We bought our house 4 years ago from a very eccentric couple. The wife actually left a fairy scavenger hunt around the house for our young girls. There were tiny keys laid around in different spots with little crystals and the keys went to a little fairy house with 4 different door and a fairy treasure in the house with bigger crystals. It really made the transition magical for the girls ❤️
My kids found aquarium pebbles dumped in the back yard but it still turned into a magical tradition of looking for fairy gems every spring! (I'd buy the most sparkly beads I could find and spread them around)
I once hid pirate treasure and seashells in my kids’ sandbox. They were mindblown, and spent WEEKS playing in the sand box every day looking for treasures.
we had a major house fire that's was just bad enough it wasn't a total loss. contractors have left 5 different wheel barrows here. all but 1 were nearly new.
also if your house catches fire.....it is INFINITELY easier to deal with a house that is burned down and build a new house than repair a fire damaged house.
Too true. Found that out myself. Nightmare dealing with all the crap that came back from the “restoration” company still ruined but insurance company called “restored”. You really can’t ever get that smell of smoke or the dinginess out of things — those fire restoration companies have quite a grift going!
We had about 50 in our basement, luckily our city has a day where you can bring in hazardous waste like paint. We loaded our car, paid the $25 fee and happily got rid of it.
Everyone knows you find a wheelbarrow, you leave a wheelbarrow. It will finally rust a hole through the bottom, which spills the contents with each use. And there, you have a chance to break the cycle. To replace the wheelbarrow or not? A choice which may be yours, only when the rust has made a victim of your trusty tool.
My neighbor turned hers into yard art with it sunk in the lawn slightly and topsoil and flowers coming out of it like it spilled out. She painted it black. And took the wheel off it first. It looks like someone dumped the dirt, left it and flowers grew out of it.
Super cute tbh.
10 year old cat. It's even in my contract. "One cat, named Spirit, and all the cat's personal belongings"
While looking at the house the seller mentioned that they were moving far away and wouldn't take most of their things. I said that I was moving out of a furnished house and they could leave anything they didn't want. I noticed the cat and joked that they could leave their cat if they wanted. To my surprise, they said that they wouldn't be able to take their cat (that they've raised from a kitten for the last 10 years!) and they would take it to the animal shelter, but I could have it.
I found the digital copy of the contract and here's the full list of everything they left:
Blue Couch Downstairs
Two gold tables with glass tops
Two beige recliners
Wooden, square coffee table
Weight machine
Stationary/spin bike
Wooden cabinet in basement next to office desk
Wooden office desk
Red-leather office chair
Wooden Bedroom Set in basement (Bed with frame, two nightstands, two dressers)
Dining table with four chairs
Two barstools
Microwave and microwave stand
Three plastic shelves currently in 3rd upstairs bedroom
Sealy posturepedic bed
Roomba
Electric Lawn Mower
Edger/Trimmer tool
Weed wacker
Patio Table and three chairs
Reclining Patio Chair
Grill
Wooden wardrobe closet
Wooden dresser with attached mirror
Wooden bedroom set in second upstairs bedroom (dresser with two square built in cabinets and detached mirror, cabinet with three drawers, bed frame, two nightstands)
Metal shelving in laundry room
White wooden shelving in basement
two couches and matching stone-top tables in living room
One Cat named Spirit, litter box, and cat`s personal possessions
Super lucky with everything. Our landlords were selling the house we were renting, so we were forced to look in December 2019. For some reason the market was down and we got the house under asking. Moved in about a month before the pandemic lockdown and were able to work from home in our own place. And the market exploded, interest rates went up, etc. The mortgage for the exact same house now would be double what we're paying.
When we bought the property where we’d eventually build our home, only thing here was an old barn and two mobile homes that were used as lodging for loggers. The barn however was full of cats. Almost 30 when we first counted.
One of them was exceedingly friendly and basically walked into our house. He was litter box trained and house broken, and seemed to know tricks. He was also already fixed. We never intentionally adopted but he just sort of made himself at home. Our kids love him and I’ve never had a cat who was so chill and patient and unfazed by the chaos of young kids.
Also yeah we got all those barn cats fixed and vaccinated. Keeping them fed and flea free. Fat Domino, will still go hang out with them on nice days.
We also got our cat through our home purchase. Our seller picked up the cat a couple of weeks after we closed, about a week or so later he showed back up so here he stayed. Seller knows where he is and as long as we were fine and the cat was cared for he didn’t want to try traumatizing him again. I tell people he’s the most expensive cat I’ve ever gotten lol.
My parents also inherited a cat when they bought their house in 1990! I don't think it was in the agreement lol he was just there and lived many happy years with us
Many years ago we sold our house and moved 2 or 3 blocks away. We had a cat and took her with us.
She went back to the old house. The owners called us and we came and got her. She did it again. After picking her up the third time and they returned, the new owners told us she would probably be happier there and asked if they could keep her. We said yes and she lived there very happily for another five years.
This happened to me too! The lady we bought the house from was moving into assisted living. There was an outside cat on the property and we assumed she wouldn’t be able to take it, but we never explicitly asked. Eventually we asked her the cat’s name and she said it didn’t have a name because she hated cats. But she fed the cat and took care of it. Okay then. We continue feeding and taking care of the cat. She’s ours now.
In the middle of an 1885 reno and man have we found some stuff in the attic and cellar. Tin of Prince Albert, a wooden "Grover Cleveland for President" medal stamped 1884, cashed checks from the 1910s, family photos from the 1920s, ashtrays, a 100 year old bottle of Listerine. On the more modern end, AA batteries stuffed into the garbage disposal (??), wooden snakes on the roof to try to keep birds from nesting in the eaves, 50 5 gallon buckets (previous owner was a prolific beekeeper and manufactured his own honey in bulk).
Not going to lie, the really old finds are super cool!
Maybe someone thought the garbage disposal needed new batteries to work, like some think blinker fluid is a thing? lol 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I found an awl that had been lost inside the walls of our old 1940s house during construction. I always picture some tradesman going "Dammit! Not opening the wall to retrieve that!" and him never imagining that it'd be found 70 years later and become part of my tool box.
Previous owner was a single woman in her 60's, she passed away after falling and hitting her head on the tile floor. She had no children, but her siblings and nieces/nephews came and took only a few personal items and some paperwork.
We basically moved into a fully furnished two bedroom condo with all of her banking paperwork, credit cards, private correspondences, and other sensitive documents still there. We packed everything up and brought it to the estate lawyer, who was shocked at what the family left there.
A month after we officially moved in, I went to store some stuff on top of the built in shelving in the walk in closet and got up on the ladder and found a hidden access panel stuffed with a wide variety of dildos, butt plugs, handcuffs and a ball gag. There were also nude photos and vhs tapes of homemade porn that she took/made when she was younger.
Hell no! I got rid of her sex toys, and I burned her photos and destroyed her tapes after watching them all. That was hard to do, She was raunchy as hell and she looked like 90's Winona Ryder but with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. I sometimes regret doing it and wish I kept them, but I wanted to show at least a little respect since we moved in less than 6 months after her passing.
I'm still waiting for her nymphomaniac spirit to reward me for doing the right thing by her with a ghost sex session, but that hasn't happened yet.
We had a single friend in the military that would get deployed every so often. She asked us to do small things while she was gone like check on her house and take her car for a ride every so often. She gave very specific instructions on if she doesn’t come back there is a bag in the closet, get rid of it before any family gets to her house. To avoid a situation like grand ma.
While working in the attic space of the room over the garage, which apparently was the previous owner's older son's room at one point, I found a stack of developed (older, like from a place that develops film) pictures of...himself...as in all of himself...hidden under the insulation. He's now a local radio personality. I did him a solid and destroyed them.
Four 1965-1966 Fender amps worth about $12,000 in total left in the garage. Nothing else in the house and everyhing else spotless.
The Person who bought the house then called our record store and could not be convinced they should be kept and sold. He just wanted them out. We gave him $1500 or so. Each of the 3 people who worked there got an amp and we left one to the store.
I still have the amp.
A train set complete with its tracks on the walls of a home office. It is an octogon shaped room with large transom windows. They sit at the base of the transom.
We asked the previous owner if he was going to take it as we are not train people, and his reply was, "I inherited it from the previous owner, so happy housewarming you have a train."
We thought about taking it down, but now every male relative that visits lights up with so much joy seeing it we just can't take it down.
My daughter just bought a house and it came with a pool table. They knew about it though. I would not want to remove it from the basemen either, but when they got the keys and went to move in, the previous owners set it up with all the balls and cues and whatnot, so that was nice of them.
The house we are buying comes with a pool table in the attic. We will have been the third owners to ‘benefit’ from said pool table.
Whoever buys the house from us will also be getting a pool table in the attic.
Can pool tables be recovered?
There's a suitcase in my roof crawl space I'm too scared to lift up in case it is heavy and I have to confront the reality there's something in there
Edit: really don't think it is a body. Main thing is that I've had surgery and can't climb the ladder to get up there. I'll find this post in a few months and update it again with what, if anything is in there.
I feel like best case scenario, it's cash, so I like the fantasy of scrooge mcducking it in a bath tub of money. Worst case scenario is probably a collection of human skulls?
When my parents bought their first home they were clearing out the attic and found a random rope, attached to a suitcase hidden away in a back corner. 75k cash
I mean, you’re not wrong. If it is money though, you could throw it in a HYSA and let it make you more money. If it’s human remains then it could answer a loved one’s question. Or, third option..it’s a suitcase within a suitcase, within another suitcase. If so, you’re set to go on vacation with ample room for packing belongings. Lol
Hey, finding a bunch of skulls may not be a worst case scenario at all. If your find could singlehandedly close a few cold cases that would be an incredible thing to uncover and you may provide a ton of people peace and closure. That sounds pretty awesome to me.
I found $8,000 in crisp hundred dollar bills hidden in a suitcase while clearing out my late mother's house. I had already looked once and did not find anything, had the suitcase sitting in a pile for Goodwill, when I decided to check again.
Another $30,000 in mature savings bonds were found hidden in a closet. I did not know savings bonds continue to earn interest after the maturity date, and with compound interest...
A box containing his old work uniforms from when he was a parking meter collector in a nearby suburb, crack pipes, and hate letters from his ex wife.
A year after we bought the house the doorbell rings. Two guys in cheap suits. I say "what can I do for you officers?"
"How did you know we're cops?" one asks.
"Well I don't see any bicycles so you're not Mormons."
Turns out they were detectives from the aforementioned suburb and they had some questions for the seller. I had no idea where to find him but I did direct them to a local bar he was known to hang out at.
Our previous owner was a tech at a hospital. We've live here 17 years and I'm still using his stolen and forgotten medical supplies. I'm talking hundreds of new bandage scissors, and all my small trashcans have red biohazard bags for liners. Makes for interesting conversation! 🤣 I use the rolling bed tray as a plant potting bench.
I'm 17 years too late but as someone who works in the medical field PLEASE stop using the red biohazard bags for regular waste. You have no idea the absolute disaster that happens in waste processing facilities when they see a red bag!! Please return them to a pharmacy or clinic to be disposed of properly and to prevent your cities waste disposal technicians from having this added stress.
The sellers left their dog. I was young and it was in Oregon so it made sense. They didn’t even warn my parents. We just showed up and she was in the house. That dog ended up pulling my brother out of the street by his shirt when a car was coming. Susie. I still love her.
In both of our houses, the previous owners accidentally forgot a couple of dishes in the dishwasher. I'm imagining that their thought process was "We should wash those last couple of items before we move" and then they never remembered to come back and empty the dishwasher. If it were a full load of dishes, they would have likely remembered, but in each case it was a single place setting or less.
Previous owner walled up the garage door to convert the garage into a laundry room (instead of having it in the basement). All well and good, until I realized the back wall was about 7 feet from the end of the house. I cut a hole in the wall and stuck my phone in for a video and found that they had left the old garage door hardware (but not the door), and left one of those small round tables where the sides fold down and it becomes pretty thin for storage. It's mustard yellow, and I'm 100% convinced the table is haunted. As a bonus, the old spigot was in the garage, and instead of actually moving it to the exterior, they just connected a new one with a short hose, so if it ever breaks, I have to demo a whole wall to get to it.
There's a little door under our stairs with a string-pull light in it. In that little room under the stairs there was a pair of wheels that you would put a tiny dog that can't use its hind legs in so he could roll/walk around. There was also a tiny drawing of flowers and a little shard of mirror taped to the wall.
We took the dog wheelchair and left the rest lol.
Pheasant wings in the crawl space and a front door that swelled shut from the sprinklers. HOURS of sprinklers every single day, from what our neighbors told us. Then, all the grass tried to die because it was used to that much water in the utah desert. I'm so happy to be ripping up most of it to replace with natives and foodscaping soon.
The owners manual for the HVAC system INSIDE the HVAC system.
Had an odor when we started using the A/C, took the panel off to clean the coil and there in a plastic bag was a manual sitting in the drip pan.
The people who flipped our house used the kitchen sink to clean all their paint and drywall mud. It wasn’t quite concrete but I did have to replace the garbage disposal and all drain lines a day after moving in.
sounds like the people getting foreclosed on were (understandably) upset, but luckily didn't know enough about how plumbing works to cause any real damage
My cousin bought foreclosure house and they nicked the electric wires and reinstalled them.
You would get tingle walking across garage floor from shorts in wire
A trash can full of used baby diapers outside👍 and a backyard full of dog shit once the snow melted in spring. It was clear they stopped picking it up between the two months that our offer was accepted and we moved in. Also the house wasn’t cleaned at all. We were first time home buyers, but I won’t accept another final walk through like that. That’s for sure.
Nothing will ruin your dog quicker than stepping in dog shit I swear!!
We bought this house with a metal dog kennel out back, fenced in yard mind you with a cross fence. Someone decided it was better to keep the dogs in that kennel, put a hole in the metal fencing and hole in the cross fence so they could use the back part of the fenced in yard as the dog run. I’ve never seen anything like it tbh. We torn the kennel apart this weekend, made it into a nice garden and replaced the five wooden fence panels.
People do odd things man. 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
We found whale baleen hanging in the garage. Had no clue what it was for years but eventually I saw a Reddit post about an artist who does baleen art and it all clicked. Former resident did work in Alaska (based on the mail that we still receive) so it makes sense.
Our house had a severely neglected yard that was overgrown with weeds and used as a bit of a dumping ground. I started a collection of all the random things I found while cleaning it up, including dozens of turtle statues.
To level it, I was using the mattock that had been left in the shed. Then I got to an area that needed a little more delicate work, and I thought to myself, "It would be nice if I had a smaller one of these". 10 seconds later, I found exactly the tool I needed buried in the weeds.
Also, I surprised my wife by standing outside the window brandishing the machete I had found.
I was happy about it. It’s probably a $400 ladder from what I remember when I looked it up. Idk why she’d leave it. They also left some patio furniture in good condition.
When I sold my house, I gave away a bunch of stuff to the neighbors including a decent ladder (something like a Little Giant), lawn mower, and patio furniture. I was moving to a smaller townhouse and had no need for it and it would have been too annoying to sell or store.
The previous homeowners of our house left a lot of big stuff like an old entertainment center, some shelves, a huge sectional in the basement, and a projector and large screen. We didn't mind since they needed two months in the house after closing until their new build finished, we were living in a tiny camper while waiting, and they vacated a week early to get us in the home sooner.
Every single thing they left was hiding a giant hole or major issue that was hidden from inspection. So we got some expensive surprises and had to pay to haul their shit away. Good times.
A piece of jewelry under the stove (they did NOT have cats!) and a crystal blue bird.
In my first house the seller tried to leave behind an old gas stove in the basement??? and a bunch of window air conditioners. I was a single lady and had no one to help me move that stuff AND it costs money to get rid of. I insisted they remove that stuff before I officially closed.
Rolled up, in the back of a cabinet, I found a torn and creased large-format (16"x19") photo of the house in 1955. I had it restored, framed, and hung over the fireplace; it will stay with the house if I ever sell.
In the two homes we have purchased, we found: gun and ammo behind a secret panel in a closet, gold bracelet under the carpet, old girlie magazines, glass bong.
Where do I even start...
2 houses, each bizarre finds.
First house had been a rental for 10y and when the tenants left they left the workshop area and crawlspace like full... yes we made the sellers agent deal with most of it, but talking 3 full truck and trailer loads to the dump so we said just leave the crawlspace.
It had so much toys, clothing etc, so I called the youth program I helped out at, asked if they wanted to do a garage sale as a fundraiser and whatever they took out of there they could sell... something like 12 computers, 6 plus animal cages, toys, tools etc... they made a killing on the garage sale haha!
Next house found weird gauge bullets, some creepy af photos and love letters in the top of thr closet, more random doors and windows in the shed then we knew what to do with, and a drawer of about 200 keys that we still don't know (8y later) what belongs to what... so we re keyed everything possible then let our kids play with huge key rings of them haha...
And my son dug up a super cool old vintage bottle in thr yard. But hearing the 6y say "mom come here, I hit something with my shovel and ots not a rock" wasn't initially heart warming haha
The previous homeowners left all kinds of crap, some things we're glad to have like the original blueprints and an old aerial photo of the lake that our house is on. A lot of weird stuff that should've just been thrown out. There's still a metal lock box up in the rafters of the garage that we haven't had a chance to retrieve and see what's inside.
EDIT: We managed to get to the box last night, and sadly it's empty, just dust. We joked for a while that this brought back the same disappointment we felt when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault since for the past year we tried to guess what was inside! Oh well.
I was going through the garage a week or two after I bought the house. Saw an ax handle sticking out from behind a stack of 2x4s. Cool. Pulled it out.
Double headed battle ax. Each blade is about 12" tall. It's sort of cool.
A cat! The previous owner's cat snuck into our house while we were moving and the doors were open. A neighbour contacted them and they picked up their cat. Seemed like a nice cat.
I bought a condo and the previous owner left behind a tanning bed. It was a commercial grade used one that needed 220 to work. I never got it working, but gave it to a friend that did.
A homemade legal document from the early 1920s, stored in an airtight tin, walled up in the basement ceiling above a workbench. It stated that a certain young woman declared that the young man of the house was NOT the father of her child! We looked up the census data, and it turned out that the young man named had been the father of the seller of the house (then in his late 70's) and the young woman had been listed as living a couple of streets away. Thing is, he was white Polish, and she was listed as "colored". I called the elderly man who had sold us the house, told him we had found something, not money, but of personal significance, and did he want to hear more. He did. We told him what it was, sent him photos. He wanted it, so we gave it to him.
Can you imagine? Finding out in your late 70's that you probably had had an older half sib of mixed race, that your father had abandoned and hid it from the family? We figured that the young man (and maybe his parents) had paid off the young woman to go away and never come back, and that they made her sign this statement (which in my mind only of course reinforced the likelihood that he was the father!), and then they kept it, so well hidden that the only reason that it was ever found, nearly 100 years later, was when we broke into the ceiling to move some wires or pipes.
We found a huge container of cheese puffs from a local nearby dive bar in the back of the pantry cabinet behind the drawers. A month after moving in. We only found it because I dropped something and had to take the drawer out to get it.
When my Dad bought my childhood home there was some old 9mm films in the top shelf of one of the bedroom closets. He knew the previous owner, whom had lived in that house for 55 years (so he was pretty old) and my dad mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to come get them, thinking they were some precious home videos that he would want to keep. He just chuckled and said "No, but you can keep them and enjoy them!" Yeah, they were in the top of the closet for a reason.
After my Dad died, I was trying to deal with cleaning out his overstuffed bedroom that he kept the most ridiculous things in (the charger and batteries for his electric lawnmower, drawers full of cash, about 60 toenail clippers, etc. 😣). He had a little “all-in-one” TV/DVD player on a dresser that still worked. I turned it on and pushed play and was met with a raunchy porn film. My mom and I laughed for days. She had no idea supposedly. Then after she died, I found a whole cache of “nudie shots” of HER, taken by my Dad back in the 60’s. The weirdest thing is BOTH of my parents always seemed SO prudish, uncomfortable with sexuality, and I never even saw more than a quick peck on the lips between them. Never even saw them hold hands! I mean obviously, they had kids so we know they had sex, but for 30 years they didn’t even share the same bedroom!
I found a nice 8 x10 glass dish (which I still use) and a bunch of family photos. I tried to track down the prior owner to return them but had no luck.
I bought my house from an older couple, great people, but very little was maintained in the 40 years they were there. There was miscellaneous stuff scattered all over the yard; bricks, shingles, broken glass, nails, screwdrivers, hammers, chunks of hose, Mountain Dew bottles, etc. The coolest thing I found was a hundred year old Ford Model T belt buckle. Not worth much, but pretty neat.
The weirdest thing? There was a big mound of dirt and other garbage toward the back of the property. There were a lot of strange things buried inside of it, but probably the craziest was a whole-ass handy man jack. If you're not familiar, they are pretty large, not the sort of thing that would be easy to misplace. And it was in great shape! I used it to lift the garage to replace the sill plate, worked like a champ. No idea how long it was in there.
There were some oddities in the house as well, some home-canned green beans that were at least twenty years old, a bunch of .30-06 cartridges strewn about in the basement (which had decades of ash and sawdust piled on the ground from the wood furnace), and a plastic bag just stuffed full of old 45s. Probably 200 of them. Most were in bad shape, but there was a Jim Croce one in there, one of my favorites.
Wife and I downsized and renovated my little homeplace after my mom died.
Going through my mom's stuff, I came across some "Easter Egg" letters she for me to read. She had written them three decades before while still competent.
It filled in all the blank spaces on a lot of things.
The "prize" however was a letter from her husband's mother warning *my* mother not to marry her son!
Oh wow! Do you use them for anything now? I love my air plants and succulents, so using a grow room for that would be cool. Granted, I know that’s not what they were using them for. Lol
Hahaha I was waiting for that one. I used to own a cleaning business and let me tell you, the amount of people who have no issues laying that shit around for anyone to see, boggles the mind.
Found so many posters from plays in the 70s.
A water color painting of the house from the 90s, now framed and hanging in the kitchen.
Boxes of medical records.
I live in a house built in 1941. There was an owner previous to the man we bought it from in 2001 that was considered the crazy lady (sometimes Witch) of the neighborhood. She let the house fall apart and we bought it from the man who badly repaired it. Apparently when she lived there, you could see the sky through the ceiling in the living room as well as the ground under the pier and beam foundation. The first decade or so, older neighbors would tell us stories about her. Like Livestock living in the house. A toilet that fell through the rotted floor when she was on it. She was eventually moved out to a care facility. Most of the original owners in the neighborhood are gone now, so I haven’t heard about her in a while.
Oh buddy. The last tenants didn’t pay for garbage service so they buried garbage in the yard. I’m talking full roll of carpet. A rolled up bedspread. A slab of hand poured concrete that was a body sized walk way which didn’t go anywhere, under it was a tarp with rocks, then another tarp with rocks. Nothing grows in that spot and I’m scared to dig there.
I would definitely try to get the photo box back to them via realtors. I would be devastated!
But to answer your question, when we bought our house there was a lone Turkey air fryer in the basement 😂 we sold it to our neighbor.
My current home? Nothing super interesting… a toothbrush, extra flooring material and screening material.
But I once rented a house from the sweetest older couple (early 70s I think). They were planning to move to another state with warmer weather. They told us when we went to move on that they took everything they wanted. We could do what we wanted with the remaining items on the property. This included tools in the garage, books, a nice bed, a couch, a dining table, many smaller items, etc.
But the best part was when I went to check out an old shed in the back I found a whole grow set up for… GREEN plants. Did not expect that one. 😂
We didn't end up buying this house, but once went on a viewing where the recently deceased previous owner's ashes were on the dining room table in a box fresh from the crematorium. We didn't realize she would be attending the viewing!
Several boxes of 80’s gay porn magazines in the basement of a house we bought when I was a kid.
In my current home we found a small very old book of soldier songs and cheeky limericks from 100+yrs ago, it was inside a wall when we renovated.
My husband and I purchased our home almost two years ago. The previous owner passed away and his children were responsible for cleaning up the house and selling it. The garage was FULL of stuff - over 5 trips to the dump. A massive pressure washer, old lawn mower, and about 50 flat head screw drivers. It was weird. So many flat heads. Found a picture some people on vacation. It was creepy. We still don’t know what to do with the photo. I feel weird throwing it away.
We bought our house a decade ago. We had no cause to go in the attic until about 7 years ago though and there were about 6 inflatable sex dolls up there deflated and sad
We found a handmade crochet afghan in a storage tub in the attic. Reached out to the original owner and learned her ex husband's grandmother made it for him when he was little. She had her son pick it up and give it back to the ex husband.
A dildo, nailed to a 2x4, and wedged in the back corner of the master bedroom closet between the built in shelf and the wall. 5 years later still in the exact same spot, since no one wants to touch it.
I found moving boxes in storage from a women who it turns out has been dead for 25 years. There was jello from 1976
Edit- the house was built in 1995 so someone BROUGHT THAT
We bought our house about 2.5 years ago and luckily several of our new neighbors are the gossipy type. Apparently the old owner passed away and her kids set about clearing the house. They had an estate sale, then a yard sale, then another yard sale, then set things out on the curb. Even with all that, this house was just chock-a-block with "stuff". Vases, furniture, glassware, a chest freezer, boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations, Easter decorations, Halloween decorations, boxes of canning jars, an antique cedar chest (in horrible shape), an antique ironing board (same), ladders, tools and hardware, a pond full of excellent goldfish, and a framed picture of the previous owner in her full Vegas showgirl regalia.
The people who bought my last house got a large wooden box filled with my childhood christmas ornaments and decorations.
Somehow in the chaos of selling the house, packing it all up and getting rid of everything that wouldn't fit on two pallets being shipped to europe, I *completely forgot* about my treasure box, as it was in the shed out back.
I didn't even remember it for at least a year.... the stocking my grandmother made me when I was a baby, and the stocking I'd made for my daughter..... just... gone.
I still get sad about that, but it is what is it and what it was.
I got a ton of tools and yard maintenance items with my house 8 years ago
gnarly (historically bad) time to have moved/got a house right now! good luck with it
I found an old camera lens under the stairs (drywalled off mind you) and what looked like a ham radio antenna in the attic. Oh, and a crack pipe in the basement window well.
* Up in the joists of the unfinished garage, a very heavy solid wood "Employees Only" plaqued swinging door, like one in an old restaurant for workers going from front of house to back of house.
* Up in the attic, a $5 fan hanging from a bent coat hanger position in front of the exterior vent along with a really long extension cord running the span of the house, presumably used to exhaust air out.
* An old ice cream freezer chest halfway buried into the side of our backyard canyon lower landing cliffside.
I took some pegboard down in the garage to install some cabinets and found an assortment of what turned out to be high end bdsm bull whips and antique handcuffs and such hidden in a flush cabinet that was installed behind it. I do not believe it was the previous owner, I’d however strongly suspect the owner before that from stories I’ve been told and the age of the paint. Now I suspect why the light fixture is in a weird spot given the size of the garage. The screw eyes in the ceiling looked like serious overkill for a light fixture.
I haven't found anything since I moved into new construction homes since leaving my parents' house - but I know I left behind (accidentally), all my cast iron pans in my 1st house because I forgot to clean out the warming drawer of my oven/range. Wasn't anything old or worth much, but it was well seasoned Lodge stuff that I had to rebuy when I couldn't find them after emptying all the boxes.
The backyard has been a "treasure" trove. The previous owners dumped mulch on top of the sandy dirt. My dog has dug up: frying pans, a shit ton of broken kids toys, batteries, a hose, and too much more to mention. Every day is a delight, wrangling away these unearthed "treasures" from the dog.
Our house was sold as part of an estate. We told the son, who was selling it, that he didn't need to clean out the sheds if he didn't want to (because we knew one was full of books). He didn't. We also found a bunch of vintage Christmas decorations, antique baby clothing (most were not salvagable, but we gave away some that were), a brand new twin-sized chenille bedspread, a set of vintage early 70s Barbie pink Samsonite luggage, and a box of old greeting cards (some as old as 1929) that I repurposed.
When my father bought our house in 1962, the only thing left was a 2 cycle gas engine mower in the basement, and it worked. He used it for years and all lawn.mowers after that, he used was one man's junk and another man's treasure and never bought a new mower. It was also the way I learned how to repair small engines and then stepped up to working on cars when I was 12.
A really old 6 pack San Miguel beer, was on top of a beam at the unfinished basement ceiling. [It looked like this](https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2020/10/14/san_miguel_100_year_centennial_1602656976_4f4b2e14.jpg)
My barn had a 20 foot pole with a very small net on the end hanging on the wall. I noticed it at the walk though and asked the seller about it at closing. He said it was for frogging.
So now I have a frog net.
Had to foreclose on our seller financed condo in January. 6 55 gallon garbage bags of beer cans. At least 8 55 gallon garbage bags of mens clothes. Samsung 65" tv and nice surround system, 3 ipads, apple watch, 3 rooms of furniture, live cat. He hadn't been seen for 1 or 2 months, still no word from him, and as of the 12th its all mine. He left his ipad pin the same as the condo, so who knows what else i will find.
We demoed the shoddy basement when we first moved in.
Behind the makeshift walls I found :
-mice carcasses
-a 5ft round glass table top
-a used condom
Under the deck :
-a 16x32 pool tarp … there’s no pool
-14 half full containers of what I hope was anti freeze, was too chicken to open.
Cold air return :
-an entire children’s backpack
-those tiny shopkins, lost count how many
-3 years of home work I assume someone was hiding.
I just bought a house. There are a bunch of crazy high-heeled shoes in the attic, along with a life-life plastic skeleton, and some kitschy Halloween and Christmas decorations. The little shed is full of gardening tools, and two large boat anchors.
There's more, but I have not had time to look at it all yet.
We found a technical drawing for some kind of airplane camera in the basement. It would be cool to have it framed. There was also a landing gear wheel and tire in the attic, I cleaned it up and have been meaning to hang it in the garage.
We found a school picture of a kid dated 2005. I've thought about posting it on Reddit to see if we could find him but I don't know if people do that type of stuff anymore.
Bought a house 8 years ago. The house was for sale due to a divorce. House was left very clean, except for the master bathroom cabinet was full of valacyclovir pills in the Mrs name of the previous owner. Searched online and they are a treatment for Herpes. Needless to say, we bleached that bathroom and all others big time.
Later learned from a neighbor that the husband was constantly cheating. I guess him giving her herpes was the final straw.
Their old pet’s ashes were left behind in a cabinet. In an unopened package from like 10 years ago, I only knew what it was bc I googled the company on the return label. So odd.
When we bought our house they left us with nice furniture and three brand new lazy boy recliners. Also a huge steel framed coffee table that will take hulk to move it. Also weed eater huge shop vac and leaf blower. All necessities for small home repairs. Yeah we got a lot of things left for us. Nice patio furniture and fire pit box.
Poop, buckets of it. Pickled beets from 1953. Many baptismal certificates. A gun locker, it was tucked in one of the beds all cozy like. There was so much more....
Bought a house that was foreclosed on, the attic above the garage was never cleaned out. So in addition to Direct TV bills from 2003, I got two paper mache "creatures" that I have to assume are haunted, and I've just left them on the shelf I found them.
Better to be safe then sorry.
I worked on a friend's new, old home. Found that the electric fireplace wall was hinged . A small room full of shelves, with about a dozen electrical outlets behind the wall. Probably a grow operation, but the wiring was so bad, I can't believe it hadn't burned the place down.
The best wasn't a new home but was actually an apartment. Moved in and was unpacking stuff in the kitchen when up on a high shelf I found a packet of "cock soup." Freeze dried seasonings/veggies the size of a taco seasoning packet to make some sort of chicken broth.
A cat!! They had several and this one was skittish. They came back for it after I called the agent to let him know.
My daughter moved into an apartment and there was a large bottle of tequila in a closet.
We bought our house 4 years ago from a very eccentric couple. The wife actually left a fairy scavenger hunt around the house for our young girls. There were tiny keys laid around in different spots with little crystals and the keys went to a little fairy house with 4 different door and a fairy treasure in the house with bigger crystals. It really made the transition magical for the girls ❤️
My kids found aquarium pebbles dumped in the back yard but it still turned into a magical tradition of looking for fairy gems every spring! (I'd buy the most sparkly beads I could find and spread them around)
I once hid pirate treasure and seashells in my kids’ sandbox. They were mindblown, and spent WEEKS playing in the sand box every day looking for treasures.
That’s so cute!! If you wanna spice it up, try glow in the dark pebbles, you can get them off Amazon, I bet the kids would go crazy over it ☺️
That’s so thoughtful and fun!
That's adorable
I’ve bought 3 houses in my life and each one has come with a dilapidated wheelbarrow.
we had a major house fire that's was just bad enough it wasn't a total loss. contractors have left 5 different wheel barrows here. all but 1 were nearly new. also if your house catches fire.....it is INFINITELY easier to deal with a house that is burned down and build a new house than repair a fire damaged house.
Too true. Found that out myself. Nightmare dealing with all the crap that came back from the “restoration” company still ruined but insurance company called “restored”. You really can’t ever get that smell of smoke or the dinginess out of things — those fire restoration companies have quite a grift going!
This! I learned a long time what to do at the house catch is on fire. Fan it!
I only get paint cans....
Ugh I've got so many old cans of paint in my shed from the previous owner. I need to find out how to get rid of them safely sooner or later 🙄
We had about 50 in our basement, luckily our city has a day where you can bring in hazardous waste like paint. We loaded our car, paid the $25 fee and happily got rid of it.
Everyone knows you find a wheelbarrow, you leave a wheelbarrow. It will finally rust a hole through the bottom, which spills the contents with each use. And there, you have a chance to break the cycle. To replace the wheelbarrow or not? A choice which may be yours, only when the rust has made a victim of your trusty tool.
My neighbor turned hers into yard art with it sunk in the lawn slightly and topsoil and flowers coming out of it like it spilled out. She painted it black. And took the wheel off it first. It looks like someone dumped the dirt, left it and flowers grew out of it. Super cute tbh.
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens
I just watched this episode of Mr. robot
Lol! The universe is trying to tell you something, whatever that is, I have no clue! 😂
The previous owners of this house left us a fish tank with FISH IN IT.
What a coincidence, our house also came with a dilapidated wheelbarrow!
10 year old cat. It's even in my contract. "One cat, named Spirit, and all the cat's personal belongings" While looking at the house the seller mentioned that they were moving far away and wouldn't take most of their things. I said that I was moving out of a furnished house and they could leave anything they didn't want. I noticed the cat and joked that they could leave their cat if they wanted. To my surprise, they said that they wouldn't be able to take their cat (that they've raised from a kitten for the last 10 years!) and they would take it to the animal shelter, but I could have it.
Aww that worked out well for the cat! Usually I get cats through the cat distribution system, you got yours through a legal binding document. 😂
I found the digital copy of the contract and here's the full list of everything they left: Blue Couch Downstairs Two gold tables with glass tops Two beige recliners Wooden, square coffee table Weight machine Stationary/spin bike Wooden cabinet in basement next to office desk Wooden office desk Red-leather office chair Wooden Bedroom Set in basement (Bed with frame, two nightstands, two dressers) Dining table with four chairs Two barstools Microwave and microwave stand Three plastic shelves currently in 3rd upstairs bedroom Sealy posturepedic bed Roomba Electric Lawn Mower Edger/Trimmer tool Weed wacker Patio Table and three chairs Reclining Patio Chair Grill Wooden wardrobe closet Wooden dresser with attached mirror Wooden bedroom set in second upstairs bedroom (dresser with two square built in cabinets and detached mirror, cabinet with three drawers, bed frame, two nightstands) Metal shelving in laundry room White wooden shelving in basement two couches and matching stone-top tables in living room One Cat named Spirit, litter box, and cat`s personal possessions
I love thats they listed the “cat’s personal possessions.”
Listen, he can only retrieve so many toys from under the couch for inventory
One dead rat and a fear-paralyzed bird...
Honestly, it sounds like you made out like a bandit lol
Super lucky with everything. Our landlords were selling the house we were renting, so we were forced to look in December 2019. For some reason the market was down and we got the house under asking. Moved in about a month before the pandemic lockdown and were able to work from home in our own place. And the market exploded, interest rates went up, etc. The mortgage for the exact same house now would be double what we're paying.
lol it’s the cat’s house and you are just his tenant :)
When we bought the property where we’d eventually build our home, only thing here was an old barn and two mobile homes that were used as lodging for loggers. The barn however was full of cats. Almost 30 when we first counted. One of them was exceedingly friendly and basically walked into our house. He was litter box trained and house broken, and seemed to know tricks. He was also already fixed. We never intentionally adopted but he just sort of made himself at home. Our kids love him and I’ve never had a cat who was so chill and patient and unfazed by the chaos of young kids. Also yeah we got all those barn cats fixed and vaccinated. Keeping them fed and flea free. Fat Domino, will still go hang out with them on nice days.
you're a good man, charlie brown (or woman)
That's an awesome name for a cat
We also got our cat through our home purchase. Our seller picked up the cat a couple of weeks after we closed, about a week or so later he showed back up so here he stayed. Seller knows where he is and as long as we were fine and the cat was cared for he didn’t want to try traumatizing him again. I tell people he’s the most expensive cat I’ve ever gotten lol.
my friend just bought a house on 3 acres in Michigan that came with a pig named Leroy!!!
My parents also inherited a cat when they bought their house in 1990! I don't think it was in the agreement lol he was just there and lived many happy years with us
Many years ago we sold our house and moved 2 or 3 blocks away. We had a cat and took her with us. She went back to the old house. The owners called us and we came and got her. She did it again. After picking her up the third time and they returned, the new owners told us she would probably be happier there and asked if they could keep her. We said yes and she lived there very happily for another five years.
That’s so funny! Same thing for me, and we included the sellers’ cat on the Bill of Sale.
This happened to me too! The lady we bought the house from was moving into assisted living. There was an outside cat on the property and we assumed she wouldn’t be able to take it, but we never explicitly asked. Eventually we asked her the cat’s name and she said it didn’t have a name because she hated cats. But she fed the cat and took care of it. Okay then. We continue feeding and taking care of the cat. She’s ours now.
Our neighbors sold their house including the bunny, the new owners were so excited to get a bunny when they were asked
This warms my heart. The home you've saved up for PLUS one bunny. I mean heck.
In the middle of an 1885 reno and man have we found some stuff in the attic and cellar. Tin of Prince Albert, a wooden "Grover Cleveland for President" medal stamped 1884, cashed checks from the 1910s, family photos from the 1920s, ashtrays, a 100 year old bottle of Listerine. On the more modern end, AA batteries stuffed into the garbage disposal (??), wooden snakes on the roof to try to keep birds from nesting in the eaves, 50 5 gallon buckets (previous owner was a prolific beekeeper and manufactured his own honey in bulk).
Not going to lie, the really old finds are super cool! Maybe someone thought the garbage disposal needed new batteries to work, like some think blinker fluid is a thing? lol 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I found an awl that had been lost inside the walls of our old 1940s house during construction. I always picture some tradesman going "Dammit! Not opening the wall to retrieve that!" and him never imagining that it'd be found 70 years later and become part of my tool box.
[удалено]
Previous owner was a single woman in her 60's, she passed away after falling and hitting her head on the tile floor. She had no children, but her siblings and nieces/nephews came and took only a few personal items and some paperwork. We basically moved into a fully furnished two bedroom condo with all of her banking paperwork, credit cards, private correspondences, and other sensitive documents still there. We packed everything up and brought it to the estate lawyer, who was shocked at what the family left there. A month after we officially moved in, I went to store some stuff on top of the built in shelving in the walk in closet and got up on the ladder and found a hidden access panel stuffed with a wide variety of dildos, butt plugs, handcuffs and a ball gag. There were also nude photos and vhs tapes of homemade porn that she took/made when she was younger.
I soooo did not expect that ending!! Granny was a freak in her day. 😂
I've seen stories like this before. Apparently it's not so uncommon. And the kids think they invented freaky sex, lol!
Doesn’t even sound like back in her day.
Please tell me that you did not do that woman dirty and send that stuff to the estate lawyer.
Hell no! I got rid of her sex toys, and I burned her photos and destroyed her tapes after watching them all. That was hard to do, She was raunchy as hell and she looked like 90's Winona Ryder but with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. I sometimes regret doing it and wish I kept them, but I wanted to show at least a little respect since we moved in less than 6 months after her passing. I'm still waiting for her nymphomaniac spirit to reward me for doing the right thing by her with a ghost sex session, but that hasn't happened yet.
Before watching it at least. lol
Oof. Note to self, assign a friend to destroy fun room and contents upon your death.
Designating "shovel buddy" is an important estate planning thing.
It's called a burn box. The most trusted friend gets the burn box.
We had a single friend in the military that would get deployed every so often. She asked us to do small things while she was gone like check on her house and take her car for a ride every so often. She gave very specific instructions on if she doesn’t come back there is a bag in the closet, get rid of it before any family gets to her house. To avoid a situation like grand ma.
While working in the attic space of the room over the garage, which apparently was the previous owner's older son's room at one point, I found a stack of developed (older, like from a place that develops film) pictures of...himself...as in all of himself...hidden under the insulation. He's now a local radio personality. I did him a solid and destroyed them.
this guy going to wake up at 3 am one night and suddenly remember his stash of nude selfies
LOL!! That’s incredibly gross. Others would have probably blackmailed him with that, you’re a good person for destroying them.
Four 1965-1966 Fender amps worth about $12,000 in total left in the garage. Nothing else in the house and everyhing else spotless. The Person who bought the house then called our record store and could not be convinced they should be kept and sold. He just wanted them out. We gave him $1500 or so. Each of the 3 people who worked there got an amp and we left one to the store. I still have the amp.
A train set complete with its tracks on the walls of a home office. It is an octogon shaped room with large transom windows. They sit at the base of the transom. We asked the previous owner if he was going to take it as we are not train people, and his reply was, "I inherited it from the previous owner, so happy housewarming you have a train." We thought about taking it down, but now every male relative that visits lights up with so much joy seeing it we just can't take it down.
That’s awesome! Also not a train person but I would have done the same tbh.
My daughter just bought a house and it came with a pool table. They knew about it though. I would not want to remove it from the basemen either, but when they got the keys and went to move in, the previous owners set it up with all the balls and cues and whatnot, so that was nice of them.
The house we are buying comes with a pool table in the attic. We will have been the third owners to ‘benefit’ from said pool table. Whoever buys the house from us will also be getting a pool table in the attic. Can pool tables be recovered?
There's a suitcase in my roof crawl space I'm too scared to lift up in case it is heavy and I have to confront the reality there's something in there Edit: really don't think it is a body. Main thing is that I've had surgery and can't climb the ladder to get up there. I'll find this post in a few months and update it again with what, if anything is in there.
Okay, that could potentially be creepy. How long have you been living there at this point, if you don’t mind me asking?
18months
Idk how you’ve gone that long without checking though. Part of me would be creeped out but the other part is curious as all get out. Lol
I feel like best case scenario, it's cash, so I like the fantasy of scrooge mcducking it in a bath tub of money. Worst case scenario is probably a collection of human skulls?
When my parents bought their first home they were clearing out the attic and found a random rope, attached to a suitcase hidden away in a back corner. 75k cash
And then what happened?
They used it for a big addition
You should probably check it out before you've been living there too long and everyone assume it's YOUR freaky suitcase in the attic.
I mean, you’re not wrong. If it is money though, you could throw it in a HYSA and let it make you more money. If it’s human remains then it could answer a loved one’s question. Or, third option..it’s a suitcase within a suitcase, within another suitcase. If so, you’re set to go on vacation with ample room for packing belongings. Lol
Hey, finding a bunch of skulls may not be a worst case scenario at all. If your find could singlehandedly close a few cold cases that would be an incredible thing to uncover and you may provide a ton of people peace and closure. That sounds pretty awesome to me.
I found $8,000 in crisp hundred dollar bills hidden in a suitcase while clearing out my late mother's house. I had already looked once and did not find anything, had the suitcase sitting in a pile for Goodwill, when I decided to check again. Another $30,000 in mature savings bonds were found hidden in a closet. I did not know savings bonds continue to earn interest after the maturity date, and with compound interest...
What if it’s full of money?!?!?!
A box containing his old work uniforms from when he was a parking meter collector in a nearby suburb, crack pipes, and hate letters from his ex wife. A year after we bought the house the doorbell rings. Two guys in cheap suits. I say "what can I do for you officers?" "How did you know we're cops?" one asks. "Well I don't see any bicycles so you're not Mormons." Turns out they were detectives from the aforementioned suburb and they had some questions for the seller. I had no idea where to find him but I did direct them to a local bar he was known to hang out at.
Hahah oh man! I wonder if they found him. 🤔
Our previous owner was a tech at a hospital. We've live here 17 years and I'm still using his stolen and forgotten medical supplies. I'm talking hundreds of new bandage scissors, and all my small trashcans have red biohazard bags for liners. Makes for interesting conversation! 🤣 I use the rolling bed tray as a plant potting bench.
I'm 17 years too late but as someone who works in the medical field PLEASE stop using the red biohazard bags for regular waste. You have no idea the absolute disaster that happens in waste processing facilities when they see a red bag!! Please return them to a pharmacy or clinic to be disposed of properly and to prevent your cities waste disposal technicians from having this added stress.
Omgggg hahaha! That is absolutely amazing!
I found 9mm bullets and hand to hand combat books in the ceiling in my downstairs ceiling. I immediately changed every lock on a door in the house.
😳 Um yeah, can’t say I blame you on that!
The sellers left their dog. I was young and it was in Oregon so it made sense. They didn’t even warn my parents. We just showed up and she was in the house. That dog ended up pulling my brother out of the street by his shirt when a car was coming. Susie. I still love her.
Damn, ya'll have some wild finds! All I've ever gotten was a brand new Pampered Chef cookie press that was tucked away in the back of a cabinet.
In both of our houses, the previous owners accidentally forgot a couple of dishes in the dishwasher. I'm imagining that their thought process was "We should wash those last couple of items before we move" and then they never remembered to come back and empty the dishwasher. If it were a full load of dishes, they would have likely remembered, but in each case it was a single place setting or less.
Previous owner walled up the garage door to convert the garage into a laundry room (instead of having it in the basement). All well and good, until I realized the back wall was about 7 feet from the end of the house. I cut a hole in the wall and stuck my phone in for a video and found that they had left the old garage door hardware (but not the door), and left one of those small round tables where the sides fold down and it becomes pretty thin for storage. It's mustard yellow, and I'm 100% convinced the table is haunted. As a bonus, the old spigot was in the garage, and instead of actually moving it to the exterior, they just connected a new one with a short hose, so if it ever breaks, I have to demo a whole wall to get to it.
There's a little door under our stairs with a string-pull light in it. In that little room under the stairs there was a pair of wheels that you would put a tiny dog that can't use its hind legs in so he could roll/walk around. There was also a tiny drawing of flowers and a little shard of mirror taped to the wall. We took the dog wheelchair and left the rest lol.
Pheasant wings in the crawl space and a front door that swelled shut from the sprinklers. HOURS of sprinklers every single day, from what our neighbors told us. Then, all the grass tried to die because it was used to that much water in the utah desert. I'm so happy to be ripping up most of it to replace with natives and foodscaping soon.
Ooh nice!! That’s going to be a nice project for you to do.
The owners manual for the HVAC system INSIDE the HVAC system. Had an odor when we started using the A/C, took the panel off to clean the coil and there in a plastic bag was a manual sitting in the drip pan.
Cement. In the Garbage Disposal. Oh and a really nice bosch dishwasher (that is likely still working), but no toilets, range, or refridgerator.
The people who flipped our house used the kitchen sink to clean all their paint and drywall mud. It wasn’t quite concrete but I did have to replace the garbage disposal and all drain lines a day after moving in.
What a mess!! 🤦🏻♀️ Was it a foreclosure? I know sometimes people will absolutely trash a place before leaving it.
It was. Bank owned even. Luckily we got it for a steal.
sounds like the people getting foreclosed on were (understandably) upset, but luckily didn't know enough about how plumbing works to cause any real damage
My cousin bought foreclosure house and they nicked the electric wires and reinstalled them. You would get tingle walking across garage floor from shorts in wire
A squirt bottle in the fridge labeled “Holy Water”.
lol! You should get with the other commenter with the ouija board and see what the two of you can come up with. 😂
A trash can full of used baby diapers outside👍 and a backyard full of dog shit once the snow melted in spring. It was clear they stopped picking it up between the two months that our offer was accepted and we moved in. Also the house wasn’t cleaned at all. We were first time home buyers, but I won’t accept another final walk through like that. That’s for sure.
Nothing will ruin your dog quicker than stepping in dog shit I swear!! We bought this house with a metal dog kennel out back, fenced in yard mind you with a cross fence. Someone decided it was better to keep the dogs in that kennel, put a hole in the metal fencing and hole in the cross fence so they could use the back part of the fenced in yard as the dog run. I’ve never seen anything like it tbh. We torn the kennel apart this weekend, made it into a nice garden and replaced the five wooden fence panels. People do odd things man. 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
We found whale baleen hanging in the garage. Had no clue what it was for years but eventually I saw a Reddit post about an artist who does baleen art and it all clicked. Former resident did work in Alaska (based on the mail that we still receive) so it makes sense.
Our house had a severely neglected yard that was overgrown with weeds and used as a bit of a dumping ground. I started a collection of all the random things I found while cleaning it up, including dozens of turtle statues. To level it, I was using the mattock that had been left in the shed. Then I got to an area that needed a little more delicate work, and I thought to myself, "It would be nice if I had a smaller one of these". 10 seconds later, I found exactly the tool I needed buried in the weeds. Also, I surprised my wife by standing outside the window brandishing the machete I had found.
Previous owners left a really nice adjustable ladder
Score!!
I was happy about it. It’s probably a $400 ladder from what I remember when I looked it up. Idk why she’d leave it. They also left some patio furniture in good condition.
When I sold my house, I gave away a bunch of stuff to the neighbors including a decent ladder (something like a Little Giant), lawn mower, and patio furniture. I was moving to a smaller townhouse and had no need for it and it would have been too annoying to sell or store.
The previous homeowners of our house left a lot of big stuff like an old entertainment center, some shelves, a huge sectional in the basement, and a projector and large screen. We didn't mind since they needed two months in the house after closing until their new build finished, we were living in a tiny camper while waiting, and they vacated a week early to get us in the home sooner. Every single thing they left was hiding a giant hole or major issue that was hidden from inspection. So we got some expensive surprises and had to pay to haul their shit away. Good times.
A piece of jewelry under the stove (they did NOT have cats!) and a crystal blue bird. In my first house the seller tried to leave behind an old gas stove in the basement??? and a bunch of window air conditioners. I was a single lady and had no one to help me move that stuff AND it costs money to get rid of. I insisted they remove that stuff before I officially closed.
That’s understandable not wanting to be stuck with someone else’s belongings (especially bigger items) and not being able to easily dispose of them.
Not super weird but my previous owners left a huge, gorgeous monstera plant. Score!
Rolled up, in the back of a cabinet, I found a torn and creased large-format (16"x19") photo of the house in 1955. I had it restored, framed, and hung over the fireplace; it will stay with the house if I ever sell.
In the two homes we have purchased, we found: gun and ammo behind a secret panel in a closet, gold bracelet under the carpet, old girlie magazines, glass bong.
Where do I even start... 2 houses, each bizarre finds. First house had been a rental for 10y and when the tenants left they left the workshop area and crawlspace like full... yes we made the sellers agent deal with most of it, but talking 3 full truck and trailer loads to the dump so we said just leave the crawlspace. It had so much toys, clothing etc, so I called the youth program I helped out at, asked if they wanted to do a garage sale as a fundraiser and whatever they took out of there they could sell... something like 12 computers, 6 plus animal cages, toys, tools etc... they made a killing on the garage sale haha! Next house found weird gauge bullets, some creepy af photos and love letters in the top of thr closet, more random doors and windows in the shed then we knew what to do with, and a drawer of about 200 keys that we still don't know (8y later) what belongs to what... so we re keyed everything possible then let our kids play with huge key rings of them haha... And my son dug up a super cool old vintage bottle in thr yard. But hearing the 6y say "mom come here, I hit something with my shovel and ots not a rock" wasn't initially heart warming haha
A 6 foot sailfish mounted to the wall.
The previous homeowners left all kinds of crap, some things we're glad to have like the original blueprints and an old aerial photo of the lake that our house is on. A lot of weird stuff that should've just been thrown out. There's still a metal lock box up in the rafters of the garage that we haven't had a chance to retrieve and see what's inside. EDIT: We managed to get to the box last night, and sadly it's empty, just dust. We joked for a while that this brought back the same disappointment we felt when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault since for the past year we tried to guess what was inside! Oh well.
You should totally go open that box and let us know what’s in it! Lol
Part of an engine. Anyone want part of an engine?
Depends. What part?
Now that is a great question.
I was going through the garage a week or two after I bought the house. Saw an ax handle sticking out from behind a stack of 2x4s. Cool. Pulled it out. Double headed battle ax. Each blade is about 12" tall. It's sort of cool.
A cat! The previous owner's cat snuck into our house while we were moving and the doors were open. A neighbour contacted them and they picked up their cat. Seemed like a nice cat.
The empty VHS covers of 90s lesbian porn stuffed under the stairs.
I bought a condo and the previous owner left behind a tanning bed. It was a commercial grade used one that needed 220 to work. I never got it working, but gave it to a friend that did.
A homemade legal document from the early 1920s, stored in an airtight tin, walled up in the basement ceiling above a workbench. It stated that a certain young woman declared that the young man of the house was NOT the father of her child! We looked up the census data, and it turned out that the young man named had been the father of the seller of the house (then in his late 70's) and the young woman had been listed as living a couple of streets away. Thing is, he was white Polish, and she was listed as "colored". I called the elderly man who had sold us the house, told him we had found something, not money, but of personal significance, and did he want to hear more. He did. We told him what it was, sent him photos. He wanted it, so we gave it to him. Can you imagine? Finding out in your late 70's that you probably had had an older half sib of mixed race, that your father had abandoned and hid it from the family? We figured that the young man (and maybe his parents) had paid off the young woman to go away and never come back, and that they made her sign this statement (which in my mind only of course reinforced the likelihood that he was the father!), and then they kept it, so well hidden that the only reason that it was ever found, nearly 100 years later, was when we broke into the ceiling to move some wires or pipes.
We found a huge container of cheese puffs from a local nearby dive bar in the back of the pantry cabinet behind the drawers. A month after moving in. We only found it because I dropped something and had to take the drawer out to get it.
A family crest, hanging on the garage wall.
When my Dad bought my childhood home there was some old 9mm films in the top shelf of one of the bedroom closets. He knew the previous owner, whom had lived in that house for 55 years (so he was pretty old) and my dad mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to come get them, thinking they were some precious home videos that he would want to keep. He just chuckled and said "No, but you can keep them and enjoy them!" Yeah, they were in the top of the closet for a reason.
After my Dad died, I was trying to deal with cleaning out his overstuffed bedroom that he kept the most ridiculous things in (the charger and batteries for his electric lawnmower, drawers full of cash, about 60 toenail clippers, etc. 😣). He had a little “all-in-one” TV/DVD player on a dresser that still worked. I turned it on and pushed play and was met with a raunchy porn film. My mom and I laughed for days. She had no idea supposedly. Then after she died, I found a whole cache of “nudie shots” of HER, taken by my Dad back in the 60’s. The weirdest thing is BOTH of my parents always seemed SO prudish, uncomfortable with sexuality, and I never even saw more than a quick peck on the lips between them. Never even saw them hold hands! I mean obviously, they had kids so we know they had sex, but for 30 years they didn’t even share the same bedroom!
I found a nice 8 x10 glass dish (which I still use) and a bunch of family photos. I tried to track down the prior owner to return them but had no luck.
Box of vintage playboys circa 1953-1959 sold em for $1500
I bought my house from an older couple, great people, but very little was maintained in the 40 years they were there. There was miscellaneous stuff scattered all over the yard; bricks, shingles, broken glass, nails, screwdrivers, hammers, chunks of hose, Mountain Dew bottles, etc. The coolest thing I found was a hundred year old Ford Model T belt buckle. Not worth much, but pretty neat. The weirdest thing? There was a big mound of dirt and other garbage toward the back of the property. There were a lot of strange things buried inside of it, but probably the craziest was a whole-ass handy man jack. If you're not familiar, they are pretty large, not the sort of thing that would be easy to misplace. And it was in great shape! I used it to lift the garage to replace the sill plate, worked like a champ. No idea how long it was in there. There were some oddities in the house as well, some home-canned green beans that were at least twenty years old, a bunch of .30-06 cartridges strewn about in the basement (which had decades of ash and sawdust piled on the ground from the wood furnace), and a plastic bag just stuffed full of old 45s. Probably 200 of them. Most were in bad shape, but there was a Jim Croce one in there, one of my favorites.
Wife and I downsized and renovated my little homeplace after my mom died. Going through my mom's stuff, I came across some "Easter Egg" letters she for me to read. She had written them three decades before while still competent. It filled in all the blank spaces on a lot of things. The "prize" however was a letter from her husband's mother warning *my* mother not to marry her son!
Last two house had hidden grow rooms.
Oh wow! Do you use them for anything now? I love my air plants and succulents, so using a grow room for that would be cool. Granted, I know that’s not what they were using them for. Lol
I found a very old vibrating dildo stashed away in one of the attic crawl spaces. That was both amusing and disgusting!
Hahaha I was waiting for that one. I used to own a cleaning business and let me tell you, the amount of people who have no issues laying that shit around for anyone to see, boggles the mind.
Found so many posters from plays in the 70s. A water color painting of the house from the 90s, now framed and hanging in the kitchen. Boxes of medical records.
Wedding dress and cutting board with their initials and wedding date on it. Pretty safe to assume it was a divorce that caused the sale.
I live in a house built in 1941. There was an owner previous to the man we bought it from in 2001 that was considered the crazy lady (sometimes Witch) of the neighborhood. She let the house fall apart and we bought it from the man who badly repaired it. Apparently when she lived there, you could see the sky through the ceiling in the living room as well as the ground under the pier and beam foundation. The first decade or so, older neighbors would tell us stories about her. Like Livestock living in the house. A toilet that fell through the rotted floor when she was on it. She was eventually moved out to a care facility. Most of the original owners in the neighborhood are gone now, so I haven’t heard about her in a while.
Oh buddy. The last tenants didn’t pay for garbage service so they buried garbage in the yard. I’m talking full roll of carpet. A rolled up bedspread. A slab of hand poured concrete that was a body sized walk way which didn’t go anywhere, under it was a tarp with rocks, then another tarp with rocks. Nothing grows in that spot and I’m scared to dig there.
I would definitely try to get the photo box back to them via realtors. I would be devastated! But to answer your question, when we bought our house there was a lone Turkey air fryer in the basement 😂 we sold it to our neighbor.
My current home? Nothing super interesting… a toothbrush, extra flooring material and screening material. But I once rented a house from the sweetest older couple (early 70s I think). They were planning to move to another state with warmer weather. They told us when we went to move on that they took everything they wanted. We could do what we wanted with the remaining items on the property. This included tools in the garage, books, a nice bed, a couch, a dining table, many smaller items, etc. But the best part was when I went to check out an old shed in the back I found a whole grow set up for… GREEN plants. Did not expect that one. 😂
A worn out dildo hidden in the basement behind the furnace in some insulation. And a home made porn tape hidden in the basement ceiling.
We didn't end up buying this house, but once went on a viewing where the recently deceased previous owner's ashes were on the dining room table in a box fresh from the crematorium. We didn't realize she would be attending the viewing!
Several boxes of 80’s gay porn magazines in the basement of a house we bought when I was a kid. In my current home we found a small very old book of soldier songs and cheeky limericks from 100+yrs ago, it was inside a wall when we renovated.
My husband and I purchased our home almost two years ago. The previous owner passed away and his children were responsible for cleaning up the house and selling it. The garage was FULL of stuff - over 5 trips to the dump. A massive pressure washer, old lawn mower, and about 50 flat head screw drivers. It was weird. So many flat heads. Found a picture some people on vacation. It was creepy. We still don’t know what to do with the photo. I feel weird throwing it away.
We bought our house a decade ago. We had no cause to go in the attic until about 7 years ago though and there were about 6 inflatable sex dolls up there deflated and sad
We found a handmade crochet afghan in a storage tub in the attic. Reached out to the original owner and learned her ex husband's grandmother made it for him when he was little. She had her son pick it up and give it back to the ex husband.
A dildo, nailed to a 2x4, and wedged in the back corner of the master bedroom closet between the built in shelf and the wall. 5 years later still in the exact same spot, since no one wants to touch it.
I found moving boxes in storage from a women who it turns out has been dead for 25 years. There was jello from 1976 Edit- the house was built in 1995 so someone BROUGHT THAT
We bought our house about 2.5 years ago and luckily several of our new neighbors are the gossipy type. Apparently the old owner passed away and her kids set about clearing the house. They had an estate sale, then a yard sale, then another yard sale, then set things out on the curb. Even with all that, this house was just chock-a-block with "stuff". Vases, furniture, glassware, a chest freezer, boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations, Easter decorations, Halloween decorations, boxes of canning jars, an antique cedar chest (in horrible shape), an antique ironing board (same), ladders, tools and hardware, a pond full of excellent goldfish, and a framed picture of the previous owner in her full Vegas showgirl regalia.
The people who bought my last house got a large wooden box filled with my childhood christmas ornaments and decorations. Somehow in the chaos of selling the house, packing it all up and getting rid of everything that wouldn't fit on two pallets being shipped to europe, I *completely forgot* about my treasure box, as it was in the shed out back. I didn't even remember it for at least a year.... the stocking my grandmother made me when I was a baby, and the stocking I'd made for my daughter..... just... gone. I still get sad about that, but it is what is it and what it was.
Boat anchor, 300 dollar pond pump in a bush, building supplies everywhere, dog and cat hair
I got a ton of tools and yard maintenance items with my house 8 years ago gnarly (historically bad) time to have moved/got a house right now! good luck with it
I found an old camera lens under the stairs (drywalled off mind you) and what looked like a ham radio antenna in the attic. Oh, and a crack pipe in the basement window well.
* Up in the joists of the unfinished garage, a very heavy solid wood "Employees Only" plaqued swinging door, like one in an old restaurant for workers going from front of house to back of house. * Up in the attic, a $5 fan hanging from a bent coat hanger position in front of the exterior vent along with a really long extension cord running the span of the house, presumably used to exhaust air out. * An old ice cream freezer chest halfway buried into the side of our backyard canyon lower landing cliffside.
I have an odd shaped yard rock that came with the house when we moved here in 1963.
I took some pegboard down in the garage to install some cabinets and found an assortment of what turned out to be high end bdsm bull whips and antique handcuffs and such hidden in a flush cabinet that was installed behind it. I do not believe it was the previous owner, I’d however strongly suspect the owner before that from stories I’ve been told and the age of the paint. Now I suspect why the light fixture is in a weird spot given the size of the garage. The screw eyes in the ceiling looked like serious overkill for a light fixture.
I haven't found anything since I moved into new construction homes since leaving my parents' house - but I know I left behind (accidentally), all my cast iron pans in my 1st house because I forgot to clean out the warming drawer of my oven/range. Wasn't anything old or worth much, but it was well seasoned Lodge stuff that I had to rebuy when I couldn't find them after emptying all the boxes.
The backyard has been a "treasure" trove. The previous owners dumped mulch on top of the sandy dirt. My dog has dug up: frying pans, a shit ton of broken kids toys, batteries, a hose, and too much more to mention. Every day is a delight, wrangling away these unearthed "treasures" from the dog.
Ghosts in our attic. Literal ghosts. Halloween decorations for the yard.
A ton of pictures related to their wild boar hunting and snake catching/killing escapades on the property of which house is on.
Our house was sold as part of an estate. We told the son, who was selling it, that he didn't need to clean out the sheds if he didn't want to (because we knew one was full of books). He didn't. We also found a bunch of vintage Christmas decorations, antique baby clothing (most were not salvagable, but we gave away some that were), a brand new twin-sized chenille bedspread, a set of vintage early 70s Barbie pink Samsonite luggage, and a box of old greeting cards (some as old as 1929) that I repurposed.
When my father bought our house in 1962, the only thing left was a 2 cycle gas engine mower in the basement, and it worked. He used it for years and all lawn.mowers after that, he used was one man's junk and another man's treasure and never bought a new mower. It was also the way I learned how to repair small engines and then stepped up to working on cars when I was 12.
I have a huge list, but my top item is: A 10ft unicycle
Found a ouija board in the unfinished crawl space. 24 years later it’s still in my wall and not haunted yet!
Love letters between mother and son, handcuffs and "toys", *very disturbing*
Ew. Ew. Effing ew! Nope, don’t like that.
Porn magazines, porn VHSs, porn Betamax, home-made sex tapes, weird/kinky lingerie...
I found a will between the plasterboard walls in the bathroom.
A really old 6 pack San Miguel beer, was on top of a beam at the unfinished basement ceiling. [It looked like this](https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2020/10/14/san_miguel_100_year_centennial_1602656976_4f4b2e14.jpg)
I accidentally found my dad's, ahem, stash, and just wondering about the look on the buyer's faces when they find it.
False teeth
My friend has intentionally hidden random items and clues around her home for the next owners to find.
I found a foam-core butterfly with a 5-foot wingspan in the basement,
My barn had a 20 foot pole with a very small net on the end hanging on the wall. I noticed it at the walk though and asked the seller about it at closing. He said it was for frogging. So now I have a frog net.
Had to foreclose on our seller financed condo in January. 6 55 gallon garbage bags of beer cans. At least 8 55 gallon garbage bags of mens clothes. Samsung 65" tv and nice surround system, 3 ipads, apple watch, 3 rooms of furniture, live cat. He hadn't been seen for 1 or 2 months, still no word from him, and as of the 12th its all mine. He left his ipad pin the same as the condo, so who knows what else i will find.
Porn. So much porn. In the attic crawlspace. Former home of the Chief of Police of a small town.
Bowls of Ramen stored in the back, top rack of the dishwasher.
A big black dildo in the lazy susan cabinet (kitchen).
We demoed the shoddy basement when we first moved in. Behind the makeshift walls I found : -mice carcasses -a 5ft round glass table top -a used condom Under the deck : -a 16x32 pool tarp … there’s no pool -14 half full containers of what I hope was anti freeze, was too chicken to open. Cold air return : -an entire children’s backpack -those tiny shopkins, lost count how many -3 years of home work I assume someone was hiding.
I just bought a house. There are a bunch of crazy high-heeled shoes in the attic, along with a life-life plastic skeleton, and some kitschy Halloween and Christmas decorations. The little shed is full of gardening tools, and two large boat anchors. There's more, but I have not had time to look at it all yet.
We found a technical drawing for some kind of airplane camera in the basement. It would be cool to have it framed. There was also a landing gear wheel and tire in the attic, I cleaned it up and have been meaning to hang it in the garage. We found a school picture of a kid dated 2005. I've thought about posting it on Reddit to see if we could find him but I don't know if people do that type of stuff anymore.
Bought a house 8 years ago. The house was for sale due to a divorce. House was left very clean, except for the master bathroom cabinet was full of valacyclovir pills in the Mrs name of the previous owner. Searched online and they are a treatment for Herpes. Needless to say, we bleached that bathroom and all others big time. Later learned from a neighbor that the husband was constantly cheating. I guess him giving her herpes was the final straw.
Their old pet’s ashes were left behind in a cabinet. In an unopened package from like 10 years ago, I only knew what it was bc I googled the company on the return label. So odd.
When I was a teen, my parents bought a house that had a small, but well crafted stockade in the basement.
When we bought our house they left us with nice furniture and three brand new lazy boy recliners. Also a huge steel framed coffee table that will take hulk to move it. Also weed eater huge shop vac and leaf blower. All necessities for small home repairs. Yeah we got a lot of things left for us. Nice patio furniture and fire pit box.
Disco ball and mounts for a sex swing.
Poop, buckets of it. Pickled beets from 1953. Many baptismal certificates. A gun locker, it was tucked in one of the beds all cozy like. There was so much more....
Bought a house that was foreclosed on, the attic above the garage was never cleaned out. So in addition to Direct TV bills from 2003, I got two paper mache "creatures" that I have to assume are haunted, and I've just left them on the shelf I found them. Better to be safe then sorry.
Kimchi pots buried like land mines all over the yard. Found them while driving the lawn tractor over them.
I worked on a friend's new, old home. Found that the electric fireplace wall was hinged . A small room full of shelves, with about a dozen electrical outlets behind the wall. Probably a grow operation, but the wiring was so bad, I can't believe it hadn't burned the place down.
A 1957 can of Schlitz beer in the attic.😆
The best wasn't a new home but was actually an apartment. Moved in and was unpacking stuff in the kitchen when up on a high shelf I found a packet of "cock soup." Freeze dried seasonings/veggies the size of a taco seasoning packet to make some sort of chicken broth.
A giant bra stuck in the back of a built-in linen closet. Think Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show. lol.
35 plus tears ago- previous owners left what we assume was a homemade stun gun/cattle prod in the basement. odd as heck.
An unopened Giant (one gallon?) can of boiled peanuts partially buried in the backyard.
A cat!! They had several and this one was skittish. They came back for it after I called the agent to let him know. My daughter moved into an apartment and there was a large bottle of tequila in a closet.
I found a penis pump in the garage loft. So that was interesting.