fessie, if that board has copyright protection similar to the SDMB, I suspect your quote is more than fair use. Please email or PM me the link.
My house had 24 paint cans in the basement, 19 of them were empty. Lots of other random garbage I had to haul out, not to mention it took them almost three months to get all their stuff out. When they were finally coming back to get the huge swingset they got annoyed when I told them I didn’t want to buy it. I told them they can leave it if they want (we had a kid on the way), but I wouldn’t buy it from them.
When my BIL ripped up the backyard to put in a patio he found oil cans, a concrete sidewalk block, and red chimney bricks.
Other then that, nothing special.
Regarding the doll in the freezer, how long ago did you buy the house. Other then the ‘666’ that’s a Dexter reference. Which means it’s either a joke or a serial killer is watching you.
We just moved in last Thursday, so we’ve been kind of busy unpacking.
When we redid the bathrooms, stripping the wallpaper revealed a cutout where a built-in medicine cabinet had once been. Before having it papered over, I put in a set of Batman & Robin plastic figures. Somebody will find that, bye and bye.
When I moved in, there was a leather riding crop in a coat closet. We’re not horse people, and we’re not into B&D sex, so it’s still there.
They left half of the storage unit full. (which was annoying because I need the storage.) I let them know, but they apparently aren’t interested.
As it will cost me to get stuff hauled away, I do need to go through it all to see if there’s anything worth keeping. But among the things I know there are two pairs of binoculars, something smallish and fur (hat or muff or something like that) and the world’s ugliest lamp, a dish drying rack (they had a dishwasher…) There’s also the plain white paint that they used for almost everything.
The awful semi-sponge paint in the bathroom (in silver, two clashing tones of grey, and pink all of which separately clash doesn’t go with the peach bathtub) isn’t really “left behind.”
Well, they (or someone down the line) painted a 3-2-1-Contact-esque set of big orange Hexagons on the bathroom wall, sort of interesting.
In college, hanging out with some friends at their apartment, we saw something behind one of the ceiling HVAC vents. Unscrewed the cover, and we found a pornographic VHS tape and a half a box of several-years-old Pop Tarts.
We watched the porn and threw away the pop tarts. When they moved out, they put the porn back in the vent.
Oooooh! Don’t leave us hanging!! What happened to Tabby? Did you keep her or did someone else? I’m an inquiring mind and I must know to be able to sleep well tonight. 
Or at least while I plan for this…
Me too! We’re about to sell our house and I think I’m going to go for off-the-wall-bizarre. Like taking an issue of Field and Stream and enclosing it in a brown paper wrapper, then hiding it under a sink all the way at the back, with some fishing lures and KY. Hehehe. I’m sure either hilarity or penis will ensue. 
That last bit is awesome! I’d love to find something even remotely that cool.
My house had all kinds of stuff in it, nothing that old or interesting though. It was mostly stuff associated with the house, like paint for each room, paint for the outside, driveway sealer, etc. Also extra shutters, window screens, gutters, tile, hardwood floor boards, etc.
Additionally there was a Little Tykes type kid’s sand box, a couple old-fashioned (but actually fairly new) phones, various brooms and mops, various carpets, curtains and blinds on most windows, an old couch in the basement, a picnic table outside.
The only unusual thing we found was some sort of award or certificate up on top of a closet organizer, it was some minor award their teenage daughter had received in high school when that was her room.
Identity of the baby is still unknown, unfortunately. The couple who owned the house at the time had a troubled history - they had no (other) children, and the wife eventually was institutionalized for mental illness a few years after the estimated date of birth (which was determined by the newspaper used to wrap the baby). Both husband and wife have been dead for some years now.
I think they tracked down a niece or cousin who had lived in the house as a very young girl right around that time, and she said she remembered her aunt/cousin/whatever being a bit strange but couldn’t remember anything about a pregnancy or a missing baby.
Since there are no other living relatives who are close enough for DNA matching and an autopsy didn’t yield any clues as to cause of death, there are a lot of unanswered questions and not a whole lot of leads to find said answers.
Spooky. I’ll take our pretty little reformed crackhouse over the dead baby house any day of the week, thankyouverymuch (though we prefer to call it the crackhome).
No, really. The previous owners sold heroin and got busted by SWAT. Thankfully, we haven’t found any surprises from them and hope to keep it that way.
Tabby was fine he belonged to the next door neighbor. She said he’d disappeared the week before. He was a bit thinner but other wise fine.
All I can say is, if you’re going to get gay porn through the mail–and I fully support your right to do that–fill out the change of address card when you move.
Here’s a similar one, but with an explanation:
http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/featured/lemongrove.htm
Boring stuff here. At our last place (townhouse) the owner left a drawerful of instruction manuals etc. for the appliances, furnace etc.
In the furnace, there was a plastic soft-drink jug - the sort that looks like a miniature gallon milk jug, and contains a mixture of water, corn syrup, artificial color and artifical flavor. We discovered this when we started using the furnace our first winter, and heard thumpity-thump nonstop whenever the furnace was running. Fearing we were about to die in a furnace-related explosion, we called someone to come out and look at it. I described the problem over the phone and asked “is this likely to be something severe enough that we need to stop using the furnace?”. The person on the other end laughed and said “nope, a lot of times, builders leave coke cans in the furnace as a prank”. They came out a day or two later and sure enough, that’s what happened. :mad:
At our current place, we found a carved wooden head - sort of like an Easter Island or totem or tiki head - in the fireplace, hidden behind the fireplace screen. I phoned the former owners but they never called back. They did come by to collect the prescription bottles I found in the back of the kitchen junk drawer.
Well, in the last rental place I had, I found a kettle in the basement. No, not that kind of kettle, a stone kettle, small round rock, naturally formed by the lake, (no one really knows how exactly). You’re not allowed to remove them from the lake anymore, I believe. It’s very heavy and takes two hands to hold. I like it a lot.
Also from that house I found a shot put, old, heavy and also very cool. Of course, I tell anyone who asks that it’s actually a cannonball, just to see who’ll believe me. You’d be surprised!
All of that pales in comparison to what we found under the forty year old wall to wall carpeting. The woman we bought from was trying to convince me the carpeting was still good — not! Check this out:
Wow! What a score.
My goodness, what a lovely floor!
Many Australian 1c coins (no longer used)
1 1955 British “Wren” Farthing
1 British Sixpence
1 New Zealand stamp, uncancelled, year unknown but it cost 1d 1s (is that the correct nomenclature?)
Moving on, we had one old, deflated basketball, one “sculpture” made of wires of some freaking sort, perhaps coathangers, suspended from the ceiling from a faded purple ribbon, a 60’s style “beaded door” that was being used as a window curtian in the living room - the window behind was coated in Vaseline, for further…privacy? Stupidity? No idea.
Newspapers from the Sydney Morning Herald, July 5th, 1976 under the lino in the upstairs closet. Dirty, icky fringed cloth light fittings. A stove too vile to clean, or use again ever. Ditto toilet, too vile to use or clean.
The crappy bit - when we replaced the toilet and the plumber set the old one on the loose bathroom tiles, the tiles shattered. Damn. So we were going to replace the tiles, but that size isn’t made anymore, double damn. So years ahead of schedule we ripped up the entire tiled bathroom floor, and replaced it with crappy vinyl floor (cause we’re renovating in ~5-7 years, and don’t care to put money into the bathroom.)
Then, as I’m putting away dry goods, in the back of the cabinet, I discover…three boxes of extra tiles, enough to have replaced the broken ones.
sigh
The coins and stamps are cool.
Cheers,
G
When we renovated the attic, we found 1920’s-era ladies’ clothing that had been stuffed in the walls as insulation. We retrieved a teddy and a blouse.
Our house is 85 years old-we are the third owners. The old couple who lived in the house before us lect a pile of old cooking pots in the attic. Along with that, we found boxes of ancient Christmas cards (unused), plus letters written in the 1960’s (Mr McDonald had been manager of the local little league basebal team). We found his letters to the local sporting good store.
We also found some old carpet beaters in the basement, and an ancient deck of playing cards.