In today's installment of "weird and inexplicable shit we have found when doing up our house", I give you...

[ShowOfHands]

A mummified frog.

Add this to gaping holes literally papered over, bricked up empty spaces (making the room 15% smaller for no discernible reason), a live cable simply cut in half, secret notes, walls held up with cement and gravel and a room we didn't know we had.

Anybody else found anything weird while renovating?

Oh we had bolts on the outside of bedroom doors too. Those together with the rod for beating children made me feel a bit queasy.

@NewHouseNewMe

Not sure if anyone remembered me mentioning I have a current mystery - two small windows not leading to any room. Well I climbed a ladder at the weekend and with some stretching can see white board behind them. Tracing back from some pipes I can see they originally looked into a bathroom but were boarded over and tiled. In fairness they'd be at foot level so I guess that's fair enough. Sorry not the most interesting of finds

I did wonder - so thanks for letting us know. Assuming the original design did not have windows at floor height (!?) have different levels of floor been put in? (Overly invested in thread)

A rat skeleton under our old boiler.

A golliwog with the stuffing removed - so the skin of a knitted golliwog - in our attic.

@NewHouseNewMe

Not sure if anyone remembered me mentioning I have a current mystery - two small windows not leading to any room. Well I climbed a ladder at the weekend and with some stretching can see white board behind them. Tracing back from some pipes I can see they originally looked into a bathroom but were boarded over and tiled. In fairness they'd be at foot level so I guess that's fair enough. Sorry not the most interesting of finds

Awww, what a shame! but well done for working it out. Bet you were disappointed it wasn't a new secret room though!

I love the penis extender and the fold out ruler

The people who bought my parents house would have discovered, when they stripped the sitting room wallpaper, a heart and arrow with L and R on it in the plaster. My Dad put it there in the 60s(?) when he replastered that wall.
Old romantic was my Dad.

@NewHouseNewMe

Not sure if anyone remembered me mentioning I have a current mystery - two small windows not leading to any room. Well I climbed a ladder at the weekend and with some stretching can see white board behind them. Tracing back from some pipes I can see they originally looked into a bathroom but were boarded over and tiled. In fairness they'd be at foot level so I guess that's fair enough. Sorry not the most interesting of finds

I know this isn't a parking thread but I think I need a diagram. 🙃 Why would there be windows at foot level? I find it fascinating when the current house is so different from the original structure. Staircases being boarded up is my favourite, with mystery windows coming in a close second.

The first house my ex and I bought, was a terraced cottage. It was part of an old smithy. When we bought it the toilet was an old Nelson one. The kitchen had a tap and an ancient electric cooker. After removing 1 layer of carpet and 3 layers of lino we discovered paments. The kitchen and pantry had groove worn in the tiles.
The walls had several layers of wallpaper p,us a layer of newspaper, the original gas lights were capped and there was lead lined cable and more modern cables for the electricity.
We discovered a small inglenook fire place under a 1950's fireplace and when removing the brown painted wood from around it, discovered a bread oven.
Going upstairs involved a skinny staircase that curved. At the top of the stairs was a spindly fence.
Upstairs was divided in half by a lath and plaster wall, each room had a double bed frame complete with feather mattress.
As there was just lath and reeds between the ceiling and outside there had been a lot of leaks. The wall between us and next door showed the original apex, which was single storey and thatched.
We basically had to gut the inside and start again, including digging a metre down, so that the ceiling height met regulations. New staircase, new kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
The original outside toilet was round the corner and had a toilet shaped bucket in it. We also had to dig a soakaway.
The highlight was finding out that a pair of bluetits nested in the roof and when the chicks fledged, they learned to fly inside.

*plus a layer

We found a box of old film reels in the attic of the previous owners when they were children and their parents/ family.
Previous owners had left the house in a disgusting state, animal fur all behind radiators, kitchen greasy, black mould inside integrated fridge and worse.
But we were kind and gave the box to neighbour next door who had their new address so he could get it back.

This is a great thread. I'd love a secret room or boxed off space to discover. We found sheet music and amazing lime green and orange 70s lino under the bedroom carpet in our first house, and a local regiment hat badge in the loft. We kept the badge and have displayed it with photos of DH's distant relatives who served in the same regiment and were killed in the first main battle of WWI, as were many men (basically boys) from the area.

This house has mostly given us poorly executed diy jobs, my personal favourites being a barely connected -and therefore leaking into kitchen ceiling- waste pipe from the bath (which has our only shower over too) and the live light fitting in the main bedroom...oh and a dead pet rabbit in a carrier bag, under a bush in the garden. Poor thing, I gave it a better burial.

@dayswithaY

Apart from long rambling notes about heroin addiction, bolts on the outside of the bedroom door, our builders found a live bullet. Stupidly, they threw it in the skip before I could see it.

There was only one previous owner, a perfectly respectable couple in their sixties. I still see them around and I'd love to ask them:

"Oi! Who fired the bullet? Who's the smack head?"

Did the couple you bought off rent it out?

Was it a cannabis farm? We looked round a house, with external bedroom bolts, that had been one.

There were a few other tell tale signs too.

Thought of this thread when I read this