ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What's in the walls?

A while back, i was watching a TV show about some people who bought an old home with intent to restore it eventually. they spent their life savings on the home, and had nothing left after buying it. soon they noticed that the roof had severe leaks and there was alot of structural damage. Even though they did not have the money to fix it, they had a contractor come to inspect the damage. he started tearing down the plaster and discovered that the walls were insulated with old movie posters. there were thousands of movie posters in the walls of the house. even though over half of them were destroyed, they were able to make enough money by auctioning them off to pay for an entire renovation of the home.

I don't have anything nearly as cool as some of you. But I did find an unopened can of coke, I think from the 70's. Some how (the seal must have been barely cracked) all the liquid had evaporated out.

Three things come to mind:

I once found two rolls of pennies in the attic of an old school. Milk money? There were several steel pennies among them. They started my 12 year old son on a coin collecting hobby.

I once found an old "Cracker Jack" doll in another attic. I gave it to the new homeowner, and she about cried. It seems she had lost her favorite doll at age 7, it was just like this one! Kismet! She loved her new house after that.

Just last month, I ran across some old mildewed books in a basement. My wife likes old books, so I gave them to her. One of them was 180 years old. Another one was only 80 years old, she gave to her sister. It was a primer on reading, and her sister is starting a new job as an elementary school teacher. Sister loved it.

Do you guy collect knob and tube parts? The tubes can be used for final honing of your knives. Haven't found any use for any for the other parts yet.

Earl

String em through your garage and scare people.

Years ago I was working in a boys juvinile detention center (for lack of the proper name). We were working in the areas where the residents were allowed to be. While working in the suspended ceiling I came across a pair of handcuffs, after picking them up I looked down from the ladder to see a resident looking up at me with a big smile on his face. I put the cuffs back where I found them and replaced the ceiling tile, and moved on. Wonder what the boys had in mind...
Rick

I still have one! I also have one of those 4-piece folding yardsticks, lovely wood and polished brass hinges.

They're quite handy in places where a steel tape won't stay put.

I found a pair of old boots(with wooden soles0, Carpet bag and round trip tickets from new Holland Pa to Cape may Nj. under the stairs of a local hardware store.
Also, help carry out boxes of books for a journeyman I was working for years ago. He later showed me what he was after. He had discovered 1 of 2 dictionaries from the revoloution. It was in old English, the an thou etc. valued @ $10,000. If he had the set they were worth $30,000.

Ob

i found a 25 year old wiggy. and it still worked. i use it today.

We can carry on from here
Please don't get too "personal"

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 02-24-2006).]

I once found a bunch of razor blades in a wall I was busting up, wondered what the heck that was about until someone explained the hole-in-back-of-the-cabinet thing Sven mentioned.
One house I didn't find anything interesting in the walls, some unpleasent surprises in the cielings though! Taking a break from electrical work I was helping a friend and contractor tear 3/4" ply off the cieling, it was coated with a nice layer of rat, err excriment. In that same cieling I found a pair of unprotected #2 wires (not a surprise with the way this garage was wired when it was turned into a living space- unprotected THHN used for everything) what WAS a surprise was that the wires were hot, after the meter was pulled! We installed a new service, and left the old one, that ran inside a soffit for about 50' so I never did get to see exactly how they did it.
Same house, fishtape gets hooked exploring some old empty conduits, so I went into the attic, and saw several of those glue-type mouse traps, with some nicely mummified mice still stuck in them, thankfully they were past the decay phase.