Whats the weirdest thing a previous owner left you?

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I seem to recall you guys did much better than that (in the context of this discussion) in one of your project MIatas. 

Wasn't that when the legend of "Harold T." began...

Pretty much the early life story of the couple who our house was built for. He was in WWI and she was a student back here in Atlanta. I have their correspondence letters. Lots of old family photos, tons of post cards from across the country. Receipts from their little home based business. They died with no heirs, the chest was in the attic. I have photos of them in our house just after it was built. I can't find any relatives yet, so I'm just being a good steward of the stuff. W.C and Nena seemed like interesting people who shouldn't be forgotten.

I forgot something. When I was in the attic trying to setup my pan hanger in the kitchen, I found a box. Inside the box was 3 years worth of letters from when Andy was in Vietnam he'd sent his then girlfriend/future wife. There were hundreds of them. 

We found them a few months after his wife died, over 50 years after these letters were written, but found a relative on Facebook that night that got them back to the previous owner. 

I got left a 20ft long church pew in my pole barn. I almost cut it up but luckily someone with a flatbed trailer came to get it.

Two weird serial-killer-ish things I found in our house when we moved in:

1)  The basement door had a beefy safety chain lock on the TOP side of the basement door.  There is no outside access to the basement.

2)  It's a Cape Cod so the bedrooms are in the roof space, and the attic is unfinished space over the garage, on the same level.  Tucked up in the ceiling framing of the adjoining bedroom - almost invisible, accessible only from the attic, and very far away from outside - was a large old axe with a rust pattern and other marks consistent with, well, bloodstains...

When we were taking my 1967 LeMans apart to paint it in 1983, we found a whole brown bag lunch in one of the void spaces between the door jamb and the top frame well.  Dried up sandwich, banana that looked like a vanilla bean, other stuff.  We figure some line worker hid someone else's lunch back in 1966 and there it stayed for 17 years.

slefain said:

Pretty much the early life story of the couple who our house was built for. He was in WWI and she was a student back here in Atlanta. I have their correspondence letters. Lots of old family photos, tons of post cards from across the country. Receipts from their little home based business. They died with no heirs, the chest was in the attic. I have photos of them in our house just after it was built. I can't find any relatives yet, so I'm just being a good steward of the stuff. W.C and Nena seemed like interesting people who shouldn't be forgotten.

That good mojo! Usually when i find a left behind trinket or chotchkies that i like, i keep it as some good mojo from the previous owner and their story. But im the sentimental type. 

In reply to TJL (Forum Supporter) :

I'd have at least one of those old photos on the wall. 

The house my mom lives in was a boarding house at one point. It's been our family home since 1978 or so, though. But about once a year, someone will stop by and say "I used to live here" and tell stories. 

Used to work at a very large used car supercenter. Sales guy was delivering an Xterra to a customer and showing them all the features. He opened up the first aid kit that used to be standard in those cars and found it was completely packed with weed. Whoops

Nothing weird in our house, but the PO of my folks lake house left all kinds of E36 M3. Busted grow lamps, used spark plugs (oil coated, and enough to fill 3 kitchen garbage bags), a really nice cast iron dutch oven that we unfortunately can't use because we suspect he was melting metal in it, security cameras and tvs from the 1980s...

In reply to jgrewe :

I'm still tying to put "dishwasher  pull start" and "toys" together. The mental image is not good.

I found a dead cat in the trunk of a 69 Mustang.

Appleseed said:

In reply to jgrewe :

I'm still tying to put "dishwasher  pull start" and "toys" together. The mental image is not good.

A quick image search will probably confirm your curiosity, just ignore any images that involve mechanical dishwashers.

As found by birdmayne in the center console of the engine donor for our racecar... A diabetics powdered sugar stash.

I bought a parts car that the owner loaded the hatch full of related spares. While all that was welcome and useful, the rubbermaid bin full of illegal fireworks and firework making materials (in bulk!) was a surprise. What does one do with multiple pounds of highly flammable items that are likely on all manner of goverment watch lists? I seem to recall fobbing some of that off on someone here for the New Year's Game. 

In reply to Driven5 :

OK, what does it say that I recognize E46 Sport seats from that pic?

In reply to Duke :

Acura TL.

My house came with the shop attic full of assorted Challenge car parts. I'm pretty sure Curmudgeon never threw anything away if he thought it was remotely useful. Most of it was junk wiring, dried out slicks, brackets, and motorcycle stuff. Boxes of crap. He ended up sick before he could come to get it. 

The attic is 99% empty now. And it will stay that way. 

SanFord came with all kinds of stuff. The most notable was a swallow of Johnny Walker Red that is still sitting on the counter to this day.

And a petrified rat, that is no longer with us. 

So much stuff but the fun ones were. 

Rusted to heck and back Luger with a round rusted in the chamber. (Got sent to the police)

Erotic lighting. So the house we have now was a swinger pad back in the day and they had custom string lights made and they were all of naked women holding light bulbs in very suggestive poses. 

Wedding album from the 70's ( We found the owner and returned it) 

I found a birth certificate in a tow yard buy of mine. I tried to return it but couldn't find the people at all. Years later Lil Stampie was cleaning the Miata and found it behind the seat. He came to me a little worried asking what it was. I was like what did you think you had a little brother out there somewhere?

An oversized pair of Truck Nuts hanging in the entry closet.

I found an empty bottle of Perrier cleaning out a newly acquired E36 BMW. Talk about stereotypes.

Oddities the PO left in my Dodge Dart included 1960s vintage playing cards, an ant colony, and a bunch of dried chilies.

The auction Probe had some vape paraphanelia and someone's old student ID card strewn about the interior. The Focus had an Elton John greatest hits CD left in the stereo. Can't think of anything too weird.

Driven5 said:

In reply to Duke :

Acura TL.

I stand humbly corrected.  They look exactly like my TSX's seats.  I knew they came from some something like a car I used to own.

In the 84 Corvette my friend gave me that his dad bought new I found a traffic ticket his dad had received in 1988 for running a stop sign. 

I found a full magazine of .45 hollow points under the driver seat of my first car. We found 3 rosaries in our first house and a broken refrigerator in our second house.  The house we just bought this summer came with a full patio furniture set, Roku TV already mounted on the wall and a riding lawn mower.  The sellers never communicated they were leaving these items but I wasn't going to make a fuss about that.