# Strangest thing you discovered when you moved in your place? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 14, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932 "2016-07-14T22:32:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/161 "2016-10-26T20:55:35Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > No worries! > > To add my own anecdote, on cleaning the ducts of our 40 year old house I found an array of toy pieces and a strawberry-flavored condom wrapper. :eek: :eek: You tasted the wrapper??? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/162 "2016-10-26T21:18:00Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > :eek: You tasted the wrapper??? 😃 Nah, I couldn’t get it away from your mom fast enough. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/163 "2016-10-26T23:23:06Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Nah, I couldn’t get it away from your mom fast enough. And she used it on me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/164 "2016-10-27T13:29:58Z")
Shows how much you know, my mom doesn’t even LIKE strawberries. ---
**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:** [October 27, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/165 "2016-10-27T16:13:32Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The basement was mostly unfinished cement - except for one corner, opposite the stairs. In that corner, there was a room with a very basic ensuite bathroom, fitted out as a bedroom. A gloomier, more depressing place for a bedroom you could not imagine - it had only a tiny window for light, it was in a bare unfinished basement, etc. > > The kicker was this: the door was very solid wood, and it had a hasp for a padlock - on the _outside_. > > My wife and I were all ‘WTF?’ :eek: We were thinking ‘this can’t be what it looks like’ - namely, a sort of dungeon. There’s an Addams cartoon showing Morticia climbing the stairs of her home accompanied by a visitor. “We’ve had this part of the house finished off for Uncle Einar.” (the room they’re approaching has a massive door with a tiny opening partially blocked by a couple of heavy iron bars, which are being clasped by the hand of someone shut inside) :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/166 "2016-10-27T17:38:23Z")
When I move out of my place, I’m going to remove a section of the wallpaper in the living room and daub ‘I WILL KILL AGAIN!’ in bright red paint and then wallpaper back over it. And with a bit of luck in ten years time this thread will be resurrected by someone saying “You’ll never guess what I found when I decided to redecorate…” ---
**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:** [October 27, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/167 "2016-10-27T18:11:44Z")
Not “Stop me before I kill again”? It must be particularly ugly wall paper so that they will quickly remove it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/168 "2016-10-27T18:13:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There’s an Addams cartoon showing Morticia climbing the stairs of her home accompanied by a visitor. > > “We’ve had this part of the house finished off for Uncle Einar.” > > (the room they’re approaching has a massive door with a tiny opening partially blocked by a couple of heavy iron bars, which are being clasped by the hand of someone shut inside) :eek: 😃 Boo Radley spring to mind, but that cartoon is funnier. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/169 "2016-10-27T21:18:34Z")
I read in the news a couple years back that in Ohio, a contractor hired to remodel a woman’s bathroom found a lot of cash inside the walls, all bundled with JD on them. Turned out to be Dillinger’s stash and worth $300,000 but they have a law called the finders keepers law so since he found it, he was going to keep it. So the woman sued him and Dillinger’s descendants also got in on the suit because they felt it should belong to them…never heard what the outcome was though. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/170 "2016-10-27T21:29:17Z")
> [@HeXen](#): > > I read in the news a couple years back that in Ohio, a contractor hired to remodel a woman’s bathroom found a lot of cash inside the walls, all bundled with JD on them. Turned out to be Dillinger’s stash and worth $300,000 but they have a law called the finders keepers law so since he found it, he was going to keep it. So the woman sued him and Dillinger’s descendants also got in on the suit because they felt it should belong to them…never heard what the outcome was though. You’ve combined an [April Fool’s article](http://www.wapakdailynews.com/content/cash-found-inside-wall) from this year and a [real story](http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/10/most_of_found_money_belongs_to.html) from 2008. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/171 "2016-10-28T12:24:58Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Bump! We moved in to a new house this weekend and found [this](https://flic.kr/p/N5fkB5) in the attic. Please, contain your envy! Also, I found a tiny key, like a diary key, when I was cleaning the ledge above a door. Still haven’t found any diary or tiny box, though… My god! :eek: I just realized. _There must be a keyhole in the shrimp!_ ---
**Author:** ![Eggerhaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@Eggerhaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eggerhaus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/172 "2016-10-28T13:21:44Z")
When we moved into a former house, we discovered that one of the bedrooms had locks on the outside of the door. Spooky! ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/173 "2016-10-28T14:08:42Z")
> [@Eggerhaus](#): > > When we moved into a former house, we discovered that one of the bedrooms had locks on the outside of the door. Spooky! I reversed the lock on the cat room so that they couldn’t open the door and run around in the wee hours of the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/174 "2016-10-28T20:58:19Z")
> [@opossum](#): > > I don’t think it’s the same house, but we saw something similar house hunting. It was a three-level walkout basement townhouse. It was in a fairly nice neighborhood, but it had a security camera above the front door. The main level was very well done – wainscotting, chair rails, crown molding and all that. In the master bedroom upstairs, there were two LCD monitors mounted to the foot of the bed. One showed the front door security camera, one was blank. > > The basement had three rooms – an unfinished utility room with a washer/dryer, the water heater and the air mover, a den with a sliding door going out to the backyard… > > and a windowless 10x10 room with a padlock hasp on the outside and a security camera mounted high on the wall inside. We didn’t put a bid either. > [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Somebody was growing or distilling on a level not for personal consumption. There’s some sense in that, but why was the camera inside the room? If it’s security for your grow room, wouldn’t you want it aimed at the outside of the room and the lock? Or better yet at the sliding door to the backyard? ---
**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:** [October 14, 2022, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/175 "2022-10-14T14:02:41Z")
Bumped. A similar story: > **[A purse frozen in time was found during school renovations. Inside were...](https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/us/1950-purse-found-during-renovations-trnd/index.html)** > > Renovations at a Texas school led to an unexpected discovery of an accessory frozen in time. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/176 "2022-10-14T15:14:30Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > Things we found in the backyard… When we bought our first house, our (very small at the time) kid had trouble walking in the back yard, it was really uneven. I poked around, and would often hit a flat stone a couple of inches down. Got out our old pick, pulled one up, and it was a headstone. I spent days finding more and pulling them up. We had over a dozen gravestones in our small yard. We eventually found a neighbor who clued us in: the owner had lived there since the 1920s, and worked at a statue/monument company (that also carved headstones). So we’re assuming he brought home any that had typos and made stone paths throughout the yard. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/177 "2022-10-14T17:17:17Z")
In the early '80s my parents bought a 19th century stone farmhouse (this ([Parks Canada - Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 10](http://parkscanadahistory.com/series/chs/10/index.htm)) is it on the cover of a Canadian government publication). When they were renovating the interior they were removing old (not original) wallpaper and underneath they found the original stenciled wall covering of painted-on plants and grasses. ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/178 "2022-10-14T18:54:09Z")
We have a septic lift pump in our basement. When I took the lid off the pump chamber to replace the pump I found the pit to be full of empty Campbell’s soup cans and other junk, apparently put there by the previous owner. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932/179 "2022-10-14T21:22:08Z")
Remodeling a laundry area in a c 1900 house we discovered it was once a porch they enclosed and behind the chintzy wallboard were pastel drawings of boys in what looked like old fashioned base ball uniforms. At the time I had access to aerial photos going way back and found a photo of my house and neighborhood before it was built out. And across the street was a sandlot baseball field. I could envision an old lady outside at her easel observing the children at play and later papering her back porch with her drawings. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-thing-you-discovered-when-you-moved-in-your-place/759932.md?page=8)