed person. Like the biggest voodoo doll that ever was, but all white. I tried moving it around a bit to get it out of the way, bc it was insanely heavy and hard to move. It’s torn in places and full of 100 years of dust, stuffing, and whatever the hell else, so yeah….I just left it there, closed the hatch and called it a day.
Image source: withcinnamon, David Bise / Magnific (not the actual photo)
#17
Attic was full of doll heads. I left them there for the next owner.
Image source: Honkey_McCracker, Tapio Haaja / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#18
Not my story but my friends
My friends dad found an urn full of ashes in the basement of their house. The urn had a plaque on it with the word baby and an angel. The previous owners had left the urn there with the ashes of their baby. My friends dad displayed the urn in their living room. They eventually sold the house and moved away, but her dad took the urn. He displays it on his mantle.
Edit: for those wondering they believe it was a stillborn baby as it also had a last name next to the word baby.
Image source: GrilledAvocado
#19
A mason jar was found on a shelf inside a bedroom closet above the door. It had piece of white fabric tape on it. Written on the tape was “Jay’s Fart Jar”. I didn’t want to open it to confirm. It went right in the recycling bin.
Image source: TheDannyO
#20
About a dozen bibles. Some in each closet, one in the attic crawlspace, and one in the crawlspace under the house. I’d like to say it didn’t freak me out a little but it did.
Image source: moviejunki
#21
Security cameras. OK, that may not sound too odd at first, and certainly I was aware of some of them before I bought the place. But… where it gets odd is the sheer number. I could understand one on the front porch. This guy had two there; one aimed at the door and one at the walkway. Another above the garage door aimed at the driveway. Two — one facing each way — around the corner of the driveway. One on the back patio. One inside the garage. One inside the *living room*. I just moved in, and first thing I did was disconnect the control system from the power supply and internet feed it was still connected to. Second was to peruse all the rooms to make sure I wasn’t missing any other cameras. This past weekend my brother helped me remove all the cameras from the walls, and I spent that evening pulling the cords out of the walls. I don’t know how many feet of cord there were… hundreds, certainly. Probably thousands. Completely ridiculous.
Image source: CommodoreBelmont
#22
I have a painting from a famous Cambodian artist named Nhek Diem. It is apparently the first painting he won an award for at an international exhibition, and made his reputation. He later studied at the Disney studios, returned to Cambodia, and disappeared during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. Found in the back closet of a trailer house I bought in ~2002.
If I had listened to other family members, I would have tossed it. But I liked it. Now, my hope is that it makes it somewhere that Cambodian people who would appreciate it can see it, and not on the wall of some corrupt official.
The national art museum of Singapore had someone who expressed interest in a purchase, but I lost their email and still am unsure what would be best for the painting and secondly for me. I was going to put it on some kind of perpetual loan it to the national galley of Cambodia, but was advised against that because that organization is only interested in Angkor Wat era art, and subject to the whims of connected government officials.
I am from multiple generations of poor white trash, and we don’t have any experience on how to handle stuff that we own that might be of interest to decent folk, and the tax implications of such. I am not looking to become rich off this painting, nor do I think it can do so for me. I just want to do what is right by the Cambodian people, the unfortunately deceased artist, and myself, as best I possibly can. This painting is a cultural product of Cambodia, and has probably spent the last half-century in American obscurity.
Image source: Malcolm_Y
#23
In the basement of a house we were renting, we found this hilariously creepy painting of Belsnickel chasing kids with a switch.
Image source: PM_ME_YOUR_OUIJA
#24
My friend’s dad bought a place to use as a rental property. It used to be a dentist’s house. This dentist apparently brought home all the teeth he pulled.
The mailbox was on a concrete pillar. This concrete did not use pebbles as aggregate, it was full of human teeth. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
Image source: Veritas3333
#25
We found a stack of acrylic paintings in the basement, all very amateurish. Subjects ranged from creepy little girls to 70’s psychedelic [bare] ladies. Realtor told the owners to pick them up, or they would end up in the trash. They showed up a year later asking for them!
Bonus, junk removal guy loved the 70’s [paintings], asked to keep them.
Image source: soulie12
#26
An uncomfortably obvious [illegal substance] lab and a secret passage way (walls had been gutted) leading from a bedroom closet to a linen closet close to the back door.
Also (in the same house) an antique piano from the early 1900s. Had it been kept in better condition, we were told it would have been worth at least like $10,000 because that particular model was so rare.
Image source: Crispy_Apple_Pie
#27
A colorized (colors filled in by hand), very large black and white photograph in an ornate gilded frame, found in the attic. The photo showed a young child in a white lacy dress wearing a cowboy hat and boots, standing on the steps of a city building (think brownstone) with a pony. The house was in the midwest, and not near a city where such buildings might be found. It was an old photo, and you could not tell if this was a girl or a boy, since boys used to wear dresses. But what you could tell, and could not be denied, was that the child was the ugliest child any of us had ever seen. Scary ugly. I wasn’t even envious about the pony – that kid was just so ugly.
We hung the photo in a prominent spot, and would make up a story about the person/pony/photo, taking turns. We left the thing in the attic when we sold the house. Didn’t seem right to take it.
Image source: 4rsmit
#28
Earlier this year I moved into a new apartment and found four unopened cans of 7up gold in a gap between my kitchen cabinets and the wall. 7up gold was discontinued in 1988.
Edit for those asking: The seals on the cans had obviously failed long ago and all the liquid had evaporated/leaked out. There was about a quarter of a can left in one but again, the seal was compromised and it was probably so full of bacteria it wouldn’t have been even remotely safe to drink.
Image source: RathrDash1ng
#29
Razor blades…. the double edged ones from the old razors. They were in the wall when we opened it up to repair a busted pipe. I noticed a pile of debris in the wall and luckily happened to be wearing gloves. I reached in to grab the debris and throw it away and pulled out a handful of blades… there were several handfuls. I later learned a feature of the mid century modern bathroom was a blade disposal slot in the back of the medicine cabinet. Super gross and creepy.
Also if you are going to move a bathroom wall in a mcm house…be on the lookout.
Image source: Bellapace
#30
Change. So much change.
Countless pennies, nickels, and dimes with the occasional quarter sprinkled in. All in the ground around the house.
Edit: To clarify—It was all coins from recent years (60s, 70s, 80s and so on) My family bought the house from a sweet couple who had a lot of foster children coming in and out of their home. We found toys, knives, and so much more in and around the house. Anytime we dug around the house, we knew we were going to find something odd.
Image source: guineaturds
#31
Found a box full of random stuff in our basement of our apartment. Inside there was a Alcoholics Anonymous book filled with hand written notes that progressively got less and less legible. Phone numbers, names, stories… we tried calling a few numbers and no one answered. I think the woman passed away from her struggles.
Image source: Endura_GW2
#32
We have this side room next to some stairs. While we were moving stuff into the room, we noticed a piece of drywall was coming off the wall so we took it off. Behind it and under the stair were some way old toys. Most likely from the 50s. In the same house about a year later. We paid a company to come put new insulation in the attic. When he was done he told me we had a portion of our attic sealed off. So we busted through. Found a super old sewing table and about 15 boxes of PINECONES.
Image source: R12356
#33
My husband and I rented a house after we got married. The previous tenants were evicted, so there was some cleaning to be done. Since I was pregnant I was on a cleaning binge anyway.
On move in day was cleaning out the kitchen cabinets to figure out how to set up the kitchen. I found some papers. I read through them and it turns out the previous tenants ran a dog fighting ring in the basement. The guy was talking to people online about getting some pit bull pups. It was disgusting. I turned them into the property manger and I don’t know what if anything he did what the info. I also found Medicaid cards for the kids that lived there.
Image source: BrownEyedQueen1982
#34
Found a mummified looking cat in an attic space of a rental property I bought.
Image source: spicedpumpkins
#35
A roughly 30-foot-long vinyl scroll with a hand-drawn timeline of Biblical history and an estimate of the apocalypse.
Image source: Tiny_Parfait
#36
There were these little handmade wooden crosses above EVERY doorway. It was very creepy, but we took them down and no ghosts yet.
Image source: kayyxelle
#37
My mom bought her house 12 years ago, but last year my mentally unstable brother kicked the front door down. The door had a giant metal lock on it (it didn’t work, we just used the deadbolt but kept the lock on because the house was built in 1795 and looked cool) the lock broke off and a bunch of little papers and cards fell out of it. Among them were CIA ID badges, business cards that had to do with cryptography, and other things that had to do with the CIA.
A few days later I thought I would look through the house in search of more CIA stuff, and stumbled upon a WWII explosive round under one of the floorboards in the attic. That week was wild.
Image source: anon
#38
Ashes of a family dog. Found in the top corner of the closet. RIP Perkins.
Image source: Chiiirpy
#39
We found an entire room hidden behind a mirror months after we moved in.
https://imgur.com/gallery/ZnRhPSl.
Image source: MrSmannams
#40
A USB drive belonging to the previous owner. It held thirty photos of his car and one of his wife and baby.
Image source: I_throw_socks_at_cat
#41
A soldier’s pocket bible, from 1861. Mint condition, gold-leafed.. with an inscription from his sister……
Image source: dyslexiasyoda
#42
I’m not very tall.
I was cleaning out my bedroom while preparing to move out of the house my family had rented for about three years. At the top of the closest, right at the back, where a balled up pair of a stranger’s used underwear… that had apparently been there for at least the three years we’d lived there. That was gross.
Image source: Wompguinea
#43
A child-sized WWE belt. Despite purchasing my first home and now being several years worth of salary in debt for the first time, I was most interested in how I could possibly wear such a fine article of clothing to work the next day.
Image source: arindale
#44
A basement.
I seriously bought a house and didn’t know it had a basement.
In my defense, the entry was through a long narrow laundry room away the back of the house where the sellers kept their dogs. They asked us not to open the door and let the dogs out, and I just never saw the other door. I discovered it when we were moving in…I felt like such a dumb person.
Image source: enkibean
#45
A ticket to the 1934 World Fair in Chicago.
Image source: rex_grossmans_ghost
#46
We didn’t realize it while touring and doing our walkthrough, but all of the bedroom locks were from the inside.
Every bedroom had a medicine cabinet too.
Edit: locked from the outside. So the person inside couldn’t leave.
Image source: georgecuzstanza
#47
My house has a two person jacuzzi tub with mirrors on three walls around it. When I was looking at the house there was a four post canopy bed with a mirror inside the canopy. Needless to say, the previous owner had his thing.
When I was moving in I found in the basement a bar with cuffs on either end hanging from the ceiling and two eye bolts in a board on the floor that would have made this a perfect place to tie someone up spread eagle. I strongly suspect that is what it was used for.
I have a room that used to be a bar (previous owner took the bar itself with him despite it being a built in). It has a dropped ceiling and the lights are above with clear panels to let the light thru. I was moving ceiling tiles to change a bulb and got hit in the face by what I’m guessing was a home made swing that was bolted to the rafters above.
I’ve been in this house 15 years and I still occasionally find a secret panel in a wall. It seems anywhere there was an extra bit of space he put a removable panel to make a hidden storage space.
And despite all that, the single most surprising thing I found in this house is the light switch in the bathroom that has power going to it but doesn’t seem to actually switch anything in the house! What do you go to you mysterious switch? When will you stop taunting me and give up your secrets!!!
Image source: DeaddyRuxpin
#48
When my parents bought our house, they found old crates for oranges from 1957 in our basement. They bought the house in 2000. I’ve still got the crates!
Image source: Doffeda
#49
A used tampon in one of our closets.
Image source: Harling_
#50
There was a kitchen hidden behind a wall, fully furnished, with a deceased mouse under the table that was practically mummified.
Image source: PizzaTime666
#51
A ring in a box in one of the floor vents.
Image source: KellStar18
#52
Floor safe in the garage under an old carpet, completely empty. When I sell the house in 20 years, I’ll put a $100 bill in it and maybe some spent shell casings so the next owners have a cool story.
Image source: steelmelt33
#53
A mostly full bottle of old toothache drops that have chloroform in them.
Image source: tibamarak
#54
A tooth with an old metal filling in it and a 50 cal bullet.
Image source: dontdid
#55
Moved into an old house in Berkshire, UK, and found a bible from the 1700s in the attic. In the back was handwritten the history of the early owners. The Church in the village was 12th century and had all the records so so we tracked down the modern descendants and gave them the bible.
Image source: Aiku
#56
Bought our house over the summer and found an old coke bottle sticking out of the dirt on the side of the garage. Cleaned it up and did a little research, turned out to be from the year the house was built, 1975. We put it on a shelf. Hoping to find something cool someday.
Image source: PinkHuckleberry
#57
Found an old chainsaw out in the yard about 6 months after moving in. It was the middle of the night when I stumbled upon it. I got quite the spook.
Image source: l1ghtn1ng_1
#58
My dad moved into an apartment and the whole place had its nice original wood flooring from the 1940s except for the living room, which had carpet. Kind of a bummer because the wood looks nicer but oh well.
One problem, though. When it’s warm out the living room smells. Can you guess where this is going?
My dad decided to investigate and eventually peeled the carpet up to find a large black stain on the subfloor.
A black stain so large a person could lie inside of it.
The last Tennant passed away and melted in the living room and all they did was pull the hardwood up.
Image source: jeansonnejordan
#59
I pulled the door skin off my S14 to get at the speaker and see why it wasn’t working. Found the whole area between the speaker and the grill was FULL of toothpicks. Hundreds and hundreds of toothpicks. No idea why, they all seemed to be clean and unused, didn’t look like they were jammed through the grill.
Image source: twohedwlf
#60
We found a small wooden box filled with black and white photos. The photos were of the previous owners along with another couple in various bare situations. The box also contained a couple of teeth. That was a strange day.
Image source: Ace_kegels
#61
A half empty bottle of Viagra in a top kitchen cabinet.
A tennis racket in the A/C closet.
A very large (like 24×36) portrait of the wife in her wedding gown in the master bedroom closet. Yes, we tried to return it through our Realtor, never got any response. We did not try to return the Viagra because that would have been creepy.
Image source: adaughterofperdition
#62
Found a 1960s Vietnam War era North Vietnamese coin, with a hole punched in it for use on a necklace, in the dirt at the threshold of an old run down chicken barn, just northeast of Chattanooga TN in 1999. I actually thought that it was an electrical box side hole knock out at first and picked it up to chuck it aside. I figured that it was probably brought back from Vietnam by an older soldier brother and given to a younger sibling who lost it in the barn soon after it was given.
Image source: econobiker
#63
My husband found $500 in our basement behind a wall.
Image source: pumpkin44
#64
A full can of “New Coke” from the horrible brief period in the 1980s when they changed the formula. The can later fell and leaked but we still have the empty can. DH and I were bit kids when the Coke fiasco happened.
Note: we found this in 2004.
Image source: mrsbennetsnerves
#65
Not me but my family. My aunt bought a house in a small poor town down south. Being well off with a good job, she was able to get the house of her dreams. It was an old late 1800s early 1900s house. Anyways, inside the walls, in cupboards, behind boards, were guns and ammo. She ended up finding over 100 weapons- from every time period imaginable- and thousands of rounds of ammo. Still creeps me out for what they were hiding there for.
Image source: rslashwhat
#66
A daily baby diary from 1940.
Image source: Teachfourth
#67
My parents found a complete encyclopedia. Even though google was a thing when I was growing up, my dad would have me look up my questions in that encyclopedia.
Image source: milliondollas
#68
Not me, but a family friend. He used to live across town from us in a sketchy neighborhood before moving with his wife to a house nearer us. We were over at his new house when he was telling us about how he was glad he’d moved because that house gave him the creeps. Apparently, when he moved in, there was a room in the basement with the locks on the outside, and a dirty mattress on the inside. He said he always felt off in that room and rarely went in it. It’s been a few years, but I still think about that house. It used to creep me tf out.
Image source: LivingDeadGirl-666
#69
The Watchtower. It’s a periodical by/for Jehovah’s witnesses. We found crates upon crates of them in the attic crawl space, daring back to the 70’s when the house was built.
What really got me was that they weren’t *only* old ones. I can totally understand just storing a collection like that and forgetting about it when you move. But no, the most recent one in the pile was dated a month or two before the house closing date. So previous owner had taken an edition he had gotten literal weeks before the move, tucked it in with the rest, and then consciously left the whole lot.
Image source: anon
#70
You know how they sell stuff on tv? Every. Single. Thing. In the basement. In the shipping box. I kept the rotisserie. I mean c’mon, set it and forget it.
Image source: TheUltimateSalesman
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