# Mysterious things you found in your own house **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 21, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176 "2020-09-21T19:45:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/42 "2020-09-27T00:30:15Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Here you go: Thank you ever so much **@beowulff** for finding it for me. You have my everlasting gratitude. I owe you one. I tried to use the Discord search function but unsuccessfully. I was about to ask a real Doper who knew what they were doing to help. You graciously stepped up first. That is one great story, **Beck**! You posted it just the month before I came around the Dope. You might have missed your calling-you sure have what it takes to be a gifted storyteller and I enjoy every word that falls from your pen. **Boo** ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/43 "2020-09-27T02:11:08Z")
Why thank you. The Grandwrex like my story telling. My sibs think I’m psycho. Mr.Wrekker ain’t sure what to think. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/44 "2020-09-27T02:47:56Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Mr.Wrekker ain’t sure what to think. Off hand, I’d say he is voting pretty conclusively with his feet. Smart man. **Boo** ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/45 "2020-09-27T02:58:24Z")
Last summer we found a knife in our garden. A nice smooth kitchen knife I think. It was buried maybe an inch or two. I’m not sure what someone would have been doing with it in the garden, and if someone was trying to bury it (not that I have any ideas why that would be happening) they did a poor job. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/46 "2020-09-27T03:07:50Z")
Wednesday I was planting some bushes, and about a foot deep in the ground I found a sample-size vial of perfume, still full. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/47 "2020-09-27T05:25:01Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Last summer we found a knife in our garden. A nice smooth kitchen knife I think. It was buried maybe an inch or two. I’m not sure what someone would have been doing with it in the garden, and if someone was trying to bury it (not that I have any ideas why that would be happening) they did a poor job. Most likely it was buried by religious Jews. There’s an idea among some religious Jews that if a utensil has become un-kosher through improper use (‘milk’ and ‘meat’ utensils are supposed to be kept separately), it can be made kosher again by burying it in the ground for a time. Jewish religious authorities agree that this is a myth with no basis in Jewish law, but it seems to be a fairly widespread myth. See [this article](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kosher-style_b_8054802): > I grew up what you might call “lowly Orthodox” meaning we kept the meat and dairy dishes separate but ate the fish sandwich at McDonald’s. > > My mother, Harriet, had her own special brand of Jewish. I called it “Reader’s Digest kosher.” For those old enough to remember Reader’s Digest, that is. > > For instance, according to Kashrut, (the laws of kosher), if you accidentally use the meat fork in, say, a bowl of cottage cheese, you are supposed to bury it in the dirt for six weeks. (Or is it six months? I always forget.) > > The first dozen or so times this happened in my house, when my sister, brother, or I made the boo boo, **we were sent out back to bury the sullied silverware. The problem was, nobody thought to mark the grave. The grass would grow. My father, Marty, would mow the grass. The grass would grow again, and the offending flatware would simply be forgotten.** I imagine in a few hundred years, interstellar anthropologists will dig up our back yard, scratch their heads, or um, horns, and say, "I wonder why man in the 1970s buried his eating utensils? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/48 "2020-09-27T10:49:36Z")
Oh, I almost forgot about this. I found a tombstone in the back yard. It was face-down and used as a step from the patio to the lawn. It was for a 10yo boy named Madison Hurd, who died in 1833. After some research, I found out that the family was on their way from the east to the west, when the boy died somewhere around here. It’s a neat stone, with his parents’ names, dates, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/49 "2020-09-27T12:49:47Z")
Jews burying items for Kosher mistakes? Never heard of it before! I wonder if we’ll find anything else next spring when we prep the garden again. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/50 "2020-09-27T13:12:15Z")
I suspect someone was just using a knife to weed in the garden put it down and forgot about it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/51 "2020-09-30T14:38:37Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Oh, I almost forgot about this. I found a tombstone in the back yard. We located three granite grave markers for dogs out by the barn, dating from the late '80s, with names, dates of birth and death. All of the dogs died when they were about six months to a year old. These people were not good with dogs. Maybe they were in the habit of sending Bonzo out to play in traffic. We’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/52 "2020-09-30T14:45:08Z")
I found a 4 inch tall doll of an astronaut in an EV suit stuffed inside an empty wall socket box behind a bookcase. 😳 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2020, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/53 "2020-09-30T21:44:51Z")
I’d put my money on a child digging in the dirt. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/54 "2020-10-01T02:17:50Z")
Not left by the owner, but possibly by one of the builders - a cheap machete. An electrician found it when he was removing drywall panels in the garage to route a new circuit. The handle was poorly-molded plastic that was also a bit loose. I turned it over to the police as I didn’t know how to safely dispose of it. They weren’t interested. I am positive that the previous owners of the home never knew it was there. ---
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/55 "2020-10-01T02:31:16Z")
As would I. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/56 "2020-10-02T10:15:57Z")
My parents bought a house rumored to have belonged to big-city mobsters. The story was they’d fled to the boonies to “retire” and bought the entire property with a suitcase full of cash. When my parents expanded the house years later, workers ran into serious trouble taking down the street-facing walls. They were layers of reinforced concrete, interleaved with steel sheeting. An older contractor saw this and told them he’d only seen this construction material once, in the backstop of an indoor rifle range. The walls facing the street were not just bullet-proof, but large caliber _rifle_-proof. There may have been some substance to the old rumors. ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/57 "2020-10-02T10:35:35Z")
Wasn’t there that time all the lights went out in New York City? ---
**Author:** ![48Willys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/db5fbb/32.png) [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2020, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/58 "2020-10-04T04:20:46Z")
One of my relatives had bought a “fixer upper” & my cousin & I were tasked with demoing the sheet rock. They also wanted us to remove the electrics and plumbing. Being a broke teenager, I decided to haul all of the metal, especially the copper, to the scrap yard for cash. My cousin did not want to waste time separating it though. Thus, after he left & the clock stopped, I separated it out. In two electrical junction boxes in the basement I found 100 dollar bills. I asked the owners about them & they said keep them, a bonus if you will. My cousin did not want anything to do with the “stashed blood money” so I got a very good bonus for scrapping. It pays to recycle! We never did find out who, or why they placed the bills in the junction boxes. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/59 "2022-02-02T15:27:24Z")
Probably not a Honus Wagner card in there. > **[Around 1,600 vintage baseball cards were found behind a wall covering during...](https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/us/baseball-card-wall-find-trnd/index.html)** > > Melissa Brodt wasn't sure what to expect when she peeled away the dark green shingles covering a bedroom wall in the Boise, Idaho, house she has been remodeling for her son. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/60 "2022-02-02T15:34:48Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > 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 I had two empty electrical boxes in the master bedroom when I moved in. I eventually concluded the previous owner had put speakers up there (at least 10 feet above the floor). The speakers were long gone. We put plates over the holes until we eventually fixed the drywall. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176/61 "2022-02-02T17:05:40Z")
A .40 caliber round that came thru the ceiling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-things-you-found-in-your-own-house/921176.md?page=4)