A recent thread at a private online forum that I sometimes visit asked homeowners & renovators to list interesting or weird items they had found during remodeling & demolition projects. The more interesting responses included:
dozens of old empty liquor bottles (in a Pastor’s house, connected to a church); an intact 20-year-old tin of Vienna sausages; dozens of antique beercans, which were then sold for $20 – $50 each on Ebay; empty demerol bottles inside the ceiling of a dentist’s office; a coffee can full of jewelry, including over 100 gold rings, earrings, fillings – which was sold for scrap for $4000; a human skeleton; a 9-year-old can of shrimp, which the finder presumably refrained from consuming; and my own entry, a woman’s undergarment that was somewhere between 60 and 80 years old.
What kind of neat stuff have you all discovered?
I recently purchased a Georgian sytle townhouse in Chicago. When a cubby hole was opened up to create extra storage I “discovered” a peeling mural of a giraffe complete with a glass eye and fake eyelashes. That closet is now referred to as our Giraffe Room.
We’ve found plenty of stuff, most posted on our website. My favorite has been a Junior Birdmen of America membership card. You can see it here.
I was happy to discover a shiny 1917 penny tucked behind the pocket door hardware soon after I bought the house. It confirmed the date of the house, for which there was precious little documentary evidence.