Pupils have begun returning to school as lockdown restrictions were eased across England.
Outdoor markets and car showrooms have also started reopening, while the first horse racing event in months was being staged and pigeons took to the skies for a race over Yorkshire.
Unless, of course, it's a good shock.
For instance, if you have to break down a wall, you want to discover hidden gold, not black mold.
Too many people tend to discover the latter.
If I could only find hidden cash under my floorboards.
I seem to only find roaches and snakes.
And I hate roaches, and I fear snakes.
I refuse to go into the attic, but maybe one day I will.
If I do, there better be cash or Adele waiting for me.
Reddit user VizualBooty wanted to hear about some fantastic housing finds, so they asked:
"Homeowners of Reddit: What unexpected hidden gem did you discover in your house after buying it that wasn’t mentioned in the listing or by the previous owners?"
"In-floor heating. The previous owner didn't know it existed. Worked great."
~ Oregon687
"OMG. This is hilarious and an excellent find for you."
- One_Impression_5649
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"I found the original owner's wedding rings... the mother died in childbirth in 1928. The dad died in an accident in 1932. We bought the house from the daughter, who was in a nursing home, in 2001. She had been raised by an aunt and had never been back to the house. I sent her the rings and a bunch of photos. She was ecstatic to receive them. She died and left me as her sole heir... it was only like 10k, but super nice. Plus, I got the rings back..."
~ Human_Management8541
"My brother found a few $50s in a light fixture shortly after he moved in, after the bulb blew. He decided to look at the other fixtures… found $750 or so hidden around."
~ TriumphDaWonderPooch
"Nice! I found $800 in an envelope semi-hidden behind the medicine cabinet razor disposal."
"We checked the obvious places, but didn't want to rip out the walls. The bills were from the early 90s, so there was like... $2000 in today's money!"
"They should've invested in Nvidia."
- persondude27
"The area behind our house was just brush and not very impressive. But the city ended up buying it and re-wilding it. For the first five years, they just let it grow, and then they did a controlled burn, and now we have a forest with a walking path behind our house 10 years later. And every June for the whole month, it’s full of fresh wild raspberries. We have a herd of deer, a fox, ground squirrels, squirrels, hawks, eagles, wild pheasants, and hundreds of rabbits. It was like winning the lottery."
~ Don_Gately_
"Two huge Aboriginal art paintings on the roof were discovered when solar panels were installed. We had to smash the garage ceiling to get them out, but it was worth it."
~ Aussiebiblophile
"If you need to find the artists, post in the Facebook group ‘Australian Aboriginal Artworks & Crafts for Sale’ as a starting point. Those mob will be able to give you info on the art style, etc., then contact the art gallery of that area for potential artists. Great find!"
- anaemicturtle
"I had to do some work on the upstairs plumbing that required cutting into my ceiling downstairs. I was shocked to find that the ceilings had been dropped by almost 2.5’. I have 12-inch ceilings!
- Baynyn
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"The former owners were moving across the country. They wound up leaving me most of their furniture and their cat (with my consent, of course). Nice furniture and the best cat ever!"
"The former owners would have taken her if I declined to keep her. They were driving across country with a large dog and a toddler to their new home. They thought it would be a lot to put a ten-year-old cat through. They were good people thinking of what would be best for her, and I think we all made the right decision."
- Many-Day8308
"A large mason jar filled with a bunch of old silver coins. This was back in 2016. The previous homeowners were retiring to Florida. When the offer was accepted below the asking price (they did buy it around 1965 in San Diego, and it sold for 10x more), the old man showed everything about the home, what he did, the odds and ends, and what to watch out for. Ended up contacting the selling realtor and shipping it to him. Months later, I got a check for the shipping price and a 1940 Mercury dime that I’ve been using as a golf ball marker ever since."
- SargeDonnyDonowitz
"A strawberry patch in the back yard. We bought the house in the winter, so we didn’t discover it until the spring. We have enjoyed it ever since. We also found a bunch of old-fashioned skeleton keys in a cupboard. All the doors had been replaced in the house, so they didn’t fit anything, but they are a novelty. We have them displayed on a shadow box."
- Nice_Ad4063
"Found stuff like that when we cleaned out my grandparents' place. All the area rugs had old newspaper under them from the 20's and 30's. The coolest thing was finding an Action Comics #40 under the rug in my Dad's old room. Had a dresser sitting on it for 45 years, but it was still in pretty good shape."
- catbox_archeologist
"A creepy as s**t mural painted on a front room wall that was invisible at first glance because it was painted in that UV fluorescent paint. It seriously creeped us out."
"This was 20 years ago, and there are no pics. It was a bunch of eyes, snakes, and triangles. Not sure if any significance. The eyes were the creepiest part."
- Pickles_McBeef
Creepy GIF Giphy
"I owned a terraced house in Surrey, England, in the 80s. It was quite old but had a long back garden. One summer, I decided I'd dig a flowerbed along one fence. As I was nearing the end of the garden, I hit some meta, so digging was taking a while. During that time, the old lady who lived next door wandered down and told me, 'There's a car under there.'"
"She had lived there all her life and told me that in the late 30s, prior owners had a car accident and wrote off their car. They dug a big pit at the end of the garden and rolled the car into it. I was digging up part of the chassis, the cables for the brakes, and a bit of the floor. I stopped digging then. I have no clue if it has caved in since then."
- r7-arr
"The whole house is made of concrete. From the foundation to the reinforced concrete walls up to the ceiling. Then, if that wasn’t enough, there are massive concrete pillars and metal railway beams reinforcing everything. This is for a bungalow home that is ~1400sq ft.
"The inspector said we could take the roof off and add a whole level without requiring additional support."
"Great for noise, insulation, and keeping bugs/critters out. Bad when you want to do a renovation and your only option is to start jackhammering."
- sirmegsalot
"All the doors in my condo were white flat/slab doors that you might get from Menards or Home Depot, with basic modern door handles. Or so I thought. They ended up being solid wood doors, put together like a butcher block, with a mahogany veneer and a beautiful inlay. I’ve been stripping and sanding each one down and staining. They are gorgeous!"
"ETA, they are definitely original to the 1922 building! finished the small door"
- llinn10
"Found a secret room behind a bookshelf, like something outta a spy movie. Turns out, it's a perfect hideaway for all my junk."
- daphnepinkie
"This happened to my cousin! A bookshelf in their 1920s home swung out to reveal storage under the stairs. They found a cheap sci-fi book from the 80s, a flashlight, and a snack wrapper in there."
- Its_Curse
Hidden Room Loop GIF by sheepfilms Giphy
I wouldn't mind finding secret spaces.
I have tons of junk I need to store.
I'm not an art connoisseur, but I could use some free original paintings that were hidden behind my closet.
I'd even go for a "Narnia" type situation.
Just no dead bodies, please.
TPO posted their cherry-picked clip—tagging FBI Director Kash Patel—with the caption:
"BREAKING: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D) calls on Democrats to be 'strike ready' and 'street ready'."
"This is a CLEAR call to violence!"
The full video, from March, was part of Representative Jayapal's Resistance Lab YouTube series.
According to The Arizona Mirror, their review of the entire hour-long video made it clear Representative Jayapal made no calls to violence nor advocated for overthrowing the government. Instead, the video focused on “non-violent resistance” to Trump and advising people on how. And a six-month-old video is hardly "BREAKING" news.
In a comment on the X post by TPO, Gillette—using his official legislative account—wrote:
"Until people like this, that advocate for the overthrow of the American government are tried convicted and hanged.. it will continue."
Gillette may have no qualms about his post, but even Elon Musk's platform flagged it and limited its reach.
@AzRepGillette/X
Gillette went on to argue with people calling him out for his misinformation and incitement of violence.
@AzRepGillette/X
@AzRepGillette/X
At some point, Gillette got tired of the ratio and crawled back under his rock.
But people continued to call him out for his violent rhetoric.
Representative Jayapal shared her official statement on Instagram, captioned:
"My statement in regard to comments made by State Representative John Gillette of Arizona"
Representative Jayapal wrote:
"Two days ago, an elected member of the Arizona State House of Representatives called for me and those who advocate for nonviolent resistance training to be 'tried, convicted and hanged'."
"This is appalling, unacceptable, and dangerous from anyone, but particularly from an elected official."
"It is a call to violence designed to suppress nonviolent democratic organizing against authoritarianism and further polarize the American public for political gain. Sadly, it makes the world a more dangerous place for each of us."
Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, declared her Justice Department would go after anyone whose hate speech called for violence after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was killed in another act of senseless gun violence.
Unsurprisingly, the GOP and Bondi have been silent ever since Gillette issued his online call for violence against Democratic Representative Jayapal.
Because it all goes much deeper than "beliefs" now. And TikToker @nicolekatelynn1 shockingly had to discover the gravity of sharing different beliefs with someone...during her therapy sessions.
The TikToker sat down, already mid-crashout when she started the video, in which she explained that she'd been bored, curious, and nosy, as we all are sometimes, and she'd Googled her therapist just to learn a little more about her. But what she found, after everything she'd openly shared during their last few months of sessions, made her feel unsafe and "invaded."
Not only was TikToker @nicolekatelynn1 a liberal and her therapist was a Republican, but her therapist's social media was full of red hats, MAGA, and Charlie Kirk content, and she had the Israeli flag in her social media bio.
The TikToker brought this to her community's attention, because she wondered if she was overreacting for switching to a new therapist immediately, and intended to discuss political stances during the first meeting.
You can watch the video here:
Fellow TikTokers reassured TikToker @nicolekatelynn1 that she needed a therapist who she felt safe with and could trust.
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Politics did not used to have such an extreme hold over our identities, our relationships, and our stances about the world. But that time has passed, and we have to act accordingly.
That's especially true in a space that is as vulnerable as therapy.
A therapist has to make their patients feel safe, heard, and supported, and patients need to know that if they ever need help, that their therapist will be someone that they can count on. In today's political climate, working with someone of a differing party offers no such guarantee.
Teacher and TikToker Valerie Elizabeth Dickinson started a TikTok video, already visibly chuckling, in which she explained that students were banned from using their phones on school grounds and what they were doing as a workaround.
Dickinson confided:
"In case you haven't heard, to get around the phone ban, a bunch of high school kids are creating a Google Doc with their friends that they all have real-time access to. And then they just type into it, like during class time."
"So they basically reinvented the AOL chat room."
You can watch the video here:
Using Google Docs with an internet connection in place and real-time access allows people to see who all is accessing a document at any given time, the position they are in within the document, and what they're writing.
This would be highly reminiscent of the notifications received in AOL chat rooms or on AIM when we were notified that someone was typing.
Some agreed with Dickinson that this was hilarious and wondered what else the students would try.
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Others pointed out that students had already discovered this hack years ago.
The use of Google programs, like Google Docs and Google Sheets, became popular around 2010 in most high schools and colleges, so it makes sense that students would have quickly caught on to the alternative purpose.
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It seemed that this was not news to the comments section of Dickinson's video, but it's undeniably hilarious the lengths that students will go to in order to stay connected to their friends throughout the school day. Also, it might even present a unique set of problem-solving skills that these students may have not developed otherwise.
Hopefully they are still focusing on their learning and getting their homework done, but if they're also able to stay in touch about the latest hot gossip, perhaps that should mean more power to them!
