“Owner Was In The Mob”: 45 Of The Most Abnormal Finds While Renovating A Home

A time capsule. My friend was renovating his 150-year-old Victorian, and the workers found a wooden box inside a wall. All the contents were related to the construction of the house. Original blueprints, some tools used, receipts for supplies... Not great monetary value, but they had it all framed in glass and now proudly display it on a wall.

When my Stepdad started digging in the garden to plant trees the shovel hit something solid. He kept digging and found an air raid shelter from the war with steps going down to it. There was still stuff in there and cans of food.

We found a calendar from the early 1800's and a stash of little gold and silver bars once. (probably a few oz's each) Parents were thrilled as it paid for the entire budget of the renovation we were doing. That was not the weird part. The little old rag doll sitting with them, seemingly pristine after well over 100 years, was the weird part.

My husband found a brass crab-shaped jewelry box. It looks like this one.

Found a bottle of 120 year old scotch behind a bookcase. Since I was hired to do the remodel, I gave it to the homeowner.

One of my friends is a construction contractor, and he was sent to a newly built house to investigate a mold problem. It was a new house, one of those prefab homes, but it already had mold in the walls.

Cut open the drywall to find garbage, mostly soda bottles and fast food wrappers. The people who built the house put their trash behind the drywall and it eventually grew mold in the walls. The owners even said they randomly smelled mcdonalds food sometimes, but never thought much of it.

Wife's Story:

When she was young, the family had a dog who loved pancakes. Most mornings MIL would make pancakes and the dog would take a couple. Years later all the pancakes were found in the back corner of a rarely used closet.

A transatlantic boat ticket from the 1880s.

My dad moved the fake ceiling panels in our basement that were over the room I had as a kid.

My comic book collection rained down on him (I forgot it, 25 years ago I hid them up there).

He wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew immediately when he told me. I just looked and found out my Wolverine #1 might be worth 50$ on eBay, if it really is mint condition... hmmmm so sad, thought I might be a thousandaire...

I found bloody clothing, a burner phone and a handgun above a drop ceiling in an office building I worked in.

No update, turned into the police for evidence.

Wasn't my house, but we were cleaning out an estate. Found an old Army footlocker from World War II, and decided to open it. In it, I found:

* A large kukri/machete from the Phillipines

* Some EXTREMELY detailed documents from WWI, some with General Patton's signature on them.

* A can of British "Tea Ration" from WWII. I opened it, and inside found dozens of military insignia dating from at least the Spanish-American War to the Korean War. Not just US insignia, but also several British.

Apparently, the guy who owned the locker's father was a dual citizen during WWI. He enlisted in the British Army pre-war, saw combat in WWI and moved to the US in 1916, and then enlisted in the US Army, only to be shipped back out for the war's end in 1917. He went on to go to West Point, which is where some of the documents come from. He served an auxiliary role in WWII as an engineer or something with the US Army, while his son fought in the Pacific Theater.

I found a newspaper from the end of WWII in my bathroom while renovating. It’s in very good condition. Also found a ration point.

My sister and brother-in-law bought a widow’s house. When he tore out a wall to remodel the basement, he found a pile of household trash. Underneath all the old newspapers and plastic Coke bottles was a cardboard box labeled, “Cremated Remains.” Yep. It was the widow’s husband.

Mexican sheetrock crew leader brought a stack of 100 year old $100 bills found in a wall over to my boss, he took one and handed the rest out to that crew for being honest, everybody got like $400 and they were probably worth alot more than face value.

My sister found a little over 1,000$ dollars. Bills were all from the 80's and were in an envelope that had deposits and withdrawals written on it.

My parents moved into an old house a few years back built in 1850, which had a large basement. Just before moving out, a surveyor noticed one wall in the basement was temporary. So out of interest, the wall was ripped down, revealing another huge room (~70m^2), stacked floor to ceiling with old wartime furniture. At the end of the room, the wall had a big red cross painted on the wall. No wonder the dog always freaked out down there.

Found a bag of silver coins that was hidden during the depression.

When we had our bathroom remodeled, the contractor found a family of opossums (mother and four babies) living in the wall behind the shower.

My sister moved into a small 2 bed house when she had her first child, there was initials engraved above the door T.S or something like that.

a few years later my other sister got a new boyfriend and when he came round to the house he noted the initials, later confirming what he suspected.

His grandmother lived in the exact same house 40 years ago and engraved that before she left. Small world!

I was cleaning and organizing my closet a couple years ago after having just moved in to a new house. There was a high shelf (well above eye level) and I'm trying to put a shoebox up there. For some reason it won't push back all the way to the wall, so I get my stepstool and find that between the shoebox and the wall was a .380 Derringer pistol.

I called the serial number in to the county sheriff and it came back free and clear. I asked if I could legally keep it or if I had to surrender it and the deputy on the phone said "finnders keepers". That's how I ended up with the most pointless firearm in my collection.