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.
#21
My family just moved out of our (story-and-a-half) house that we had lived in for around 2 years. From the front of the house it was easy to spot 3 front-facing windows, but upon inspecting the upstairs, there are only two accessible windows. I never investigated as it was my younger siblings' rooms, I was in college, and I didn't like the low ceilings of the upstairs. When I was helping move out, I decided I needed to check out what was up. There was a small (almost unnoticeable) door panel on the slanted ceiling that gave access to the 3rd window. It was filled with old insulation and a very used pillow but was overall a very small space.
My siblings wanted to show me the other secret room they had found also. In the center hallway also upstairs there was a 1/4 sized door, handle and all, stashed behind a cupboard that you could scooch out enough to get behind. It was also insulation filled (without the dirty pillow) but was a much larger space that just seemed unfinished. My siblings used it as a hideout when chores needed done.
This is my first comment ever, excuse anything I did incorrectly and I guess I'm supposed to say I'm on mobile as well.
Report
60points
Due to this trend becoming so common among luxury homes, many architectural and design firms now offer hidden doors, secret passageways, emergency hideouts and concealed chambers. "They may not be elaborate interventions; there might just be concealed compartments in the wardrobe," Rohit Singh added. These hidden elements could be concealing pantries, extra closets, private reading rooms, wine cellars and more. Anything that visitors won’t catch at first glance can be lurking behind a door or wall. In fact, bookshelves and mirrors are two of the most popular elements used to conceal hidden spaces because they can be easily added to any home and designed to fit in perfectly without adding any extra square footage.
#22
My sister and I shared the basement room of a house that we were renting. The owners had slept in that room when they lived in the house, all of the kids slept upstairs. We noticed that one of the panels of the wood wall looked loose so our brother carefully pried it off. Behind that wood panel was a secret room that had monitors lining the wall along with a random assortment of items. The monitors were not hooked up to anything but they explained why each room upstairs had holes in the corners of the ceilings. My Mom ended up asking about it to make sure, and yup, the owners had cameras in their kids rooms and we found the creepy headquarters. We moved out pretty soon after that.
Report
60points
#23
I was pretty young (maybe 7-8) so I don’t remember all the details. But my family moved into a new house (new to us but maybe 20 years old). There was one closet in my older sister’s room (9-10), not that big but it had a very small door in the back wall. It was locked and my parents never showed much interest in it.
I guess I sort of forgot about it over time, until one day I was hanging out in my sisters room and somehow she got it open. An awful smell came over us, I think we just assumed it was because the house was old or something. We didn’t go inside because the doorway was so small and we were already creeped out by how dark it was in there. We shut the door and got distracted by something else pretty quickly.
A day or two later, my sister mentioned it to my parents, they seemed a little confused but mostly just amused and my dad went to go check it out. After a couple of minutes he called my mom upstairs, she goes upstairs and a little later she comes back down. I just remember her asking us if we want to go to the park. My dad stayed behind. According to my sister, mom was acting strange.
When we get back home, there were bags in the car with our stuff. Apparently our grandma had invited us to stay with her for a couple nights. So we drove the 20 mins to her house and stayed there for 3 nights... then 4.... I think it was maybe a week until we got back home. But when we did, the door was sealed shut. Eventually replaced with more drywall.
My parents never talked about what was behind the door. I always wanted to ask them, but they both died in a car accident when I was 15.
Report
54points
#24
Bought a very rugged cabin with acreage a few years back. Cabin was built in the 70s. A friend of mine discovered a large attic which was surprising. There was no easy way into the attic. I knew there was space, but it did not appear to be as big as it was. Inside the the attic was evidence someone was living in there at one point... including a bloodied mattress. There were no lights, no comfort, just a sheet blocking off the part of the attic that didn't have some semblance of a floor, and a bloody mattress. This was all above my room. I got hella weird vibes in that house after that, and an earthquake ended up taking out the cabin shortly after. I tore it apart, salvaged a bunch of wood, and rebuilt a new cabin without the creepy vibes.
The most unnerving part about the cabin was the previous owner, upon finding news I had bought the land, came back just before I got the keys from the realtor and left a note that simply read "good luck" in the center of the living area. Just recently found a massive old tree on the land that had been previously scorched by fire, decades ago, and survived. If that land could talk I'm sure it would have stories.
Report
51points
The trend of secret compartments has been around for many years and has popped up in many places around the world. The Denver Post reported in 2019 how a local woman accidentally discovered a small, dark room in her home that appears to have been a secret bar from the prohibition era. But apparently many homes in Colorado are still being built with similar elements today for the amusement and peace of mind of the homeowners. Dan Polimino, a realtor in Denver, also explained that hidden spaces are an attractive selling point for many buyers. He said that he has sold homes with concealed rooms that have been panic rooms or spaces to hide valuable computers and servers. Professional athletes are even interested in secret spaces to have somewhere to store their awards and athletic memorabilia. So if you are a real estate agent, it might be worth doing your own investigation to find hidden spaces in homes as well. They might help you make a sale!
#25
I used to do evictions and clean houses before they were put back on the market. Well this 2 million dollar house was abandoned because nobody could afford it, and some teens decided to throw a rager in it. My job was to clean the whole house. They have this huge office with beautiful wooden bookcases around the whole room. As I’m cleaning the alcohol off of them, I notice one of them had a crack between the others. So I tug on it, and sure enough it opens up with a hidden door behind it. I was so excited that I found a secret room, and was pumped to open the door. When I did, it was a bathroom......
who uses a secret door for a shitter. :(
who uses a secret door for a shitter. :(
Report
50points
#26
I went to visit my Grandparents a few months after they had moved into a new house out in the country. I got into a bit of horseplay with a cousin and got shoved into a wall. It broke a big hole and we realized there was a large empty space back there.
With grandpa's help we tore the wall down and found a little room full of planting trays and grow lamps. There were a number of books about horticulture and one specifically about growing marijuana.
There was no secret way in as far as we could tell. Someone had just walled the entire room off for some reason.
47points
#27
Not my house but my elementary school, small one, country side.
In 1990, after some PE hours, a friend of mine and I were horsing around downstairs in the basement outside the locker rooms. In the process we tackled each other with shoulder pushes and my friend flew into a panel at some point, where a screw popped out of panel that revealed over-painted screws that revealed a panel door.
The janitor thought it was just the ducts for air or water pipe maintainance under the school, when we told him about the door and asked and said he came to the school in 1971 but never had been in there.
Of cause, the two of us being 6th graders, had to go on a hunt and later returned with a screwdriver after school hours (school was not locked due to after-school club same place) and entered with a flashlight.
It was a secret basement of ducts at first, super dusty and metal stamps revealed at least something in the coridors were built in 1959. The school was built in the 1950s.
But the fun part was when the 1x1 meters ducts suddenly ended out in a slightly larger room, 2 meters tall and probably 5x2 m in total. Had old equipment, like tables and stuff with military emblems on it and we thought of cause it could have been an old Nazi HQ or so, not adding two and two together that the school was built later than 1945.
But it was an old nuclear shelter thing that later was revealed to be a cancelled part of the school. Like planned and built, but never executed properly due to budgets and the ducts had been the old ducts for maintainace of water and sewage pipes.
So exciting but in the end, just a budget cut nuclear shelter with closets, blankets, tables and a little kitchenware of military origin.
But holy s**t did it feel like Indiana Jones at some point.
Report
45points
This list is inspiring me to do a bit of detective work myself, but unfortunately, I reside in an apartment that certainly has no hidden rooms. But if any of you pandas live in homes that might be concealing something, please go looking for me! You never know what you might discover. Enjoy the rest of these fascinating stories, and keep upvoting all of your favorites. Then let us know in the comments below what you would turn a hidden room into if your home had one. I think I would make a tiny bowling alley or an indoor pool if I had the chance...
#28
My parents bought a house from an old family member to help her pay for nursing home care (she hadn't lived in the house for years at that point). She was a hoarder and we were tasked with cleaning up the house of the course of a summer in order to make it livable prior to the start of school. Rat carcasses fused to the carpet, old tax documents from the 60s, etc. Well, we were scraping up the linoleum tiling (covering the original hardwood floor, disappointingly enough) in a side room when I made the joke about the previous resident being a secret mass murderer and that there was a trapdoor under the linoleum full of dead bodies.
I pulled up a huge section of tiling only to find...a trapdoor underneath. Scared the s**t out of me, but when we finally built up enough courage to open the damned thing, we discovered there was nothing under there. It was a walled off section of the basement with a dirt floor. We suspect it was an old root cellar from back when farmers had to store their s**t in a cold, dark place to prevent it from spoiling.
Report
43points
#29
After 15 years, we found a second basement in our farmhouse. My father had removed one of the large rocks that makes up the basement wall. I crawled under the log frame a few feet and there was a wall made of baseball sized rocks. I knocked those down and entered an old root cellar. There were shelves and shatter mason jars. And bones. lots and lots of bones. We dug a tunnel so we could access the room.
Found many secret areas in my current house behind wood panels. First secret door was in the basement, it lead to a underground bomb shelter with separate air intake and water line. I knew of it prior to buying the home and was a major selling point for me. Stocked with a radiation detector, used for storage.
Second room was only three feet high, had a light a bunch of toys, crayons and drawings. That one I didn't find for a few months. After about two weeks I discovered a few hidden panels with shelves with toys, magazines, books and some clothing. Nothing interesting.
After a year or two, I located a suspicious wood panel on the floor, pried it open a bit and was able to see a full length staircase leading to a brick wall. I haven't bothered to fully open the panel yet.
Report
42points
#30
I found a secret space in my closet when my mom and I were moving out of the house she was renting to move into my stepdad’s house. I never noticed it because junk covered the section of the wall that was covering a small entrance to a room that was sealed off with boards and plywood. I couldn’t pry it open but I could see light shining in it and a single mason jar filled with what I assumed was water. The air was cold in there like as if the central heating didn’t even reach that part. I showed it to my mom and she told me that she doesn’t remember seeing that there when we had moved in 8 years prior but since we were moving out, it didn’t matter. The room gave me the creeps for whatever reason. I know why it was sealed off or why there was a single mason jar filled with water in the center of the room.
Report
41points
#31
Found it moving in. Latch at bottom of corner of closet. Cape cod style house, crawl space to basically uncarpetted room with two windows over garage. Fell through one time.
Report
40points
#32
My old house had this weirdly large concrete slab in the corner of the yard that was covered by a ton of leaves when we moved in. I thought it was maybe foundation for a shed, but it was in a very odd location. Years later when I was getting ready to move, it bugged me that I didn't know what it was for. I got a friend to help me come dig around it, expecting to confirm that it was just an old foundation.
We dug for days in the middle of August. We had to start digging at night to protect ourselves from the heat. We got about 15 feet down and the concrete wasn't showing any signs of ending. We eventually struck a pipe with a nozzle, and discovered that there was more concrete moving towards the center of the yard.
About a week later my Dad came home and almost had a stroke when he saw that we were digging up half the yard. We had sold the house and were expected to leave by September first. He made us fill it all in and I left home never finding out what it was. Some of my teachers who were longtime town residents told me that my neighborhood had been farmland before development and that there may have been several bomb or fallout shelters in that area. I would have loved to have found an entrance into the bunker, if that's what it was.
Report
35points
#33
Not necessarily secret, but my old house was a duplex. There was a hobbit-sized door on the bottom floor and I glanced in there a few times but only saw pipes and different electrical units and stuff. There was some of the landlord’s/maybe past resident’s junk in the corner. After a few years I explored behind it and realized it leads to the other half of the house.
Report
32points
#34
I bought a house back in 2010. There was a wooden box next to an old oak tree in my backyard. It had no doors and no way to look into it. The box was about as big as a love seat and it looked as old as the house. (about 30 years) but very well kept, no bug damage.
I waited for about 2 years until I got the nerve to open it... it was empty.
Report
27points
#35
Helping my granddad move house, we accidentally found access to the under floor area (not even big enough to really call a crawl space I don't think, spotty memory).
There was a small pile of trash from the 60s/70s (juice cans, chocolate bar wrappers and crumpled newspapers) and bits of discarded construction debris and some broken tools. We think it must have been used by the builders in lieu of a trash can. It was cool, an accidental time capsule.
Report
26points
