Indiana man renovating old house finds hidden room

[jeff of pa]

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) -- A man who's renovating a 120-year-old house has discovered a hidden room in its basement - a find he said shows that some old buildings definitely hold secrets. A friend of Carl Thoms was working recently on plumbing in the 1890 home's basement when he noticed that he could see around those pipes into a hidden room covered in tiles.

He also spotted a staircase - a discovery that led Thoms to a bedroom off of the home's kitchen, where he pried up some floorboards and accessed those stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, Thoms found himself in a walled-off 10-foot-square room covered in tiles that at first made him think the room might have once been a tiled sauna.

But he also wonders whether it might have been a bootlegging room during Prohibition - or any number of possibilities.

Thoms began renovating the 886-square-foot house near the city's downtown for him, his wife and their four children after buying it in 2007.

The 32-year-old said he plans to do some library research his old home's history.

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[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Never know what you will find

have a good un....
SHERMANVILLE

 

[nova treasure]

I made a discovery like this last year,I was hired to drywall a home built in the 1880's that was just purchased from it's new owner and it had some huge rooms in it.There was a room upstairs that was made into a library and had book cases built into 2 walls.I was walking on my stilts finishing the 10 ft ceiling,when i noticed a small open gap in between the wall and casing at the top of the book case. I got one of my workers to get me a light and i could see that there was a big open space in behind the wall. So I got to looking for a way to get in behind it and I found that a small piece of the chair railing that came around the wall was designed as a catch pin.The whole bookcase on that wall swung open. I called the homeowner and told him of my discovery and we found a really old lamp,old papers and a couple of old books. It was pretty amazing and added some mystery to the house and the owners were all excited. They granted me permission to metal detect anytime i wanted, as a Thank you for finding the room.

Nova Treasure

 

[Lowbatts]

That's treasure findin'!

 

[rmptr]

I once discovered a 'surprise' in a home.

When I advised the new owner it caused all kinds of grief.

The client was rather odd.

All told, I almost wish I'd said nothing. Hindsight being far better than foresight!

Never-the-less, it's my duty to protect their better interests. At least so they can make the judgment call.

I can assure you, every cloud does not have a silver lining!

rmptr

 

[stefen]

Down the road from where I was raised in Reynoldsburg Ohio, in the 1980's, the heirs of an old antebellum style home found a basement that was boarded since prior to the Civil War which was used as a stopping off place for slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad.

It even had bricked up escape tunnels leading to the banks of a local crick.

The basement was filled with clothing, kitchen utensils, blankets and printed literature...a virtual museum.

 

[B1u3Dr4g0n1]

That would be a good find ......I found a metal box in the dirt of my basement....in one area there is no cement for some reason and its like 4'x4' in a corner...ya weird....but took my ace 250 down there and turned it on and turned it down a bit and it said somthing big was under the ground and it said 4 in well it was like 14 down and the size of a small shoe box, the pinpoint on the ace let me know how big it was.....you should of seen it 14 inch hole a foot and a half wide ...there was no easy or clean way to do that in a basement....but finally I got the box out and saw a sorta old lock attached but the weird part it still had the key in it .....nothing would work to much dirt and rust so I cut it thinking the most and ............there was a gunnie sack with something in it. so i got all excited and pulled the sack out and didn't feel much weight.....looked in side and saw what looked like chicken bones...lol im like WTF and dumped it out on the mound of dirt and found out it was a whole CAT....lol ALL that work for a dead house cat....lol....so I kicked the bones back into the hole and kept the box....still have the box to this day with some of my WEIRD finds in it I want to keep....the box looks sweet, do they make cat caskets...lol I might have one...lol

 

[lonesomebob]

Please may we have more info on the BAD hidden room? Why was it bad, please,pretty please. Bob

 

[vayank54]

There were a couple houses near me that had secret areas. One had a secret stariway that went from the master bedroom and came out behind a shelf in the kitchen that moved away from the wall. When you came out at the shelf you were right at the kitchen door. It also had a room that had shelves in it that for some reason had been boarded up and the only way to get into it was by climbing out on the porch roof and going in through a small window. The other had a hidden room in the basement that previous owners from the 1950's and 60's had filled with trash.