Having moved into a new place, have you ever discovered something while cleaning or arranging that made you nervous or scared?

Not nervous or scared but I did find something fascinating when we moved in. We had to replace some of the floorboards and underneath them in the cavity (there is no cellar, just a 2 foot deep space) there was a newspaper, dated May 1939. The headline read “There will be war by September”. Sadly we couldn’t preserve it, and after a couple of hours in a light, dry atmosphere, it crumbled away. That reporter was dead right though.

@downtide: Wow! When I was a kid then I used to loved to rummage through vacant or partially demolished housed looking for stuff like that. I wonder how you would’ve had to handle the paper in order for it not to crumble, you know for future finds and all.

Large scratches up and down the door to the downstairs closet on the inside surface.

I heard of someone who moved into a house which had a dark brown stain on the floor near a door that was permanently sealed which also had a few extra locks on it. Never heard from them what they found on the other side, but I’ve got pictures of the house.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard: That would freak me out, I’ve read too many Detective magazines as a kid and would immediately think torture, slavery and murder… screeeee!

@downtide: that’s awesome!! Not nerve incuding but we were removing some built in furniture in my old house and behind one of the pieces, some pictures had fallen through a crack. the pictures were of the kids who used to sleep in the room and went to my high school YEARS before i was even born. There was a soccer team picture on one of our fields, and a yearbook picture.

The previous owners of the house I bought were in the process of a serious divorce and accepted a low offer before it went into foreclosure. During a pre-cleanup, I moved an extra bedroom door that was stored in the garage. There was a fist-sized hole on the other side of the door. It went out with the trash, and I immediately had the locks changed.

I once found $10,000.00 up in the drop ceiling of an office I remodeled that later turned out to be counterfeit. Two years later the US Marshall let me know they were very interested in where I found that money! That was beyond a worst nightmare.

There was rust on the furnace in the basement and over the years, we discovered it was beneath the high water aquafer, and got flooded two or three time during the wet season.

I have answered many calls to hotel and motel rooms to pick up guns that people have left behind. i am sure each weapon had a story to tell.

When I was a teenager, my family rented a mobilehome. While we were moving in, we learned the previous resident died in his bed in the master bedroom (later to become my parents’ room). He had been dead a few days before someone discovered him.

The thought of this creeped me out, and I worried about ghostly encounters for the first few months of living there.

No ghosts, but a series of bad luck events occurred after moving there.

I lived in an old Victorian house off Music Row in Nashville. It had been divided up into apartments and it had several beautiful (non-working) fireplaces. When I was cleaning the white tiles around the fireplace mantel one day I noticed the edge of something sticking out from behind the mantel. I got pliers and pulled out a Victorian era Carte de Visite of a man and two young women. Probably the original owner and his daughters. I put it on the mantel, which is probably where it originally had been before it slipped behind it.

Wow!

Marijuana, counterfeit money and old photos and newspapers!

My findings pale in comparison. lol

The most unusual thing I ever found was bunny poo in a house I once rented, apparently the resident house rabbit was not very well litter box trained. lol

@Coloma: I found little poo balls too :( I told the property mgr. I was glad they didn’t charge me cleaning deposit because the home wasn’t cleaned to “move in readiness”- they charged a small fortune for everything else so I’m peeved everytime I find something amiss.

@Coloma Finding bunny beans are not something I would brag about either!! Best keep that one to yourself!! XD

@Neizvestnaya
@Cruiser

Haha..yep, this was years ago and everything LOOKED clean, but all the corners and baseboards had little bunny cocoa puffs hiding. Ewww!

I recleaned the carpets myself for my own satisfaction. lol

When first married my wife and I moved into a semi detached house about 15 miles from Glasgow. On one of our first mornings in the house my wife said she could hear something move behind the boarded up fireplace. It sounded like a mouse. I prised away the boards and in amongst the ash of the disused fire grate was a small bird that must have fallen down the chimney. I caught it in my hands took it to the back door and released it. It flew away shocked but unharmed. It never happened again.

@Coloma My bunny Harley now is a perfect gentleman and is the first one that has honestly never left me surprises around the house….not one! <<knock on wood>>

Great question!

@Dutchess_III: Nothing like a few pebbles of poo to liven things up!