CuriositiesAUG 11, 2022

35 Strange Secret Rooms These People Found In Their Homes, Shared In This Online Thread

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Many of us dreamed of finding a secret passageway or an underground tunnel as a child. If I grab just the right book from this shelf, I will activate a secret doorway and unlock a whole new realm! Maybe I just read too many mystery novels as a kid, but much to my disappointment, these situations never came true in my real life. Yet for some lucky individuals, their adventurous dreams came to life when they discovered secret spaces right under their noses…

Reddit user Reptilesni reached out asking people who “have found a secret room or space in their house” to share how long they lived there before finding it, what was in it, and what the eventual outcome was of discovering the space, and many readers came through with stories that sound like they belong in film scripts. We’ve gathered some of the most fascinating responses down below, so you can live vicariously through these individuals who evidently picked the best houses to live in. Enjoy reading these stories that might make you want to reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and be sure to upvote all of your favorites. Keep reading to also find an interview with Steve Humble, president of Creative Home Engineering, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article featuring real-life secret compartments, check out this story next.

#1

35 Strange Secret Rooms These People Found In Their Homes, Shared In This Online Thread

Lived in a warehouse in Melbourne. Always thought it would be cool to get on the roof, but there was no access.
After about six months, I’m standing in front of a mirror upstairs when I notice it has hinges.
I push on it, it clicks and opens out, revealing a small attic and roof hatch!
That was pretty cool. Used to sit up there and watch the sun set over the city.

redhighways, Laura Chouette

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248points

The idea of having a secret passageway or hidden room in your home might sound like a fantasy, but if you're interested in making it a reality, there are experts who can help you out. We reached out to Steve Humble, president of Creative Home Engineering, to hear how his company turns homeowners' dreams into reality by building hidden spaces that seem like magic. First, we asked Steve if he could briefly explain what his company does and how it got started. "Our firm specializes in designing and building secret passageways in homes," he told Bored Panda. "Often our secret doors are extremely high-security, bulletproof, motorized, and/or have clever access control devices like pulling on a book or playing a sequence of notes on a piano. I started the company back in 2004 after a movie scene inspired me to build a motorized secret passageway in my own house. The secret door I wanted to build really required the expertise of a mechanical engineer like myself, and since there were no firms dedicated to this type of work I decided to start my own."

#2

Moved into an 18th century farm house as a little kid and found a small panel door in the back of the large closet in my small room. Turned out to be a small finished room over the eaves that had a small portal window. I spent hours in that room reading and hiding from the world.

notlikethat1, Diane Picchiottino

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244points

We also asked Steve what the most impressive or surprising thing he has ever built in someone's home was. "I once installed several secret doors in the same house, and one of those secret doors is large enough to drive a vehicle through and leads to a 30,000 square foot subterranean shelter that goes 4 levels underground," he said. I would love to take a tour of that home!

We also asked Steve why these secret compartments are great additions to homes. "If you put your valuables into a safe you might as well add a neon sign above it that says 'This is where the good stuff is at!' I hear horror stories all the time about home invasions in which the safe was stolen or broken into," he explained. "In reality, anyone with access to Youtube can break into nearly any safe in just a few minutes so they only way to really protect your valuables (or your family members) is to hide them where a criminal will never find them."

#3

It was about a year into owning our house. We actually found two secret rooms. One was just a room under the stairs that was closed off. Had some toys from the 70s in it. The really crazy one was when we redid the insulation in our attic. One of the workers asked if I new there was a room up there. I had no idea. So we cut open the drywall and there were stacks on stacks of boxes from the 60s. Like a ton of boxes. And they were all full! So I opened them up expecting some cool stuff. And they were full of freaking PINECONES!! One of the bigger bummers of my life.

R12356, La Partida Eterna

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149points

Lastly, Steve added, "Historically secret doors have been mostly for wealthy people. But recently we’ve launched a new line of pre-designed secret door systems that are very affordable while still maintaining the same great camouflage."

If you're thinking of having a secret passageway installed in your own home or purely interested in checking out some of the amazing creations Creative Home Engineering has built, be sure to visit their website right here.

#4

My family lived briefly in Copenhagen when I was a young child. In the house that the government provided there was a false wall with a pocket which was great to hide in. One day an older neighbor girl (native Danish) was over and said while we were playing that people used to hide in it. Her mother confirmed later that it was a Holocaust hiding space. I'm really grateful my mother took the time to explain to us what that meant, and the history behind it, rather than waiting until I was older.

mamaneedsacar

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147points

#5

There was a hidden door behind the wallpaper (obviously the doorknob was taken off, so it blends in with the wall) in the hallway. We lived in this house for 6 years and I found out about this door 2 years ago, when we opened it we saw a skeleton in the corner, not gonna lie that scared me s**tless, although it was just a prop left by the past owners of our house.

anon, shellhawk

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137points

#6

I lived in the house or my grandma for a few years, secret “room” beneath a trapdoor on the second floor, which was basically a void between walls on the complicated first floor. Was used to hide Jewish families during WW2.

jaap_null, Jean Carlo Emer

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119points

According to SOSS Door Hardware, any of us could be hiding a secret space in our homes. Especially if your home is old, there’s no telling what secrets it could be concealing. On their blog, SOSS explains that two of the most common reasons a home may have a hidden space are because the owner was eccentric or there were illegal activities taking place. If they were a collector of an embarrassing item, they might have felt safe keeping their beloved items hidden away. But if they were gambling, storing alcohol during prohibition or participating in a host of other crimes, a secret room might have been a necessity.

SOSS also provides some tips for how to detect a secret door. Contrary to popular belief, it probably is not concealed in a bookshelf or by pulling a latch behind a painting. Their first recommendation is to create a sketch of your home. Like any great detective, you want to lay out the entire floor plan and start by deciphering this map. Be sure to take into account any dead space, even if it has been walled in. “For instance, a house was originally heated by a chimney updated to HVAC. Instead of removing the broken chimney, a wall was built around it. Depending on the age and condition of the home, you’ll have some spaces,” SOSS explains.

#7

When clearing out my grandmas house I found a small door in the wall of the basement that led to a tiny room, according to my mother that’s where they hid the family heirlooms when thieving relatives came to town. I was mostly interested in the fact that it was covered in scribbles from my mom and her sisters growing up.

KE5TR4L, Lucas Santos

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116points

#8

Watched home alone and saw that attic that Macaulay Culkin was staying in and wondered if we had one in our townhouse. Ran around with a step ladder until I found it in my mom’s closet.
Got on my tiptoes on the stepladder and fought the door open (ended up being a big piece of plywood) and peered into the attic.
A mouse colony stared back.
It was like that scene in ratatouille. Decades worth of feces covered the whole space.
My mom was not happy once I told her. We moved shortly after.

Edit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!

PerpetuallySl33py, Berit Watkin

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114points

#9

We moved into a house with a door in the kitchen that could not be opened. The real estate tried but failed, assumed it let to the laundry room but was walled off. My older siblings, like any typical teenagers, were not convinced of this and were determined to open it. It was just a normal pantry but they never told our mother they managed to open it, and used it to hide things from her like alcohol, smokes, and weed.

anon, Aedrian

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104points

Next, you will want to take a look at those empty spaces. If you’re not interested in poking any holes in your walls, this might be the end of your journey. But if you are brave enough to cause a little damage (no rewards without risks right?) then start digging. “If you’re sure the space isn’t part of the accessible home, drill two holes about half an inch in diameter. Take a powerful flashlight, shine it in one and look through the other. See anything interesting? You can either remove the wall (forsaking your search for the door). Or search for the door and find the way in!”

The last step that SOSS recommends is checking all of your home's fixtures and trim. A door could be disguised as a piece of furniture, or it could be the wall itself. They suggest moving any furniture, taking all items off of the shelves and pushing any trim and spots on the walls. If you still have not had any luck, you might need to completely remove a wall to reveal a hidden space. Perhaps then you can build your own secret door!

#10

A couple of years ago I rented an apartment that was in a massive old architecture style building, no idea how old it was. I remember when I did the showing they showed me a door that had an elaborate staircase that went straight up to the ceiling and explained that it went to the attic, which was sealed up. When I was finally moving out curiosity got the best of me and I pushed on the panel at the top of the stairs until it popped open and hoisted myself up there.

It was completely dark and the floor was covered in at least an inch of dust, and I found that it was an entire extra floor to my unit. There was some old rotting furniture and magazines littered throughout the rooms. I eventually found a small hole in one of the walls that went into the sealed off upstairs of the unit next to mine and decided to go through that one too. I found a smaller hole at the back end of that area that led to the next one. I eventually made my way through about 5 or 6 of these sealed off spaces that had no entrances save these small holes in drywall. The farther I went in, the older the furniture I found, fridges from the fifties or earlier, old dishware, and so much dust over everything.

The last unit was the most interesting, hand painted scenes on the walls and holes to the attic letting sunlight stream in. I took small videos but they're all on snapchat so they're hard to post. I must have been up there for hours just exploring alone in the dark. I was pretty lucky to have the only room with access up there.

Edit:[Album](https://imgur.com/a/tzGhYYF)

Sorry for the format/captions no idea why I decided video was the way to go.

fluxelegy

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102points

#11

My best friend lives in France where I did as well for many years. She lives in a house that has been in her family for over six hundred years. It was built at the top of a hill about an hour outside of Paris and additions had been made to it over the years as one could imagine. Anyway, the house was built kind of at the top of a hill with rooms going down several levels into the side of the hill. The existing kitchen is new and modern and the original one was still intact but not in use as it was basically just one of those big fireplaces with a caldron looking contraption in it.
As her and her husband first moved into the house and started updated and painting etc., they removed the tile from the old kitchen wall behind the fireplace. Behind the tile was some more old tile and beneath that they found a crumbling old brick wall. When they removed the old wall they discovered that it was actually the entrance (or rather ‘exit’) to a tunnel that was an escape route from the town’s (Êpone, France) castle. In case the castle came under attack, the inhabitants could use the tunnel to flee and it came out right in my friend’s house about a kilometer away.
Mind. Blown. when she discovered that!

Kkykkx

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99points

#12

In my house there was an upstairs bedroom that was made into a game room for me and my sister. When we were about 12 years old we realized that a section of the paneling came off and there was a small closet sized room behind it. We kept it a secret so that when friends came over we would have the ultimate hiding spot for hide and seek. A few years later we were talking about to our parents about what we found and they said that the house was built during the prohibition era, so they most likely used it as a place to hide alcohol!

thatstheteahoney, djjewelz

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96points

When I was a kid, I was always jealous of anyone who had a basement because that was the closest thing I had ever witnessed to a secret chamber or compartment. But according to The Economic Times, hidden spaces have become a common element in luxury homes. The concept has apparently gained popularity among individuals looking to protect precious items behind high levels of security, but let’s be honest: they are also just extremely cool elements to add to any home.

#13

Friends of mine rented a holiday villa in Mexico years ago. They stayed there for 3 weeks. It had been advertised as '4 bedrooms, 3 baths' so they were kind of pissed off to find that there were only 2 bathrooms and the fourth bedroom was kind of small.

The day before they were leaving they did a little bit of a cleanup. One of my friends went to put the broom into the closet beside the fridge.

He opened the closet door only to find that it led to a massive room with a bathroom and it's own balcony!

The first night that they had gotten there, one of them had tried the door and thought that it was locked and assumed that that was maybe where they stored cleaning stuff or extra linen. After that, no one thought to try the door again until it was accidentally opened the day before leaving.

fionaharris, Kevin Fernandez

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78points

#14

It wasn't a room, but after living in our house for a few years, we decided to remodel the basement bathroom. Tore out the old shower enclosure and found a window behind it! Said window was covered on the outside by an apron of siding that came from the cantilevered room upstairs all the way down to the concrete pad. We tore off the siding apron and let some light in. it was much better.

goodwid, Christian Mackie

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76points

#15

Hidden closet in basement wall after 20 yrs of living in the house. We found some personal documents of no real interest, a newspaper from the day after Pearl Harbor, and a hand drawn cartoon of a pregnant Lucy yelling “Goddammit Charlie Brown!”

Update:

The newspaper turned out to be a reprint, so not valuable but still fun to look through. The cartoon is just as I remembered. Goes to show what I find important. BUT I had completely forgotten about the photo album! I’m going to try and track these people down and return their memories. Thanks for poking at me to dig this stuff up!!

qbeanz, qbeanz

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74points

If you own priceless valuables or are concerned about a potential break in, what better way to shield your belongings than through a secret doorway? And in India in particular, these secretive spaces can be traced back to the Mughal era. Back then, hidden rooms were found in buildings and forts to be used for defense purposes and escape routes, as well as the transportation and safe-keeping of precious items owned by royal families. “There has been a vernacular tradition of carving secret places to store exquisite or even common wealth in and around nature as well as architecture,” says Rohit Singh, an architect and managing partner at Meanohara, a Delhi-based firm. But the tradition did not end there; homes today are still being built with these secretive spaces in mind.

#16

My parents found one when I was a kid! My dad was remodeling our lower level when he noticed that part of the closet wall sounded hollow, and realized there must be something behind it. He had to cut away the wood paneling to get to it. Inside, we found it must have been a little “clubhouse” that some previous owners made for their kids or grandkids a long time ago. There were 4 pegs on the wall, each one had a boy’s name written underneath it. We think they used them as coat hooks.

It was the mid 2000s when we found it, so my parents got my sisters and I some motion-activated lights to stick on the walls, and gave us some old cushions so we could use it as a “clubhouse” too. Good times.

graybki

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68points

#17

Ahhhhh the story of "the murder room". I grew up in an old farmhouse, 2 floors and a basement. The basement was creepy as hell anyway because it had rickety wood slat stairs, stone walls, was dimly lit, in an L shape with dark corners, and had (i s**t u not) a single hanging lightbulb around one of the corners. Oh and the spiders. Soooo many spiders and cobwebs, *and* these spiders turn bright white when they die for some godforsaken reason. Anyway at the back of the basement it always seemed cut short, so one day brother and i decide to search under our old back porch that was overgrown with weeds at the time. And we found a door to another room that had been walled off from the rest of the basement.

Well "door" is probably an overstatement. It was kind of a hanging half-door made with weathered 2×4's with big metal hinges. It wouldn't move when we tried to open it so for years we jokingly refered to it as "the murder room", daring friends to go inside, which no one would of course, and the legend grew. What could be in this room? If it was for storage, why would it be walled off from the rest of the basement?

Eventually we could lift the door ever so slightly but it was pitch dark inside and when my big brother pushed me in one day our mom would end up telling us to stop messing around back there, that the old door was dangerous if it swung down on us and she didn't want us playing back there anymore. Of course this only made the interest grow but (while freaking out) i had made a discovery while inside. Even tho i couldn't see, the floor was made of dirt! What the hell was going on?

One day our mom had the old carpets thrown out and finally fixed the wood floors under them like she always wanted to. Eventually when cleaning out a tiny closet under some stairs I noticed that some of the boards made a destictive square. It's right over the murder room! I pulled up the square and saw the same dirt floor i felt years before. My girlfriend and i ventured inside and *found*... a small chair and a child's school desk. Take it as you will i guess but.it freaked us out. Later i found out many buildings in our town were linked to the underground railroad. Take it as u will but that was the story of the murder room.

WatertotheTree, Alan Levine

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67points

#18

We bought a house that had been built in the 1880s, lived in it for seven years and then had to have some wiring work done. The electrician was working down in the basement and wanted to drill through a (brick) wall to the outside for some reason I no longer remember. We give him the okay and go about our business. He starts drilling and then stops, comes upstairs and tells us he just found a bricked up room and what do we want to do about it? Well we kind of still want our wiring situation taken care of, but if there's a body and some amontadillo in there, I definitely want to know. On the other hand, I don't want to let my sister's boyfriend knock the wall down with a sledgehammer. As we are discussing this, the electrician offers to run a scope through the hole he just drilled so we can take a look without doing more damage, or, as he put it, destroying evidence. So our new friend gets his scope set up and we all go down to the basement and watch the monitor.

It's a very small space, maybe 3 by 5 feet. Nothing in there but a really old, gross looking plushie. Not a teddy bear, maybe a dog? It was sewed out of some kind of patterned fabric in a vaguely dog like shape. That's it, nothing else.

Electrician asks us what we want to do. I ask 8f he can seal the hole he just drilled because this is definitely how ghost movies start. He agreed and patched it up, drilled somewhere else, finished the rewiring and we all continued our lives. We moved out 2 years later and as far as I know, Haunted Doggy is still bricked up in the basement of that house.

purplhouse, Toshiyuki IMAI

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63points

However, today, these secret compartments requested by wealthy homeowners are not always viewed as a necessity or a security precaution. Sometimes, they are just a whimsical element that homeowners desire to make their houses unique and special. Prashant Chauhan of Zero9 Studio told Economic Times, “It might sound strange, but people do demand spaces which are known only to them and since the supply for such spaces is usually short, interior designers have to put on their creative hats and camouflage their designs to create an illusion, as if it doesn't exist. Almost every home we have worked on, whether in India or abroad, has had a requirement for such a secret chamber."

#19

There was a small door under some stairs (almost like Harry Potter’s room) in my old apartment in Venezuela. We’d lived there for a year until I leaned on it and felt it wiggle a little and realized it was a small square door. I was too scared to open it so had my dad do it and about 20 or so cockroaches flooded out. Never have I felt so much panic.

carthy101, mountainamoeba

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62points

#20

Back in college some friends and I rented an old mansion that had been built in the early 1920s from an elderly lady. The place was falling apart, but it was huge and rent was dirt cheap. About two years into living there I went to the basement to do some laundry and momentarily lost my balance, reaching out to steady myself using one of the wall panels. It flexed more than I expected, and after some inspection I found that it was removable. Behind it was a small, mostly empty, very dirty concrete room about 100 square feet. I say mostly empty because right in the middle there was a hole the size of a well that had been previously bricked up. It must have been old because the bricks had eroded at some point and exposed some of the hole, maybe a 2ft diameter circle out of the full 5 feet. After calling my friends down to look at it I got the courage to creep a little closer and peer down into it. There was another room roughly the same size but deep, maybe 15 feet down, and mostly dirt. We shined a flashlight down into it and I could swear there was a teddy bear at the bottom. Unfortunately despite plenty bargaining, none of us were ever able work up the courage (liquid or regular) to tie a rope and climb down for a closer look. Especially after we noticed that the bricks which I thought had fallen in were all accounted for, scattered around the hole as if something had broken out.

At the risk of my account being discovered by my redditor friends, this was in Pittsburgh. We did a little research and think the sub-basement may have been related to prohibition, but honestly I'm just willing to accept that explanation in order to avoid lifelong nightmares.

-banned-, Gary Meulemans

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60points

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