Monday, July 11, 2011

An Under-Deck Adventure

So, last summer, we were having a little bbq with our neighbors just chatting and whatnot, when they mentioned something about a room under our deck. I was perplexed - this was the first I had heard of it. But they had known the older gentleman who had owned the house before the flippers came in, and they remembered that before the flippers had built the deck there had actually been some sort of storage there.

Well. That has driven me nuts for over a year now. I talked to other neighbors about it. One insisted there had only been a basement entrance. Others had no recollection of anything. Others are more recent move-ins than us, so they had no clue. So... I put "Investigate under the deck" on my to-do list, and of course put it off for forever. It bugged me, sure, but that didn't necessarily mean I was going to do anything about it.

Then, a few weeks ago, James was pulling weeds, Isaac was happily helping him, and I seized my moment. I grabbed the drill and carefully removed two boards. Sure enough, I could see the hint of a stair case.


 

Oooh, the mystery. I couldn't go down there just yet, because I didn't want to worry about Isaac following me down into the spider infested hole. So, now even more intrigued, I waited.
 
Then, the opportunity came. Isaac was down for a nap, my friend and partner in crime, Alayna, was over and we decided to have our adventure. Here I am all suited up and armed with a flashlight and a broom.


If you're wondering why I'm wearing a hooded sweatshirt in July, I have one word for you: spiders. Ugh. Shudder. I did not want any of those things getting anywhere near me. I actually contemplated buying a mask to keep the things out of my mouth and nose, but I realized that may have been overkill.

So, here's what we found:



Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 boxes of "household wax" whatever that is. about 7 bottles of lamp oil. What appears to be an old sink. And assorted other random goods. And spiders. Lots of spiders. The walls were concrete, but the floor was dirt. It's definitely not sealed, so it doesn't provide much protection from the elements. I had high hopes of being able to use it for storage - if not food storage, then maybe the suitcases or something random that we don't use often could go in there, but having seen it,  I'm not sure it's worth the effort to get it in the proper condition.


In any case, it was a fun little adventure, even if it didn't yield super fruitful results.

What about you? Find anything crazy in the house or apartment lately? Or, any idea what to do with 20 boxes of household wax?

4 comments:

Austin said...

That is awesome, and very brave. I wouldn't have gone down there unless I had one of those bomb diffusing suits over a wetsuit and scuba gear, and a whole lot of RAID. In fact, I'd have set up several bug bombs first and then only considered going down there.

But that's really cool to discover a whole new room of your house, seeing as how ours is less than 3 years old and a condo, I doubt we'll find much "household wax" but maybe we'll find that extra set of keys Morgan packratted away somewhere. :)

Evan and Holly said...

We just rent, but we've been cleaning up the lawn we have found: chistmas lights, lots and lots and lots and more fake flowers, old stove rings, rusted razor blades, glass shards, pottery shards, plastic potting plants, those green metal fence things used to line a walkway or whatnot completely grown over, a gun magazine, part of an engine block, 15 pop cans, 3 plastic pop bottles refilled with urine, Styrofoam plates, and cigarettes (that is not to mention the bags and bags worth of just garbage.

Emily said...

Our house was vacant for a few years before we moved in and the back porch was a party spot- We had a box of beer and a bong left there shortly after we moved in. We set the items on the end of the driveway and they disappeared before nightfall.

Mary said...

How awesome to have a secret room under your porch! Stash all your valuables in there and the thieves will never find them! But then, I guess you would never see or use them either ...Anyway, that's so cool you had an adventure in your own yard!!!

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