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Original poster

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

338 replies

ShowOfHands · 17/02/2021 16:20

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?

OP posts:
sleepyhead1980 · 17/02/2021 21:04

@VenusClapTrap

Ooh. Tell us more about the ghost, sleepyhead
I was asleep and he came into the room pacing up and down screaming obscenities at me. He was furious about something. I was frozen in terror under the covers for what felt like forever. Eventually was brave enough to turn the light on and my dog was growling at the wardrobe hair on ends. I convinced myself it must have been a dream as it was terrifying. I kept the tv on every night after that and moved out ASAP
Splann · 17/02/2021 21:15

Not me but my friend moved into a house where the previous occupants had moved next door (built a new house and sold the old one). My friend gutted the bathroom and found several photos behind the wall cabinet of the wife naked showing her fanjo in all its glory. 5 years later I still internally giggle about it every time I see her neighbour Grin

We found a bunch of old letters behind a wall in our house. The plaster had blown so we had to take it back to the wall. Someone had stuffed the letters in the wall cavity and then plastered it. It was so exciting...except they were really mundane. I can’t work out why someone went to the effort of hiding them?

IstandwithJackieWeaver · 17/02/2021 21:16

We found a door to next door in the attic which had been hidden but not sealed! I also found some 80s jewellery, a diary and some love letters belonging to one of the couple we had bought the house from. We returned them via their solicitor.

Fuckingcrustybread · 17/02/2021 21:20

I'd forgotten that we also found a walk in fireplace, complete with a bread oven and the original pot hooks with hinges to swing out over the open fire. It was beautiful and had been bricked up, boarded over and had a really crappy electric fire with red coloured bulbs in a fake Georgian surround.

MartiniDry · 17/02/2021 21:24

These stories are riveting.
My contribution is the perfect, spotless black kitchen range found by my Mum when she removed the hardboard mantelpiece in our Victorian terraced home. She now lives in a 4 storey mid 1800s town house. I'd love to explore the loft there but you can't move for Stepdad's model aeroplanes and boats!

My Dad bought a large old house and found a Georgian/Victorian baby's crib in the very middle of the attic. Unusually for him, he was adamant that he shouldn't investigate it, and so it remained when he sold up and moved on.

IEat · 17/02/2021 21:30

Shelf in one bedroom my ds found a tin which had £20 in old fives and a few per decimal coins

Teddy1970 · 17/02/2021 22:55

My sister lived in a house which had an extra staircase, it didn't lead anywhere it was bizarre, when you reached the top it was just a wall! It She kept it as it was a good talking point.

VenusClapTrap · 17/02/2021 23:02

Oh wow, how utterly terrifying! Shock

VenusClapTrap · 17/02/2021 23:03

That was to sleepyhead - the quote thing failed!

ladygindiva · 17/02/2021 23:11

My cousin found rounds of ammunition hidden in the walls of the house they were renovating...

ChristmasSexyTime · 17/02/2021 23:16

I've also had that 'room made 15% smaller for no reason' thing.

My builders discovered a false wall and I was scared/excited that I'd find a body/major damp/a big new room behind it. They knocked it down and what was behind it was about 2ft extra of room Confused

Literally nothing good or bad behind it. I will never, ever understand it. Anybody know any rationale behind doing such an odd thing?

Downthefarm · 17/02/2021 23:19

There is still an old rocking chair missing a seat in our loft, from previous owners.

Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum · 17/02/2021 23:33

We have a 200 year old house. It has several chimneys. One chimney has 3 chimney pots. One leads to the bedroom below and one leads to the dining room under that. The third chimney pot we can't work out where it comes from.

Also I let my kids dig about in the garden with shovels one summer day years ago. After about half an hour they called me over to them. They had hit something metal and massive. Some more digging from me and it turns out we have a very large bomb shelter buried in the garden.

ChristmasSexyTime · 17/02/2021 23:33

Actually! Here's a weird thing I can't work out from my most recent move

There's an alcove in the living room with shelves in it. I pulled the shelves out to paint the wall and discovered that under the bottom shelf, they'd lined the wall with cardboard, painted to match the walls. Confused

I instantly thought the worst and pulled it back expecting to find a massive hole or damp but there was nothing behind there. Just perfectly good wall Confused

It wasn't even the whole wall so it's not like it was an insulation thing. Just a 1m by 2m Square beneath the bottom shelf. And it wasn't glued in place, just wedged in. But the effort to paint it to make it look like part of the wall?

What the actual effing jeff?!

AWaspOnAWindowReturns · 17/02/2021 23:39

@NaughtipussMaximus

I dew sometimes I live in a house and find extra rooms I didn’t know we had. Where is your extra room, OP?
Me too! I wonder what the dreams mean...
RunningFromInsanity · 17/02/2021 23:44

Not a single room or wall in my house is straight and no corner is 90degrees.

Everything is just a bit wonky

Teddy1970 · 17/02/2021 23:54

I love houses with secret rooms, tunnels and staircases, there's a Manor house not too far from me just come on to the market, it's pretty much empty AND the vendors have paid for the Matterport walk through, I'm beside myself! It's got 8 bedrooms, three sets of stairs, cellars and was built during the English civil war, I bet there's loads of secrets in that place, trouble is I don't have £1.8million spare...bugger

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 17/02/2021 23:57

When we moved house when I was 15 we found sulphuric acid, nitric aid, a WW1 helmet and a machete in one of the sheds. Also a massive rat skeleton in a trap.

HarrietSchulenberg · 17/02/2021 23:59

If you happen to live in a suburb of Chester quite near the zoo, in a large 1930s semi facing a busy main road, and you rip out your skirting boards on the stairs, you are quite likely to find a small collection of plastic pennies. I put them there while the Queen's silver jubilee parade was on TV in 1977. I was sitting on the 3rd stair and found a lovely little slot where the skirting joined the wall and happily posted my toy shop money in, one coin at a time, until it dawned on me that I couldn't get it back. I didn't tell my Mum, who was watching the procession and cooing about how handsome Prince Edward looked (?!?), as I knew she might say some choice words about what I'd done. I was 6. Don't worry, I don't want them back.

If you do live in that house you've probably been there for a few decades but hopefully you found the the aeroplane shape in the breakfast room door near the handle. There's also a jamjar that's probably still wedged between your garage and the one next door. If you can reach that jamjar you're amazing as 5yo me got herself stuck trying to squeeze along to reach it.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 18/02/2021 00:11

One of my college rooms was in an large, posh, old house. It just had a bed, a desk, a big bookcase, a couple of chairs & a chest of drawers in it. After living there for months, I decided to try moving the furniture around - & when I moved the bookcase, I discovered a huge & beautiful wood & tiled fireplace! It was a work of art. So I positioned the furniture to leave it on view, & enjoyed living with it for the rest of the year.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 18/02/2021 00:13

@Teddy1970

I love houses with secret rooms, tunnels and staircases, there's a Manor house not too far from me just come on to the market, it's pretty much empty AND the vendors have paid for the Matterport walk through, I'm beside myself! It's got 8 bedrooms, three sets of stairs, cellars and was built during the English civil war, I bet there's loads of secrets in that place, trouble is I don't have £1.8million spare...bugger
We need a link. One of us may win the Lottery...
Poppins2016 · 18/02/2021 02:26

@RunningFromInsanity

Not a single room or wall in my house is straight and no corner is 90degrees.

Everything is just a bit wonky

My house is the same... makes DIY interesting! The plasterwork is also what you'd call "rustic". It's all "perfectly imperfect"!
Ladybird69 · 18/02/2021 04:48

We found a secret room plastered up, only during the renovation the floor plan didn’t add up otherwise we’d never have found it. It was full of men’s sized ladies clothing and shoes and porn magazines! It filled a skip! My ex wanted to put it on eBay!

Blacktothepink · 18/02/2021 05:15

I found an axe under the bed of a room I rented, which disturbed me.

garlictwist · 18/02/2021 05:49

I also have recurrent dreams about finding extra rooms but I am always really stressed out because it means I have to clean them!