7 Insane Things People Found When They Moved In

Updated November 6, 2018

It's fairly common to find a few odds and ends lying around when you move into a new home: a random toilet plunger, for example, or cleaning supplies left under the sink. But the things these owners found were a little kookier. MYMOVE asked movers to tell us about the weirdest things they discovered after they moved into their new homes. Here are our favorites:

1. The Dearly Departed

When Melinda and her husband moved into an old Victorian house in Massachusetts, one of their first DIY projects was to turn an old bathroom in the unfinished basement into a cedar closet. However, their plans soon derailed when Melinda's husband discovered a coffin while he was demolishing the walls. "It wasn't a fancy coffin that you see at wakes, but a basic wooden casket you either ship bodies in, or maybe bury someone without funds. It had a person's name, rank, and serial number on it, and had been used to frame out the shower walls and was covered with a laminate-type material," says Melinda.

2. Bathroom Reading Material

One of the first new-home DIY items on Julie's list was to gut the bathroom. "We noticed a panel behind the toilet where there was some plumbing access, but also stacks and stacks of old "gentleman's magazines," recalls Julie. "We had quite a laugh that clearly someone was hiding something well before we got there."

3. A Jar of Pickle Juice

Lindsay didn't discover the suitcase in her Oregon home right away, but when she demolished the main staircase during a renovation, she discovered a suitcase with a jar of liquid and a note inside. " The writer of the note identified the liquid as a jar of pickle juice, yet he offers no explanation of why he put pickle juice in there," Lindsay says. "That mystery will endure, I'm afraid."

4. Memories in the Closet

Upon possession of his new house in Texas, Matt found a Recovery-for-Addicts Bible in the closet. It had the previous owner's name on a plaque on the cover. Inside were signatures and words of encouragement from several people. "We could not believe that something so personal was left," says Matt. "We held onto the Bible for several years, and finally looked up the couple and mailed it back to them."

5. Ghosts

Don's Ohio home was built in 1835, and when he and his family moved in, they discovered the house was already occupied-with ghosts. "We often hear footsteps of what sounds like a barefoot child, and others that sound like a large man wearing leather soled shoes," Don says. He also says their electronic devices turn on and off, batteries suddenly go dead, radio stations change by themselves, and household items are constantly moved or come up missing. But the paranormal activity doesn't seem to faze Don. "We find it very interesting," Don says. "To us, it has become normal."

6. An Odd Place for a Bath

It was several years ago, but Savanna can still remember the time her dad discovered something unusual in their Oregon home. "He was investigating the crawl space for an unrelated reason, and found a bathtub with a note that read, 'I bet you're wondering why there's a bathtub in your crawl space.' But no additional information was given," recalls Savanna. The bathtub was too large and too heavy to move, so her dad left it in the attic.

7. Hidden Grow Rooms

When Shawn bought a house to flip in Georgia, he bypassed the inspection process and relied on his contractors to look over the property and give him a repair list. When the renovation began, he found something the contractors missed. "We found marijuana grow rooms that the previous tenants had set up," Shawn says. "There were some in the attic, and they had dug out a 12-by-12-foot hole in the crawl space that was large enough to stand up in," Shawn says.

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