43 Unexpected Treasures People Discovered After Moving Into A New Home

An 80s childhood for my kids. We bought in a townhouse complex where the kids ride bikes, climb trees and play in the creek until the street-lamps come on. It's a pretty charmed existence.

The home was a gorgeous mid-century perched high on a hill. We walked inside and thick heavy curtains blocked a wall of windows that lined the rear of the home. We opened the curtains and realized the home had panoramic views from the mountains to the ocean. Absolutely ZERO mention of the views at all (I even saved the listing because we were so shocked). We made an offer immediately. Terrible agent for the seller but luckily I represented myself (I'm a licensed agent). I will never sell this house.

When my wife and I bought our forever home, I kept finding railway spikes ( a few) everytime I would drag the gravel driveway. My great-grandfather on my dad's side (died before I was born) used to own a logging business just a few miles from here. Did some digging into it and found that all of the logs in my log home came from his business in the 60's. Its kind of nice to think that this home was meant to be mine.

Lots of wetlands currently owned by the town behind our house/yard- they're far enough from my property that it hasn't impeded anything we've wanted to do on our own property nor do we have water issues as we are on high ground, but it's stopped anyone doing anything at all with the town-owned property (including the town). Years back, the town wanted to build an additional access road to a town building located behind my property. The EPA shut that down FAST and permanently.

So, the back of my house looks out on wooded land and always will and our yard is very private. :-) YAY wetlands!

I was taking apart one of the old out buildings to turn it into a little studio. On the back side of the wall panel there was a huge hand painted sign for some old timey snake oil cure all remedy. I’m going to see if I can get it restored and put it in the studio as art.

Not me, but my aunt. There was a ‘world radio’ built into the wall in the basement. Quite big - like the size of a large microwave. Many dials, a map of the world and you could tune into stations from anywhere, though it took quite a bit of patience. I thought it was both weird and wonderful!

New construction build so no previous owners. Apparently the land used to be next to a known wild blueberry picking area. So we inherited something like 20+ wild blueberry bushes along the perimeter of our land. .

Two tortoises were hibernating in the front yard in a hidden burrow that we did not know about until it was time for them to come out.

Newspapers from 1928 underneath the tile/vinyl/rubber floors. They have advertisements for coal and ice and Vaudville shows with blackface characters, Calvin Coolidge shooting a shotgun on the front page, and the big sports story was 2 completed forward passes in a football game.

A 200 year old wheelchair, a Victorian ladies side saddle and complete bridal set, a hand sewn straw stuffed teddy bear from the Roosevelt era, a regulation sized carom table from 1850 and an organ built by a famous Detroit music instrument manufacturer from the 19'aughts.

Bought a nice sized piece of property with a rickety cabin on it. Well turns out the previous owner was schizophrenic and hand dug a secret bunker underneath the cabin. I discovered the access door when I went to throw out the dilapidated couch and filthy rug in the living room. The bunker walls were covered in maps and firearms (not to mention the wooden box of dynamite in the corner), and there was a large workbench with a bunch of electrical equipment on it along with several older model computers that all looked like they’d been taken apart and modified numerous times. Inside an open safe welded to a steel plate bolted to the floor and framed with cement was about 50 ounces of gold and approximately $30,000 in cash. 

Each gold bar and round had a 💛 stamped in it. .

An incredibly friendly 'outdoor cat' who is now the cuddliest laundry-buddy ever when I go downstairs. (because he's not an outdoor cat anymore). Ancient old tomcat (desexed at some point at least) who wants nothing more than to make painful biscuits on your lap with quite-sharp claws.

Edit to Add: And we are very sure we didn't just.. Steal somebody's cat. Vet has a file for him under previous owners name and everything from his last rabies thing. Asked the previous owner about him and they were like 'oh, yeah, that's [cats name], he won't bite you or nothing.' His inoculations and preventatives have all been updated, and tested for various issues. Can't mingle with the current upstairs cat, because she's FIV pos, and I'm told he's pretty aggressive to other cats, but he's more than happy to cuddle in the basement any time either of us go down.

My first house had a bunch of closets that had pull-down light switches. An old dog tag was connected to one of them. It was the tag of a dog named Penny. I bet she was good girl.

There was a whole room not pictured in the listing. Nice view of the front yard plus two spacious closets. My son and I now share it as a home office.

Also a *giant* apple tree in the back yard. We knew about it when we bought the house, but we had no idea how *productive* it would be. I bought a fruit press, and I put away up to 10 gallons of cider every summer.

Massive maternal bat colony. Protected by the state. Guy had sealed the attic off and refused access during inspection.

A cupboard that wasn’t packed. Had a fry daddy, various teas, a French press and $50 in an envelope. .

A secret room behind a bookcase and a mature peach tree.

Not necessarily a gem....but we've found close to about 50 pairs of scissors randomly in our backyard. All different types and sizes. Very odd .

A copy of the blueprints for the house.

A laundry chute. A door in the bathroom and another in the kitchen, it ends up next to the washing machine in the basement.