I didn’t do this for the benefit of future tenants or the landlord, but you have to admit it would freak people out. Back in my college days I decided my recently deceased, dearly beloved cat Calico needed a grave stone. Since I was an art major I made up quite a spiffy one with her name, some sort of appropriate quote and the dates of her birth and death. I put it in the closet to await my next visit home. Guess who moved and forgot it was sitting on the shelf?
Though gravestones might be a bit much, you could always fill a box or two with ashes you gather from the BBQ or fireplace, perhaps with a charred bit of something that could, just maybe, be a bone fragment.
Ordinary objects gain a great deal of significance depending upon placement. I once arranged the tiny black seeds from a tree in my front yard in hundreds of obsessively tidy rows all over the floor for one installation. My mother still puzzles over the dried carrot she found in my grandfather’s sock drawer and he’s been gone thirty years now. And then there’s the crown of dead, preserved lizzards from one exhibit that still impresses me. Post it notes on things, stating the obvious, would be fun. Like ‘HOT!’ written in bold marker placed on the hot water faucet, etc. I still can’t believe that piece sold.
wang ka, that post is classic!!! do you have any pictures of that apartment? hahahha
Husband and I took possession of our house on 9/11/01. Needless to say, we were a bit distracted by the events of the day from exploring the new homestead at first, but a week or so after actually moving the boxes in and getting settled, I was up in the attic and found a box behind the door. Curious, I brought it downstairs and checked it out - it had lots of sex toys, videos, books, stuff I’d never even HEARD of before - a female dam for oral sex being one of them, at least the husband believes that’s the name.
But get this: the previous owner was a very elderly gentleman and highly esteemed patent attorney who had suffered a stroke and had to sell the house (ergo, we bought it and at a very good price, too). He had written comments on the covers of the videos such as ‘not worth watching again’, ‘ugly girls’ etc. He had several manuals in there on how to please younger women, as I recall. I always wondered if all of that material contributed to his subsequent condition.
Hubby and I both were quite amused with our find, but there was a definite “NO” on my part when the hubster asked if I wanted to try any of the equipment out - thanks, I’ll buy my own.
As far as freaking out the next tenants or the landlord, if you can get your hands on a roll of yellow tape with “crime scene - do not cross” printed on it, tape some across a door or whatnot. It’s a definite attention getter. It also happened to me once when I moved into a new place, but then, I used to live in Miami.
Wang-Ka, if only that post could fit in a sig. You’re gonna do just fine here.
There was a thread quite recently (like last week) about something much like this. Something about finding stuff in your new home.
I believe I already posted about my friend who got kicked out of his houseshare for non-payment of rent. He shared with the landlady’s daughter, and paid her the rent every week; she had been stealing the money rather than giving it to her mother. So the day he was leaving, he went down to the market and bought a large fish, came back, lifted a floorboard under the stairs and pitched the fish into as inaccesible a place as possible, replaced the floorboard, and left.
When I moved out of my dorm after my first year of college, I left little scraps of paper with one-sentence lines of poetry or lyrics on them all over the place. I taped them to the underside of drawers, stuck one behind the mirror with just the corner visible, left one in the back corner of the shelf in the closet, taped one to the side of the ceiling light, and so on. I also numbered them, hoping that someone who found #s 4 and 6, say, would be inspired to look for the others.
The next year, I lived in a room on the floor above. I was always tempted to visit the new resident and see if she had discovered any of the messages, but I didn’t want to give myself away, so I said nothing. I wonder if they’re still there.
Oh, these are great! Thanks. And wang ka, that was amazing. If I were the queen, I would knight you.
So your parents are your landlords, and you want to freak them out? Why? What am I missing here?
Archergal
not quite with it today.
No, she wants to freak out her parents’ landlord. Because she’s 17, that’s why.
Wang-Ka, that was a thing of beauty!
Bdgr/Tuckerfan; note the time on my post and on Bdgr’s. You posted while I was composing. Glow in the dark paint is good. Or mix in a bit of metallic paint with the original color. The metallic specks will come to the surface more as the surface gets washed.
There’s something to be said for paint that only shows up under ultraviolet or other kinds of light too. You could paint the entire room with “All work and no play make Johnny (or Homer) go crazy”.
Mylar under the carpets. Funny!
About month ago I noticed the piece of moulding spanning the top of the hallway entrance was a bit loose. When a few taps from the hammer wouldn’t put it back in a proper position, I decided to pull it off and reattach it above the door frame. As the moulding pulled away from the wall, hundreds of bottle caps - loking relatively new and mostly from beer bottles- came pouring out from the void between the walls. I tried to put as many back as I could before reattaching the moulding… I wonder what else is hidden in this house?
You could write up a “help” message from someone being held hostage and hide it somewhere it will eventually be found. Like the furnace filter.
Or if you can get the materials, make a fake newspaper story about a horrific crime and include a pic of the master bedroom in it. Just to let the new tenant know about what happened to that poor little 10 year old boy right in the room they are sleeping in. Then write some help-me messages on the walls about two feet above the floor in very small, child-like print.
Please do not revive old threads.