Secrets in old houses

[csnyder (WavyGlass)]

I think we all dream of discovering something like this:

Man finds booby traps in historic home (VIDEO)

Good thing he didn't hit a match in the wrong place!

[shazapple]

That's pretty cool. I've only ever found empty bottles and pennies. I leave change in the walls from the year I did the work as a bit of a clue to the next person

[csnyder (WavyGlass)]

The most unusual find in our house was finding a broken ink bottle (the bottom half) in a wall in the kitchen. The electrician that found it was lucky that he didn't badly cut his hand on it - he was fishing wire at the time. The bottle is quite old, but the wall was likely last opened in the mid-1990's when the kitchen was last remodeled, so I'm not sure when or how it ended up there.

We also found old skeleton keys (various Corbin patterns to match the lock-sets in the house!) as we were dismantling a built-in china cabinet (I hope I didn't just lose all of my old house street cred...), an ashtray, and a hat pin. There also is a hidden door in the basement den that provides access to the 1.5-foot-wide space between the foundation and the interior wall - I like to think that it was used during Prohibition (the room looks very much like a 1920's man cave).

At the house I grew up in (built in the 1910's), I once found a few old clay jugs and a glass bottle buried next to the back steps. I'm guessing that it was also somebody's Prohibition stash.

[jschneider]

Our previous house was an 1870 farmhouse that required extremely extensive repairs since it was abandoned for over a decade. We found -

A bottle of varnish from when they were originally doing the floor and trim.

A large glass syringe.

Several pictures.

A pellet gun target of a man in black face holding a watermelon. It was possibly the most non PC thing I've ever seen.

[Superbeetle]

I've found a few telegrams from 1894 (just equipment orders) and a huge pile of razor blades (under the bathroom medicine cabinet). Nothing else!

[heartwood]

in the 1958 ranch where i grew up there was a slot in the medicine cabinet for disposing of razor blades...the blades just dropped between the studs to be found later by someone in the future--hopefully someone wearing gloves!

...jade

[cat2014]

Although not an old house by old house standards (1972'ish), we found a old coin collection in the soffits of the kitchen cabinets, black and white old bathroom tile (nothing worth salvaging), a very old framed picture of Jesus and a set of old car tires. And we do have the spirit of the old owner living with us.

[1880 stick (WavyGlass)]

After living here 4.5 years, still finding things in out of the way places. Last year in the basement, on top of the foundation in-between the floor joists, i thought was a very thin piece of wood about 4" x 6". Turns out to be from what i can tell is a piece of linoleum and in pencil it says, " I, T. Harry Fries place this card here on February 1, 1901." T. Harry or Theodore Harry Fries was the original owners son who was born here in 1886. Harry also took a knife and cut his name into a piece of ext wood trim in the back. It will be interesting to see if Harry dated that as well when i finish stripping that piece of wood next year. Also in the basement was a tin ( now gone missing) i can't remember the name of the product but it was like an over the counter remedy to help quit smoking from the 20s i think..in it was ashes and what looked like filterless cigarette butts also covered in a thick layer of gray dust.

The second owner who bought the house in 1904 was a doctor and owned a drug store, several clear medicine bottles have been found under blown in insulation in the back attic, the kind of bottles that a cork was used and a few have the name of the owner's drug store in raised letters. we have found many broken bottles when digging, along with a porcelain doll's arm, a padlock that is missing its skeleton key, a 1893 liberty nickle, piece of broken pottery and what i think is blue onion china.

The house has three separate attics, the middle attic was blocked off and the 3rd (previous) owners never ventured beyond the nailed shut opening of the middle attic. Within 3 days of moving in i had pried open the makeshift plywood door. There are no windows in this attic... the wood is completely charred from a severe attic fire in 1928, waiting for me was either oak or chestnut stick and ball spandrels, a enameled wash basin, yards of picture rails with the names of the rooms they came from, decorative wood molding neither painted or stained, between 20 and 30 rolls of wall paper from the 20s and 30s, doll clothes, paper christmas ornaments, a silver biscuit jar with lid, two half melted silver castor sets that went through the attic fire but not tossed, pieces of furniture, woven grass mats or runners with like a chevron design that when picked up fall apart in your hands, nickle plated towel racks, an old clock case, several different styles of a painted gesso molding, a cane with a metal tip, a tin of mellomints from the 20s. more old medicine bottles, a hinged tin candy box that looks like a book with cut outs of 1920s valentine cartoons.

And like catgh56, we also have an invisible house guest....that does move things from time to time...likes to open one particular attic window, recently the door to the attic was found open... i have toyed with an idea of getting a psychic to come to the house... i wonder if anyone else has done that??

scott

[jschneider]

The house has three separate attics, the middle attic was blocked off and the 3rd (previous) owners never ventured beyond the nailed shut opening of the middle attic. Within 3 days of moving in i had pried open the makeshift plywood door. There are no windows in this attic... the wood is completely charred from a severe attic fire in 1928, waiting for me was either oak or chestnut stick and ball spandrels, a enameled wash basin, yards of picture rails with the names of the rooms they came from, decorative wood molding neither painted or stained, between 20 and 30 rolls of wall paper from the 20s and 30s, doll clothes, paper christmas ornaments, a silver biscuit jar with lid, two half melted silver castor sets that went through the attic fire but not tossed, pieces of furniture, woven grass mats or runners with like a chevron design that when picked up fall apart in your hands, nickle plated towel racks, an old clock case, several different styles of a painted gesso molding, a cane with a metal tip, a tin of mellomints from the 20s. more old medicine bottles, a hinged tin candy box that looks like a book with cut outs of 1920s valentine cartoons.
scott

So that's pretty much as good as it can get!! Truly like stepping back in time.

[Wackyshack]

Wow, my treasure trove will pale against some of the wonderful finds.

Digging in the yard Hubby found old nip bottles(modern with screw caps)
broken dish pieces 1950's. a few old broken early 20th century bottles.
2 clay marbles.
old penny
horse shoe
Liquor bottles in the storage area, guitar with cracked case - but it does play.
1940's WW2 era newspapers stuffed in the walls in the cellar as a draft guard.

nothing else of note. I put in a time capsule into a wall of a room I was working on
with a brief history of the house and photos and such. Might be fun for someone one day....


nothing else