In my case you can see the window from the outside but not the inside. My theory is that either the bathroom was added later or the window is purely decorative.
I saw that story on the news and wondered two things: 1. Why tell anybody? Move in and use that space!
2, Did the landlord raise her rent?
Well, it was secret to him: in the movie Let Him Have It, the kid is in a holding cell, prior to execution. He’s praying with a priest, when the guards march in, grab him brusquely and, pushing aside a larger wardrobe against the wall, reveal the execution chamber and the noose. I assume it was modeled after the real room. It’s not a feel good movie.
I wonder if, given the age of the house, the secret spaces were used for bootlegged hooch.
The house I lived in was built in the early Thirties in a town that had a history of bootlegging, as it was the first town over the Canadian border. There was a small secret room, a couple of secret compartments, and a secret passageway that was accessed via a tiny latch hidden under a shelf in a wall of shelves that swung open, just like in the movies. I’m not sure the previous owners even knew.
Has anybody heard of interspersal floors? I think that’s what they were called about 25 years ago when I worked for a contractor that installed cable for SpecraVision (hotel porn). I was tasked with running thousands of feet of cable at Cedars Sinai hospital in Beverley Hills and the easiest way to do that was using floors-between-floors. If I wanted to get to the floor between the fourth and fifth floors, I inserted the service key in the elevator and pushed the 4 and 5 buttons at the same time. If they didn’t have the key and know the trick, there was no way for someone using the elevator to know that there were “secret floors”. The floors were only six or seven feet in height and were mostly occupied by air vents, plumbing, electrical and telephone wiring, and a chained track carrying laundry and used food trays. When I showed a coworker who started on the project a few days after I did, I told him they also used those floors to move amputated limbs and dead bodies. I don’t know if he was disappointed or relieved when he didn’t see any.
The secret apartment was unheated. The cold draft from there was what tipped her off. It looked like there were no bathroom/kitchen fixtures, so I’m not sure if it was plumbed. I also couldn’t tell how it was accessed other than climbing through the hole behind the bathroom mirror. The video showed her locking some door while she was down there, but where it led, I have no idea.
It’s in a near west Chicago suburb that was infamous for having been home for many of the mob. Tony Accardo lived there for example. Not nice enough to be a top capo’s though.
So likely something illicit stored. Booze guns money dunno.
That’s what one comment said in the video, and I suspect it was indeed just lazy renovation.
Decades ago there was a series of commercials - for what, I do not recall - where a fellow would open up his medicine cabinet and see someone looking back at him from the other side (hah - found it; it was an ad for antiperspirant!). It was just a bit creepy.
Thanks for the recommendation, Thel, I just checked the eBook out of the library,… can’t wait to read it!
My parents’ house had a window in the shower. The code was you didn’t need a fan if you had a window, and the shower was on the outside wall. There was a room above the shower so the window was easier.
A full sized window? If the window in our bathroom hadn’t been walled up our neighbors and anyone walking or driving by could see someone showering. I’d have to put up a waterproof curtain up. It was just a very odd location for a window.
My mother’s house was built in the early 50s. There was a half-window over the bathtub. Showers apparently weren’t popular at that time. That window faced the backyard so not a problem with people looking in. She did have a shower head installed in the late 60s. There was some sort of plasticized curtain that she used.
Shouldn’t have started wearing lipstick and nylons.
My cool cousins had a secret hiding place - there was unused space between their bedroom and the slanted roof, which allowed built-in-the-wall dresser drawers. If you took the drawers out, you could crawl into the crawl space, which they had decorated with foil and lava lamps and the like. I told you they were cool!
Real common in 1960s & subsequent tract houses in SoCal where I grew up.
The key thing is the glass in the window is the sandblasted or patterned stuff. So it lets in a some light, but nobody outside can see anything “interesting”. And opening the window a couple inches let in lots of nice breeze, let out lots of noxious humidity, and wouldn’t expose much skin to Peeping Toms.
I was amazed when I moved to other parts of the country and they had bathrooms that don’t have windows.
I was in the school office one day signing out to go home. A student was looking at the screen of the surveillance system. On the screen was the cafeteria shown from a weird angle, so she thought it was a different cafeteria. I said that it was the “secret cafeteria”. The kid was unsure whether to believe me or not (she must have been new to our school or she would not have been unsure). I thought the principal was going to get on my case or tell me to go home and stop telling tales to students, but instead she said “you don’t know about the secret cafeteria?” I don’t doubt that the current renovation has uncovered actual secret rooms.
I think what you are talking about are usually called “mechanical floors” or “service floors” and they are common in tall buildings. I recall reading about some issues ( in NYC, I’m sure) where builders were trying to put in 200 ft worth of mechanical floors because the mechanical floors didn’t count as floor area for zoning - and therefore the building could be built higher, with more apartments on the more valuable upper floors.
That window did not have frosted glass. It was regular clear glass. Also, a lot of bathrooms have windows, but not full size and in the unusual location of right in the middle of the shower area. It was just a very strange place for it. Someone in the past must have agreed as they walled it up.
Googling indicates that people are already drawing comparisons to the scene in Candyman. Which I suspect was itself inspired by the story @gdave mentioned:
And there’s a remake of Candyman on the way.
Things are getting… meta.
Not a room, but a compartment: I inherited a beautiful antique desk with all kinds of little cubbies and drawers and slots. It was shipped to humid Hawai’i and was in storage for a few years before I was able to take it out and use it. At that point the wood had swollen and it was kind of moldy, so I spent a long time cleaning and waxing to restore the desk. There were little bits and bobs stuck in various crevices, but nothing interesting; the most “historic” thing I found was a bill from the gas company addressed to my father and dated 1970-something.
However, I did notice that one of the drawers was too short, leaving empty space behind it, which I thought was weird. A friend who is knowledgeable about antiques examined the desk and said it would have been used by a banker or similar professional, and the empty space would have hid a lockbox where money was kept.
Sadly, nothing was back there when I got the desk. Still, it’s a very cool piece of furniture.
ETA: just for fun I Google image-searched “antique banker’s desk” and found something a bit similar to my desk, though mine is much more sumptuous, with exquisite rosewood veneer and fleur-de-lis type carvings. Still, the pic gives a good sense of the elaborate series of compartments. SOLD Antique Victorian Oak Raised Panel Lawyers Bankers Roll Top Desk - Maine Antique Furniture