What mysterious things have you found in your own house (not left there by a previous owner)?
I just found one unpopped popcorn kernel in the middle of our bed. There’s been no popcorn in the house in years, and it defies explanation.
If you don’t have pets or take your clothes/bedding to a laundromat, I’d be telling myself it was stuck to the bottom of my shoe and found it’s way to my bed. It seems the most logical explanation is otherwise going to be mice.
Maybe it fell off of your popcorn ceiling.
Holy crap - my spouse was a Sci-Fi geek, mechanical engineer, bagpipe player, and inventor. I basically lived with a mad scientist.
I’ve found stuff I don’t even know what it is.
But assuming that the object(s) in question needs to be mysterious for everyone in the household… a completely de-fleshed kangaroo mouse skeleton under the couch curled in a fetal position.
The OP said, “not left by a previous owner,” but I think a pencil sharpener in an unusual place deserves mention. Just an ordinary pencil sharpener, the kind with the crank, just as would be found in thousands of elementary schoolrooms years ago, if not still today.
Thing is, it’s bolted to the wall, under the basement stairs. I have to duck so as to not hit my head, in order to use it. I didn’t find it until after I moved in, when I was putting some things under the stairs. Why would anybody put a pencil sharpener in such an inaccessible location?
A friend once found an old, local telephone directory from 1952 in her crawlspace. Of course, we dialed some of the numbers, but come to find out that ESPañola 3-8873 to see if we could order a pizza, and Santa FE 7-1134 for dinner reservations, but strangely, “Your call[s] cannot be connected. Please try the number and try again.”
All I’ve found in my place were some old Schlitz beer cans with pull tabs in the crawlspace, and some graffiti: “ZIA”* was carved, with a penknife, in my utility closet door years ago.
* Note: Not so mysterious. The Zia Corporation built all the houses in the neighborhood.
Tripler
TRIPler 6-5000.
You failed to mention if you have a cat or ferret. They can usually explain any odd small object appearing.
For instance, my young cat Sammy, has retrieved about a dozen ships from an Axis & Allies game. A decade ago, a box with Axis & Allies pieces fell in the basement and we got most of it up but apparently a lot less than I thought.
My guess would be a basement wood working shop. Second choice, model maker in the basement. The sharpener is out of the way but nearby.
I don’t know why, but they put one in the same place in the last two houses I bought-one built in 1880 and one built in 1924.
The OP said “not left by a previous owner”, but the first thing I thought of was the old Christmas card I found on the shelf in my bedroom closet. It said something like “Happy first Christmas grandson”, but someone added a handwritten “great” in front of “grandson”. They also wrote the date on it, which is the mysterious part – it’s dated December 1972. My house was built in 1973. So the card predates the house by a year.
a solid electrical plate with no outlet or switch high on a wall. I assume it is covering up a mistake from the original builder.
Bigger question: why take a picture of a banana slice in a toilet?
A fair question!
Because it struck me as the oddest thing I had seen in a while, therefore, needed to be documented.
Is there a switch or outlet below it? If it’s high enough up, someone may have punched a hole in the wall to pull wires to a light on the ceiling and covered up the hole with that.
yes there is a switch below the plate.
Also my parents house had a light switch that controlled no light or outlet.
A .40 caliber round that had plummeted thru the ceiling.
There’s a weird looking outlet for an odd plug, in one room only. I have no idea what it is for. Lived here 25 years.
Interestingly, I’ve never actually bothered to open it up and check. I guess it actually powers a “curiosity dampener”.
I had a couple teachers in highschool with that ability!