# what is the strangest thing you ever found remodling a home ?



## Tylersloan (May 10, 2012)

Me and my dad remodeled my uncles home that was built in the civil war . 
It sits on bricks and is a dog trot house meaning it has a open breeze way front to back that's open to the elements any who .
I've found civil war buttons from a soldiers uniform under the home when I was running plumbing and electrical . I tore in to a wall and found a revolver and bullets next to two inkwells in between two studs . Nope didn't find body parts or money or gold but got some cool things none the less . What have you guys found ?


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## inspectorD (May 10, 2012)

I once found a diary of a child in our stone foundation. It was up along a beam tucked away near a crawlspace. It told of egg collecting, weather and friends for life. The pet cow and walking to school together was the best. Took place in the 1905-1907 era. It was the grandfathers of the folks I bought the house from.
Other than that, plenty of old beer cans an nut cache's from the local mouse house.


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## mudmixer (May 10, 2012)

I bought a nice townhouse from a "slumlord". - She rented it out and lived in a similar units across the street. There dents in the steel front door, apparently from a forced entry (police?). The slumlord's father and her cleaned up and patched the place in an amateur style.

While trying to make the place better and more code compliant, I bought a smoke/CO detector/alarm. I found a good place to attach it and cover up a sloppy ceiling patch.

When I opened up the patch, I found a bag of white powder (1/4#?). I did know who put it there and did not want to know what is was, so I opened it and flushed it. I did not want the problems of having walls and ceilings opened since it could have been there for years and numerous occupants.

At least there might be some happy fish in the Mississippi River from St. Paul to New Orleans.

Dick


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## Tylersloan (May 10, 2012)

Lol on my first home was my grand mothers originally .
Old farm house well over a 100 years old I ended up getting a heating bill one December for a 1,000 bucks so I tore out all the plaster found a dead bird that was a perfect skeleton should have put him in a glass case .

So far in the new home I've been in for three months all I've found is tools and a old cracker jack toy from the 60's  also found a good amount of ol beer cans funny were those end up some times I wonder if who ever was drinking em were hiding the evidence .


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## TxBuilder (May 10, 2012)

Tylersloan said:


> Me and my dad remodeled my uncles home that was built in the civil war .
> It sits on bricks and is a dog trot house meaning it has a open breeze way front to back that's open to the elements any who .
> I've found civil war buttons from a soldiers uniform under the home when I was running plumbing and electrical . I tore in to a wall and found a revolver and bullets next to two inkwells in between two studs . Nope didn't find body parts or money or gold but got some cool things none the less . What have you guys found ?



That is very cool. Do you have any pics of it?


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## Tylersloan (May 10, 2012)

I can get some from my uncle he kept the revolver we did clean it up and found a man in Texas to make bullets for it and it still fired


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## AlwaysOneMoreProject (May 10, 2012)

This scared me half to death: my basement wall cracked, and I suspected that it was caused by bad fill, so I planned to excavate and refill with the appropriate materials, etc.   When I reached a depth of five feet, I found a body.  Oh, it was awful.   

I forgot I put it there.    LMAO.


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## nealtw (May 10, 2012)

I just herd about a guy that lives next door to a house that his grandfather built in the twenties. Grampa always talked about saving his money to buy a new hand plane and lost it the day he bought it. A while ago the man that lives in the house was doing some wiring and found the brand new winchester plane, good as new. Now he has grampa's plane in a glass box sitting on the mantle, never been used.


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## Tylersloan (May 10, 2012)

nealtw said:
			
		

> I just herd about a guy that lives next door to a house that his grandfather built in the twenties. Grampa always talked about saving his money to buy a new hand plane and lost it the day he bought it. A while ago the man that lives in the house was doing some wiring and found the brand new winchester plane, good as new. Now he has grampa's plane in a glass box sitting on the mantle, never been used.



Wow how do you loose something like that hahaha


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## Garenius (May 15, 2012)

I found a really old Union uniform hidden in the attic of a house I remodeled once. It was all dusty and mangled, but you can still see some of the medal marks hanging off of it. Gave it back to the owner of the house, who had no idea who it belonged to haha


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## TxBuilder (May 15, 2012)

nealtw said:


> I just herd about a guy that lives next door to a house that his grandfather built in the twenties. Grampa always talked about saving his money to buy a new hand plane and lost it the day he bought it. A while ago the man that lives in the house was doing some wiring and found the brand new winchester plane, good as new. Now he has grampa's plane in a glass box sitting on the mantle, never been used.



That's great. I would love to have a piece of history like that on my mantle.


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## nealtw (May 15, 2012)

I have found a folding measuring stick, complete with level and angle finder. Can't immagin building with a 24" tape measure.


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## ffisher (May 15, 2012)

Well, I wasn't remodeling, but I was cleaning the front porch of my old place. The house was pretty old, and as I was moving things around and dusting off the cement, I found "Loretta Smith" written in the cement. That was the woman who was rumored to have died on my property. It was a little upsetting to see it, and scary at the same time. It certainly took me into a flashback of her life and what she was doing right there at that moment.


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## Tylersloan (May 16, 2012)

Kind of creepy to find some ones name who died on your property . My uncles home had 12 people who died from scarlet fever almost the whole family died and it don't matter day or night you get an un easy feeling like your not alone when your at his place


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## TxBuilder (May 17, 2012)

ffisher said:


> Well, I wasn't remodeling, but I was cleaning the front porch of my old place. The house was pretty old, and as I was moving things around and dusting off the cement, I found "Loretta Smith" written in the cement. That was the woman who was rumored to have died on my property. It was a little upsetting to see it, and scary at the same time. It certainly took me into a flashback of her life and what she was doing right there at that moment.



When I see older stuff like that when I'm walking I always wonder what happened to the people.


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## Daddytron (May 17, 2012)

My old house was built in 1924. When i was remodeling, I found out that 'Insulation" in those days was newspaper. unfortunately, after that many years stuffed into the walls, i was unable to salvage enough good pages to read anything other than a few advertisements


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## TxBuilder (May 18, 2012)

I've seen stuff like that before. 

It seems water would cause so much swelling that it wouldn't be smart, but I guess it was better than nothing.


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## kaka09 (Jun 13, 2012)

very interesting...


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## CallMeVilla (Jun 14, 2012)

Fixing a plumbing leak, I opened up a wall behind the bathroom.  To my surprise, I found the oldm dried chicken bones from somebody's lunch while they were working on the house  . . . and three empty bottles of Mexican beer.


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## Garenius (Jun 17, 2012)

I accidentally found a seemingly precious pile of old coins yesterday while working on a relative's house. 

Turns out it wasn't precious at all, they are just rusty old coins of no real value, but it sure got me excited for a sec.


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## Giles (Jun 29, 2012)

My wife and I have bought remodeled and repaired at least nine different homes in our 45 years of marriage.
I have found many things, but the most memorable was what I found in one of the basements.
I was cleaning out a lot of "pack rat" items that were useless to me but was saving useable items like bolts, nuts and tools.
I found several jars of washers, small bolts, and nuts. All the jars had lids and a paper or cardboard lining--for some reason
I would open the jars but one 1/2 gallon jug had a very tight lid. I set it aside and some time later managed to open the jug to see what it contained.
It was completely full of Gold and Silver coins
Just the face value of the coins were well over $1,000
Funny thing is----I finally contacted the wealthy older gentelman that I had purchased the home from, and to my delightment when he laughed and said--"oh everything I left goes with the house"
That was many years ago and I still have the coins in my home safe.


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## ffisher (Jul 3, 2012)

Wow, Giles...that's a great find! You're a lucky one. What a nice man also.


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## Giles (Jul 3, 2012)

ffisher said:


> Wow, Giles...that's a great find! You're a lucky one. What a nice man also.


Maybe a nice man or he might not have believed me


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## nealtw (Jul 6, 2012)

Just read about someone finding 13 bottles of whiskey from 1917.


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## sreno0207 (Jul 8, 2012)

My dads house was built in the 40s and had a dirt floor in the garage until about ten years go. While we were prepping it for concrete we found a bunch of old rusty knives buried in the corner . Kind of odd......  The former owners husband was cursed by an engine while doing a swap in his truck. I never liked going out there by myself in the 18 years I lived there.


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