There are few things more exciting than the idea of a secret room. Well, for me there isn’t anyway. Although that’s probably because I read far too many adventure books as a child.
I always wanted to find a secret room or compartment, but sadly I was never rewarded with such. However, there are surprisingly more secret rooms around than you may think, as one person found out when they asked Reddit, “People who have found a secret room or space in their house: How long did you live in the house before you found it and what was in it? What was the eventual outcome of finding the room?”
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Please find below a collection of the most interesting, spooky, and unsettling answers that were posted!
Mysterious Boxes
“When we redid the insulation in our attic. One of the workers asked if I knew there was a room up there. I had no idea.
“So we cut open the drywall and there were stacks on stacks of boxes from the 60s. Like a ton of boxes. And they were all full! So I opened them up expecting some cool stuff. And they were full of freaking PINECONES!! One of the bigger bummers of my life.” — R12356
Imagine expecting jewelry, pirate gold, or long-lost family photographs, and being surprised with pinecones. The family that left them there were either very strange hoarders, or had an idea for the best fake-out in history!
A Single Mason Jar
“I found a secret space in my closet when my mom and I were moving out of the house she was renting to move into my stepdad’s house. I never noticed it because junk covered the section of the wall that was covering a small entrance to a room that was sealed off with boards and plywood. I couldn’t pry it open but I could see light shining in it and a single mason jar filled with what I assumed was water.
“The air was cold in there like as if the central heating didn’t even reach that part. I showed it to my mom and she told me that she doesn’t remember seeing that there when we had moved in 8 years prior but since we were moving out, it didn’t matter.” — PraetorKiev
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that what was in that jar was not water, and you definitely should not drink it.
Skeletons
“There was a hidden door behind the wallpaper (obviously the doorknob was taken off, so it blends in with the wall) in the hallway. We lived in this house for 6 years and I found out about this door 2 years ago, when we opened it we saw a skeleton in the corner, not gonna lie that scared me sh*tless, although it was just a prop left by the past owners of our house.” — Jarkoface
I like the idea that the family who left that skeleton took a hit on the property price when selling just to leave a joke that may never have been found.
Horticultural Supplies
“I went to visit my Grandparents a few months after they had moved into a new house out in the country. I got into a bit of horseplay with a cousin and got shoved into a wall. It broke a big hole and we realized there was a large empty space back there.
“With grandpa’s help, we tore the wall down and found a little room full of planting trays and grow lamps. There were a number of books about horticulture and one specifically about growing marijuana.” — GrandProduct
I wonder what they could possibly have done with this interesting find?
Rooftop Access
“Lived in a warehouse in Melbourne. Always thought it would be cool to get on the roof, but there was no access. After about six months, I’m standing in front of a mirror upstairs when I notice it has hinges. I push on it, it clicks and opens out, revealing a small attic and roof hatch! That was pretty cool. Used to sit up there and watch the sun set over the city.” — redhighways
Sitting on the roof of your house is wildly underrated, but also not to be recommended if you have a sense of balance as bad as mine.
A “Party Room”
“My family rented a house for two years and one day I was cleaning the basement and knocked down a door. It was dark and only had one window. I called the landlord and asked him about it and he didn’t hesitate and told me that the previous owners had that installed to have private ‘parties’ in there. I turned the room into a gaming room knowing that there has been A LOT of sex happening in there” — ImaginaryBroccoli6
Just make sure you never shine a blacklight in there for your own sake.
Prohibition-Era Secret Room
“In my house there was an upstairs bedroom that was made into a game room for me and my sister. When we were about 12 years old, we realized that a section of the paneling came off and there was a small closet-sized room behind it. We kept it a secret so that when friends came over we would have the ultimate hiding spot for hide and seek. A few years later we were talking to our parents about what we found and they said that the house was built during the prohibition era, so they most likely used it as a place to hide alcohol!” — thatstheteahoney
It would have been amazing if they’d have managed to find some old moonshine. Actually, it probably would have blinded them, so good job they didn’t.
Hideaway
“Moved into an 18th Century farm house as a little kid and found a small panel door in the back of the large closet in my small room. Turned out to be a small finished room over the eaves that had a small portal window. I spent hours in that room reading and hiding from the world.” — notlikethat1
There is nothing like finding a little corner of the world which is purely your own, where you can let the rest of the planet disappear into nothingness.
Hand-Drawn Cartoons
“Hidden closet in basement wall after 20 yrs of living in the house. We found some personal documents of no real interest, a newspaper from the day after Pearl Harbor, and a hand-drawn cartoon of a pregnant Lucy yelling ‘Goddammit Charlie Brown!'” — qbeanz
The person who wrote this also included the strange drawings that they found, the weirdest of which is featured above.
Messages From The Past
“When clearing out my grandma’s house I found a small door in the wall of the basement that led to a tiny room, according to my mother that’s where they hid the family heirlooms when thieving relatives came to town. I was mostly interested in the fact that it was covered in scribbles from my mom and her sisters growing up.” — KE5TR4L
If I had relatives that I thought were stealing from me, then I’d simply not let them in! Although, having a little room to hide in would be nice anyway.
The Home Alone Effect
“Watched Home Alone and saw that attic that Macaulay Culkin was staying in and wondered if we had one in our townhouse. Ran around with a step ladder until I found it in my mom’s closet. I got on my tiptoes on the stepladder and fought the door open (ended up being a big piece of plywood) and peered into the attic. A mouse colony stared back. It was like that scene in ratatouille. Decades worth of feces covered the whole space. My mom was not happy once I told her. We moved shortly after.” — PerpetuallySl33py
There’s something about referring to the mice as part of a “colony” that makes them seem quite sophisticated. But, in reality, they’re just pooping everywhere.
The Most Disappointing Secret Room Of All
“I used to do evictions and clean houses before they were put back on the market. Well, this 2 million dollar house was abandoned because nobody could afford it, and some teens decided to throw a rager in it. My job was to clean the whole house. They have this huge office with beautiful wooden bookcases around the whole room. As I’m cleaning the alcohol off of them, I notice one of them had a crack between the others. So I tug on it, and sure enough, it opens up with a hidden door behind it. I was so excited that I found a secret room, and was pumped to open the door. When I did, it was a bathroom.” — austinvkemp
Everyone likes the upmost privacy when using the bathroom, but to go so far as to build a secret room for this purpose is a little excessive!
Stone Coffins
“It was an old, 2 story house with a dingy basement. It was pretty spooky as a whole and the place would always creak at night. I was in the basement with my dad one night, we were trying to build a catapult and we discovered the large cement pillar in the middle of the basement was hollow […]
“After messing around with this pillar we found a loose brick and removed it. Inside was a stone coffin. We quickly closed the rectangular pillar back up and never spoke about it.” — SighingDM
As much as I want to know what was inside, I’m glad that this person didn’t end the story with their entire family having been wiped out after activating an ancient curse.
WWII Hiding Space
“My family lived briefly in Copenhagen when I was a young child. In the house that the government provided there was a false wall with a pocket which was great to hide in. One day an older neighbor girl (native Danish) was over and said while we were playing that people used to hide in it. Her mother confirmed later that it was a Holocaust hiding space. I’m really grateful my mother took the time to explain to us what that meant, and the history behind it, rather than waiting until I was older.” — mamaneedsacar
What a haunting piece of history to have in your house.
WWII Memorabilia
“There was a guy local to us (in the UK). He had his old WW2 revolver. Everyone knew about it and even after the 1997 pistol ban, that was grandfathered in as a trophy of war. He died and his son dutifully got it sorted (via a Section 5 dealer who could sell it on outside the UK). The next day he went down into the basement (where he hadn’t been since he was a kid), found a door he’d never noticed and discovered enough WW2 militaria to arm a small nation. […]
“Took the Bomb Squad three days to clear out the WW2-era explosives, grenades, and incendiary devices. There was reputedly enough ordnance in that basement to bring down half the street.” — commentator9876
Apparently the person who wrote this gave a lot of the antiques away to a museum, who were very grateful for them!
Escape Tunnels
“Not my house, but a nearby. There was a house that was abandoned for several years. It was built in North Texas during the 1920s and belonged to a local ‘businessman’. There were lots of stories about the house. Some friends and I participated in some ‘creative entry’ of the house during the 80s. There were a couple of hidden closets. The columns on the front porch were big enough and hollow so lookouts could hide in there.
“If you went down the kitchen stairs to the basement/wine cellar everything looked normal till you turned around to go back up the stairs. If you look carefully, there were hidden handles under the step edges. A section of the stairs would swing up and there was an escape tunnel.” — counterslave
Goodness knows what kind of thing this ‘businessman’ was up to! Probably nothing good though, that’s for sure!
The Insects Who Live Under The Stairs
“There was a small door under some stairs (almost like Harry Potter’s room) in my old apartment in Venezuela. We’d lived there for a year until I leaned on it and felt it wiggle a little and realized it was a small square door. I was too scared to open it so had my dad do it and about 20 or so cockroaches flooded out. Never have I felt so much panic.” — carthy101
A Bicycle Build For Two
“I found a huge space under a pile of garbage in my garage,” this person shares, “Result is that I found an old bike in perfect state and my granny’s secret treasure chest, there were 20 bucks in it.”
Haunted
“When I was little my brothers’ bedroom had a door I didn’t realize was there. We moved out when I was 6 and I went back when I was like 10 (family lives there now) visiting,” one person writes, “I noticed the door then and my cousin said he wasn’t even allowed in there. He picked the lock and went in, and it was just a really old, dusty bathroom. I asked my mom about it, turns out that’s where my father committed suicide and, like my mother, my aunt and uncle weren’t comfortable going into it.”
Club House
“When I was 10 or so we rented this apartment that had a crawl space under the stairs. You got in through a tiny door in the hall closet,” this guy shares, “When we got in there, there was a small rolled-up carpet and drawings from other kids. We used it as our clubhouse until we got too tall. I would hide in there whenever I was upset. When we moved we left notes with our names and ages and the club rules and such. I really hope some more kids ended up finding it.”
The Smoking Gun
“We lived in a family house for about a year until we noticed the floorboards slightly loose in the airing cupboard,” this person writes, “Turns out there was a small box made out of MDF, big enough to put a handgun I’d say attached to the old floorboards, underneath. There was a real knack to being able to lift the lid. Moved now but still do not know to this day what it was all about.”
The Oil
“My family bought a house dated back to 1714 in Portugal and it has a lot of history behind it,” this person writes, “But long story short there was a secret space under the floorboards that was used to store products like olive oil during there dictatorship.”
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
“My parents bought a big old house with 4 full stories,” one person shares, “Under the stairs on the first floor they found some antique crocks. In the attic, there were partition walls under the slope of the roof. They opened one to update the insulation and found an almost full box of clothes from the 30s and 40s. The grandkids had a lot of fun playing dress-up with them for years.”
The Shoe
“I bought an 1883 house a year ago.,” this woman writes, “The previous owners finished the attic to add another bedroom. The wall on the staircase going up to the 3rd floor was 2 different thicknesses. I was doing some insulating and took off the part of the wall that was 2 inches thicker. Turns out they walled straight over a door and built a staircase landing in front of it. Only half the door was exposed so I had to saw it open, and I found the access to a crawl space with an old Umbrella and 1883 child’s shoe.”
The Boys
“My parents found one when I was a kid,” this person writes, “My dad was remodeling our lower level when he noticed that part of the closet wall sounded hollow, and realized there must be something behind it. He had to cut away the wood paneling to get to it. Inside, we found it must have been a little ‘clubhouse’ that some previous owners made for their kids or grandkids a long time ago. There were 4 pegs on the wall, each one had a boy’s name written underneath it. We think they used them as coat hooks.”
Uninvited
“We found a secret compartment in the back of two of our kitchen drawers about a week after moving in,” this person writes, “The people living here before us were tweakers so we have our suspicions of what they used it for.”
The Dungeon
“Found some sort of dungeon when I was 15,” this person shares, “You could only enter it from outside of the house. It seemed adjacent to the wall of our basement, and the opening was on ground level. I flashed a light in there for a bit, decided it was way too creepy to look through, and hid my bongs in there for the next 2 years.”
“Bought a very rugged cabin a few years back…”
“A friend of mine discovered a large attic which was surprising. There was no easy way into the attic. I knew there was space, but it did not appear to be as big as it was. Inside the attic was evidence someone was living in there at one point… including a bloodied mattress […] I got hella weird vibes in that house after that, and an earthquake ended up taking out the cabin shortly after. I tore it apart, salvaged a bunch of wood, and rebuilt a new cabin without the creepy vibes.
“The most unnerving part about the cabin was the previous owner, upon finding news I had bought the land, came back just before I got the keys from the realtor and left a note that simply read ‘good luck’ in the center of the living area.” — ckjm
Hidey-Hole
“We moved into a house with a door in the kitchen that could not be opened. The real estate tried but failed, assumed it let to the laundry room but was walled off. My older siblings, like any typical teenagers, were not convinced of this and were determined to open it. It was just a normal pantry but they never told our mother they managed to open it, and used it to hide things from her like alcohol, smokes, and weed.” — NatAmber
“I figure if God forbid we ever need it, it could kinda be like a panic room.”
“There is a door in our bathroom and it was just a small closet and we put some cleaning supplies in it and didn’t give it a second thought. Then one day we saw the door was open and thought the cat was in there. So I walked into the very tight space and to my amazement, there was another door around the corner that you can’t see just looking straight in. It was slightly ajar, so I opened it and it led behind the bathtub. And low and behold, the cat is sitting in there chilling.” — pvarck31
Hopefully, you never need it! I can’t imagine the cat was too thrilled about you finding its hiding space either!
I hope these inspired you to go rooting around for hidden gems in your own house! Let me know if you’ve experienced anything like this in somewhere you have lived!
