Weirdest thing (or things!) you found when moving house

[Arlanymor]

After four long days I am fully moved into my new place - while my back may be aching, my wallet is happy as I did it all myself! But in the process of going into the nooks and crannies of my old place I came across two interesting things (nothing exciting like witch bottles sorry, both buildings are only about 40-50 years old).

The first was when I was checking down the back of the old sofa which came with the old flat and which I frankly never sat on as it was far too uncomfortable - just a force of habit really, there wouldn't be any of my spare change down there! And wedged between the frame and cushions was a set of car keys with bleeper (am sure that's the technical name!) and - I kid you not - 12 DOOR KEYS! All different sizes/shapes for different doors, it was like a jailer's set!

The second was when checking under the fridge and I came across what USED to be a grape, but was now a perfect raisin with a stalk and everything! Must have dehydrated itself in a nice cold space. I now consider myself an amateur winemaker (right?!) Honestly though, if I had taken off the stalk and put it in a packet of raisins you wouldn't have known the difference - fascinating!

Maybe not all that exciting (probably not) but it's made me nosy for what other people might have found on their travels. Also I don't have proper internet yet - this is all phone data - so I don't have any TV. Although I did find a box with my mum's old DVD player that she gave to me because she had no use of it and suggested I put it on eBay... clearly I never managed to, nor the DVDs she gave me with it... so at least I am now watching Knives Out! Was so weird being in a house without any background noise... this is definitely helping it feel like home!

My nephew and family moved into a beautiful old house with thick beams in the loft.
They were up there one day checking the beams for woodworm when a velvet bag fell from a shelf.It was full of diamond rings and necklaces.Obviously forgotten about.

A huge metal ring, probably the iron rim from a cartwheel, tucked behind the shed. And - discovered many years later - an unexpected manhole, deep and fully brick lined, under a big slab out the front of the house. It had been covered with about 6 inches of soil and an apple tree was planted immediately next to it.

A baseball bat. After 15 years I sold it on eBay and got £475. It was signed Yogi Berra.
It had a new York Yankee emblem on it.

Porn films in the loft.😂

As a boy a friend and his family moved to a house that needed a lot of work. Us kids helped. One bedroom had 157 empty milk bottles under the floorboards, resting on the ceiling of the room below

We had this too! (200 year old house) Under the stairs but within the wall (behind the end of the understairs cupboard), a childs shoe and a coin. I think it was a kind of lucky charm?

Not hugely weird but a 1970s asymmetrical wall mirror - I've seen several similar ones on old 70s TV programmes, so it must once have been a decor must-have.

Once got left a cupboard full of pint glasses - very useful! I wouldn't be surprised if one of two of them are still amongst our general collection of glasses, several houses later.

Clearing out the loft, several boxes came down. One was full of study notes, etc of a young woman’s nursing training from the 1960s. I had my first child in late 70s. She was the midwife who visited me after I came home with my baby. Not only that, when she was little, I took a part time job at the local doctor’s surgery, and we worked together for several years.

The first house my ex-husband and I moved into - a horrid little terrace that was falling apart - we found all sorts of things. False teeth in the built-in wardrobe, which was a bit weird as the previous owners were a young couple. A garden full of broken window panes and trash. That sort of thing.

Some years later, after my divorce, I moved into a tiny little house that I loved. The previous owner had been an elderly lady. There was a little cupboard in the side porch that the people who emptied the house must have failed to notice, because it was full of bits and pieces. Including a really nice vintage pair of shoes and leather gloves, both of which fitted me perfectly. But I decided it was too weird to wear them. There was also a calendar where she'd written down little bits of conversation that she needed to have with someone... along the lines of "When you say XXX, I feel under pressure to XXX..." bless her. That too was just like me back then, always on the back foot and feeling I had to justify myself to people.

Wishing you much happiness in your new home, OP!

@Gliblet my mum got pillowcases in an airing cupboard too. They were covered in old vomit 🤢. Instead of just throwing them away, they’d screwed shut the cupboard 🤷🏻‍♀️

Partner moved into the new house today (needs doing up) and am thankful that the huge, American edition very old bible has been removed before completion by someone. The house was empty on viewings, no furniture, just this massive bible in the upstairs bedroom.

I've seen too many Hammer movies in my youth to want this hanging around!

My first flat after moving out from my parents’ house was in a block where we all had an internal “shed” for storage. The keys for the shed had been long lost and it was only when new doors were put on every flat in the block that I got access to the shed.

I honestly think they had moved around who owned which one as what I got was a hoarder’s paradise (and one of the neighbouring flats had previously had a hoarder in it so I think I “inherited” his stuff).

Some of what we found was a rabbit skull in a jar, lots of mouldy books that were mainly bodice-ripper type things, a huge box of porn magazines and page 3 cuttings, half a dozen demijohns, and random bits of wood and rope that honestly looked like he had scavenged from a local scrapyard.

When we moved to our current house I guess the people before us had dropped a bag of red lentils when packing up and they’d got into absolutely every tiny space in the cupboard. I was finding random lentils for weeks even after giving all the cupboards a good clean out. We also found lots of huge light up outside Christmas decorations, an oil radiator and a kids’ ride on quad bike thing in the loft.

I found an SD card of the seller with another woman , I actually made a friend view it first as it was obviously hidden (inside boiler) and I really was scared it would be prawn or something

She didn't speak much English so we told her son and changed the locks 😀

Grins, your story sounds fishy!

(good old autocorrect eh?!).

An open can of cat food in one of the kitchen drawers and a Victorian school desk with an inkwell in the loft.

Another dodgy video one.

This was in the 90s with fat back tellys. Ours was stored in this big wooden cabinet with folding doors.

I was sitting on the floor against the cabinet, shifted position and out popped a hidden drawer, stuffed with said dodgy videos.

Didn't even know the drawer was there, let alone the videos!

A live corn snake slithering around the living room and a half eaten Christmas cake under the kitchen sink 🤷🏼‍♀️

Not in our current house but a house we moved into years ago we found a ladies hairbrush, mirror and wedding veil in an old box we found under the loft insulation when replacing it. It was still up there on a shelf when we left, it had long grey hair on it. It was obviously very cherished by someone. There was also a box of puppets in the attic hidden under the eaves, some were like the old Punch and Judy puppets, (the ones with the big noses) and there was a lot of string puppets too. We spent ages untangling them then gifted them to a local historical society as the previous owners denied all knowledge of them.

When we stripped the wallpaper in the hall we found borders at the top and bottom of the walls that were beautiful flowers, they looked like they’d been hand painted, like watercolour. Sadly they couldn’t be used as it would been too difficult to refresh the paint around them.

When removing wallpaper in the bedroom of my new house, a giant c**k and balls was revealed which had been painted on the wall by a previous owner. My Mum was helping me and remarked ‘Aww look someone painted a rocket on the wall.’ To be fair to her the balls resembled the smoke from a rocket lift off but I hadn’t the heart to tell her what it actually was 😂

When I brought my first house we decided to decorate the front room (lounge). Found the names of the previous tenants written on the wall.... from the very early 1900's!

An eagle in the pantry, and chickens in the outbuilding!! Previous owner kept birds of prey, and forgot these ones 😂. Came back for the eagle but left the chickens. We kept them and subsequently rescued lots of ex-battery hens over the years...

Friend found a beautiful wedding dress, phoned the previous owners but it wasn't there and thy didn't even know it was there.

She sold it for a very nice profit!

29 alarm sensors.

When people on the street I grew up on did some renovations in the basement they found a body! Turns out the previous owner murdered his business partner and literally bricked him up! That caused some excitement I tell you.
When we were looking at a house on this street, my mother opened the door to the downstairs loo and there was a live leopard inside. She practically jumped out of her skin. A pet apparently (this was back in the 1970s so guess it was allowed)?