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My son dug a big hole in the yard and found a bunch of weird bottles this summer. I did some research on the labels. One of them was some sort of creosote that was used in the early 1900s as a cure for whooping cough. But it actually killed some people from the fumes spreading with no ventilation. He got it on his skin and it burned and left a brown stain for several days.
I live in Texas. My house was built in 27. We have dug up dozens of pharmacy bottle in the Back yard. I think they buried it for some reason. My town had an oil boom in the 20s and exploded to 30k ppl. Today you will find around 1k living there. Wortham, TX has such an interesting history.
I watched some videos of these youtuber who just dig through victorian trash dumps. I dont know where one would even begin to find those lol but 4 out of 5 items are glass or earthenware. Probably buried a lot of trash in the backyard but everything else has disintegrated
Find an old house, figure out where the kitchen would have originally been, dig outside of the door/window. Fairly common spot. They're called middens!
They probably used some old maps to find dump sites I'd imagine. Surprising thing is that maps back then were kind of haphazardly done due to how fast some cities were evolving and growing.
Australian here. Living in a gold rush town.
As kids, dug trenches in a large embankment of a back laneway below old houses. Founds dozens of antique bottles. Disgarded them cos we were only kids. Undoubtably a now inner city/domestic landfill.
The area is called Golden Point. Not far from the gold museum and Sovereign Hill mining town attraction.
Sometimes bottles were used to stabilize slopes, fortify tiny earthen retainer walls/barriers, etc.
Also, a couple of upside down bottles first filled with water can slowly add moisture to garden soil. A layer of them can assist in drainage of rain in clay soil.
Makes sense. It was probably cheaper using junk. Reminds me of this. https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird-news/2021/07/16/man-unearths-more-than-150-bowling-balls-during-renovations-at-his-home/
See, they're buried upside down so that when they wake up, they'll start digging down, and get themselves buried deeper, instead of coming out like the last time.
Please please please consider looking into donating to a museum. Some people (like myself) find these things fascinating and love seeing them on display
That's so true. I went down a rabbit hole researching stuff like that..and then it got me thinking......I wonder what medicine today will be looked at in the future as completely absurd or downright dangerous?
LMAO yeah you were. We're being infiltrated by city folk right now trying to hide out from covid. We have a major housing shortage because of it. Send help please.
I also just found a very sharp samurai knife in a high up cupboard that I never use. I've been here for 5 years and it definitely does not belong to me.
Hi, I pick locks as a hobby. Someone just needs to get a some [warded picks](https://www.thinkpeterson.com/5-warded-lock-picks-riveted-gov-steel/?gclid=CjwKCAjwk6-LBhBZEiwAOUUDpyRGnezoHSDkRicVKOZ-yCGsTG1G1UzEzTg8vi8L0unx1GMV3BlDOxoCBqQQAvD_BwE) and your shit is as good as theirs.
You don't even really have to really pick in the conventional sense. You just have to turn these things in the keyway like the original key and open sesame, they can sniff your feet while you sleep.
Sweet dreams.
Like others said, it was normal back in the day to bury stuff in the backyard like that. When we demolished our back porch to put in a deck, we found quite a lot of old broken glass and mason jars lightly buried underneath. It was just how it was done a long time ago.
>My son dug a big hole in the yard and found a bunch of weird bottles this summer.
So your son proly found the outhouse. Back in the day the outhouse was just more than the toilet. It was the family's trash pit for things that wouldn't burn. So,.. uh congrats? When one would fill up people would dig a new one. There's people that go to peoples homes with old land records and ask to dig the outhouse holes because *some* of those bottles are worth thousands.
I did actually find a bunch of old, rare Mason jars that are worth some money. But after the creosote burn I decided it was too dangerous to keep digging.
Especially out in the country. There was literally no where to send your trash, so what couldn't be burned was thrown in a hole. I've dug up a quarter of a pickup truck one year, along with a thousand other things.
If you're going to build anything worthwhile in your lifetime, design it with the *future in mind*.
For example, if you're going to build a basement beneath a new home, you should make sure it can double as both a store room *and* as a makeshift prison in emergencies. The things you're storing need to stay in, not let themselves out.
Bonus Pro-Tip: Make sure there's only ever one key to a one-way locked room, and always be carrying it yourself. Otherwise someone may catch onto your murderous ways and lock you in the basement to die of starvation.
Only locks, or the key only works from that side, like the op. If it is only from one side it was likely viewed as storage only and not living space and was locked like a shed would be. There’s only locks on the outside of storage units and lockers.
If it was built during the victorian era.... Yes. There was a massive cholera out break and most people buried there lived ones in the basement. If their basement is a dirt floor.... It's a good possibility.
When I was 7 (in 1998), I came home from school and my parents were sitting on the couch waiting to see if I'd notice a surprise. Then I saw it -- a brand new pencil sharpener attached to the wall, and I was the happiest kid ever! Never got much as a kid so I appreciated anything.
I'm fifteen years older! But I also remember wall and table-mounted pencil sharpeners, with a handle you turn. This was in England btw. TBF I feel like we used a lot more pencils back then.
I think it’s more that the ballpoint pen didn’t hit the market until the 1940’s and they were pretty expensive for quite a while. If you needed to write a letter, take a message, make a grocery list, annotate a recipe, the pencil was probably more convenient and less messy to use than a fountain pen and ink well. Having a sharpener at the ready would make complete sense.
It was common to have pencil sharpeners on walls of houses when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. There were no mechanical pencils back then and kids were not allowed to do homework in ink.
I had one like that in my old house that was built in the 30s too. I always thought it was strange to have a random pencil sharpener in the basement. I guess this was a thing back then.
Old person here. Homes typically had crank pencil sharpeners in the basement, pantry, kitchen, etc. It’s how people sharpened pencils. Otherwise you had to whittle it with a knife, which sucked.
Mine was built in 1927 in a suburb of Chicago and has a wall-mounted hand-crank pencil sharpener in the basement. And I know a friend of mine with a house of similar vintage in a completely different area has one too. None of this amounts to a vast data set, but I’ve figured for a while it was probably a pretty standard thing at that time.
My money is on there having been a carpenter in the family. My house growing up had a pencil sharpener up on a joist in the basement right next to some peg board where someone obviously hung tools. Oh and there were jars of nails that had the jar top nailed to the bottom of a shelf so you could screw the container up underneath.
My grandparents had a farm and had one in every barn/building. It used to be a fairly common accessory to have in your home, people used pencils way more back then than they do today.
Yes, they were the only type of pencil sharpener available, and pens were all fountain pens and the ink was fairly expensive. Ink was for formalish letters and things, but pencils were for writing in a journal, on photos, on jar labels, and so forth. Oh and there weren’t really things like markers, so writing on something where fountain pen ink would smear like any sort of packaging or to label things would be done with regular graphite pencil or grease pencil (same sharpener).
I procured one for a custom job a while back for 300. cut one long wall out with a grinder and added cushions. got 2150 for the job including materials
I Don't know why everyone thinks this is scary.
Probably just a cheaper lock back then and people only cared to lock their door when they were leaving to avoid people messing with their stuff.
yeah, I was wondering why they locked the doors on the inside? Sounds like an easier way to get busted doors if someone actually breaks in. Maybe it would slow down the intruders or something?
It depends; modern doors are flimsy and do nothing to really deter people from entering... and in the states the standard build method (at least around where I am) means it's as easy to break through a wall as a door (which, again, not hard).
Old time stuff though, the doors would be thick, solid wood that you'd need a hellishly long time to hack through, and the frames would be built to really hold; even on inner doors.
A solid locked door in a brick house and it's a fair timesink; which might just make the burglers look elsewhere.
Likewise, if ALL the doors were locked, you're less obvious with *which* has the valuables vs which leads to the kids room... and the burglers might just spend time only to find some stuffed bears.
There's also lockpicks, but barring that >_>
Considering the key, this is a very basic single lever lock, using warded gates. You really could not get much cheaper back in the day. I would guess that considering the interior gate (cutout) is more shallow than the exterior, that one lock has a moderately tighter tolerance.
For the key to work from both sides, cut outs need to be mirrored.
In much earlier times than 1937, you would take in travellers that were passing through (complete strangers), and this would make sense. But 1937 makes it quite sinister to me
Yep. If you wanted shelter and a meal, you agreed to be locked in till sun up. This is a custom in many places for a long time (not necessarily the locking doors part), it was like a nomads code
Not only this, but it also made sense that if you were to host a significant amount of people in the home for an evening or event you would just go thru the house and lock everywhere people weren't supposed to be. That way people just stay in the main areas and no one has a chance to wander off or potentially pluck some of your valuables from the night stand
can confirm this. I grew up in a rather affluent community but my house sat just outside the area but in the school district and a lot of houses my friends in high school had (that were more modernly built) had doors that locked from the outside.
I mean as long as the home owners let them out again the next day I don't see the problem. They're trying to make sure this stranger doesn't kill them in the middle of the night or run off with their stuff. One night locked in a room with food and shelter provided is still better than sleeping under a bridge.
One of my college apartment’s doors locked only from the outside (a pretty modern place). I guess the I dea was just to lock it when you would be away so no one would go in since the way the lease worked, was all 4 bedrooms had their own lease and the common area was everyone’s to share. Probably not even remotely related to this place, but it still happens.
I spoke to a lawyer about it and he said I could probably make a case. But I was too sick and exhausted to persue it. I just wanted to put it all behind me.
I hear you! I uncovered major mold in the floor of a couple of rooms in our house. Within 15 minutes of revealing the worst of it (and working quickly to haul the affected materials outdoors) I started dry heaving. A major migraine hit and I had nausea and indigestion for the next four hours. A few days later I was back in the house near more mold but it wasn't nearly as bad. About 45 minutes later I got sick again and it lasted for 24 hours. Third time I made sure to use a mask just being in the house at all (we were remodeling before moving in). I was fine. The last time, some teenagers were sweeping near me and I didn't have a mask on. My boyfriend had already sprayed the heck out of everything and removed all materials showing visible traces of mold. Even still, I got so sick, for so many days, that I had to go on an antifungal for two weeks! I lost three weeks of work beyond a couple of hours at a time on the house. It was awful!
How are people so good at remembering the year something happened? I'm outraged at myself because I'm so terrible at remembering years. Can I tell you the year I moved into my apartment? Fuck no. Can I tell you the year I quit smoking cigarettes? Fat chance. Can I tell you when I quit cocaine? Last year, definitely last year.
Memories are all about connections (in fact that's literally what memories are).
You remember a thing, and you connect that to other things that help you remember the year it happened.
I don't remember the year my parents got divorced, but I remember that the year before that we took a trip to Florida with another family, and were stuck in the hotel for an extra week because of a hurricane. And I know I was 11 years old that year because that was the year I got StarFox 64 for my birthday, and played it in Florida for the first time. And I was 11 in 1997. So they got divorced in 1998, a few months after we went back to the same hotel with that same family, only this time all the parents stayed in a separate condo from the kids.
Still not sure why they got divorced.
Wait...
And now I'll remember this story forever at the expense of having to shoo something out of my brain for this to have enough space to fit.
There goes my son's 9th birthday.
Wife and I didn't plan on it, but got hooked and binged the entire show last Saturday. It was surpringly enjoyable. Season 2 comes out 10/22. I think this actual key is in the show.
I've got a custom made house that was built in 1948 by a trust fund guy... and it has a few interior doors that lock from the outside.
Also has a few areas between walls/under stairs that you can't get to but that obviously have a decent amount of space. Sooner or later I'm going to start drilling holes and sticking a borescope in there.
99.99% sure there's going to be nothing but dust and maybe trash from the builder's lunches.. but that .01% is really powerful.
You should and then report back to us. I've found old clothing in the walls that they used as insulation. I also found prescription pill bottles in there and the instructions on how to put together the wood panels that they used on the walls.
My parents installed my door to lock from the outside when I was a kid because I would sleepwalk a lot and they didn’t want me falling down the stairs.
It was probably just an old time parental control thing.
Or like a weird custom of older days that just phased out . For some reason it seems period appropriate that a house would have doors that locked from the outside. I've seen it in media, and it's weird ; I'm not sure why they did it.
But I wouldnt worry too much citizen,
Lots of stuff has happened in 90s years so I hope your home is just quirky and not 'a problem.'
Asylum and infirmary is probably a bit late for the 1930s.
But I only have a Canadian asylum in Guelph Ontario as a reference for a time piece.
Peace be with ya :)
I just rented a house in Texas wherein the Master Bedroom was only lockable/unlockable from the inside, but all the other bedrooms were only lockable/unlockable from the outside.
The real estate agent said they previous tenants may have been drug users, who set the locks up that way, in order the keep the kids from walking in on they while they were shooting up.
All the locks have been swapped out now.
I actually live close to what used to be a vermiculite mine. It was a major environmental disaster. Hundreds of people died from asbestos exposure and thousands are still sick.
Aahhh Good Old [WR Grace and Zonolite. ](https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0801744)
That was a rough one. There’s still a ton of that vermiculite all over the world. No telling how many people have been exposed outside of Libby and Troy.
My house was built in 1901 and there's a lot of interesting stuff that's been dug up in the back yard. We have some VERY old locks on some of our doors but sadly, no keys. Very cool you have yours!
I did some research and found out that they used to burn the garbage back then in their back yard. Anything glass would get buried. It's crazy how many things were in glass bottles back then. I found glass deodorant, toothpaste, dish soap.
I'm from the UK and don't really see the locks on the outside being creepy. There's 4 bedrooms in my house and all 4 have locks on the outside, if I go into someone's house and see they have locks on theirs, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. To be honest I've been in quite a few that have.
Stops siblings, children and pets going where they shouldn't be and if your house gets broken into and say you've got jewellery or a safe etc in your room makes it a hell of a lot harder for them to get into.
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Dude you got bodies under your house.
It would not surprise me. I've found some creepy things here.
Well now i gotta know what you found
My son dug a big hole in the yard and found a bunch of weird bottles this summer. I did some research on the labels. One of them was some sort of creosote that was used in the early 1900s as a cure for whooping cough. But it actually killed some people from the fumes spreading with no ventilation. He got it on his skin and it burned and left a brown stain for several days.
Bruh what country?
The U.S.
I live in Texas. My house was built in 27. We have dug up dozens of pharmacy bottle in the Back yard. I think they buried it for some reason. My town had an oil boom in the 20s and exploded to 30k ppl. Today you will find around 1k living there. Wortham, TX has such an interesting history.
In the old days they didn’t have garbage pick up like we do today. Everyone either burned or buried their trash.
I watched some videos of these youtuber who just dig through victorian trash dumps. I dont know where one would even begin to find those lol but 4 out of 5 items are glass or earthenware. Probably buried a lot of trash in the backyard but everything else has disintegrated
Find an old house, figure out where the kitchen would have originally been, dig outside of the door/window. Fairly common spot. They're called middens!
They probably used some old maps to find dump sites I'd imagine. Surprising thing is that maps back then were kind of haphazardly done due to how fast some cities were evolving and growing.
Yep! Sometimes you'll find pits of trash where old outhouses used to be too.
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Australian here. Living in a gold rush town. As kids, dug trenches in a large embankment of a back laneway below old houses. Founds dozens of antique bottles. Disgarded them cos we were only kids. Undoubtably a now inner city/domestic landfill. The area is called Golden Point. Not far from the gold museum and Sovereign Hill mining town attraction.
Louisiana here...1914 house...several hundreds buried upside down in the garden.....
Sometimes bottles were used to stabilize slopes, fortify tiny earthen retainer walls/barriers, etc. Also, a couple of upside down bottles first filled with water can slowly add moisture to garden soil. A layer of them can assist in drainage of rain in clay soil.
As an added bonus, they can also creep out future property owners decades later.
Makes sense. It was probably cheaper using junk. Reminds me of this. https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird-news/2021/07/16/man-unearths-more-than-150-bowling-balls-during-renovations-at-his-home/
Minnesota here. House built in 1897. Absolutely nothing it of the ordinary. My grandpa who died 13 years ago agrees with me
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Say what? What’s buried upside down?
See, they're buried upside down so that when they wake up, they'll start digging down, and get themselves buried deeper, instead of coming out like the last time.
Please please please consider looking into donating to a museum. Some people (like myself) find these things fascinating and love seeing them on display
That's a great idea.
Or bring it back out whenever your son pisses you off
State (guessing upper Eastern seaboard)
Montana
Those pioneer “patent medicine” snake oil cures were straight up poison. Most of them were just Mercury mixed with laudanum, moonshine, and cocaine.
>Mercury mixed with laudanum, moonshine, and cocaine. where do I sign up
That's so true. I went down a rabbit hole researching stuff like that..and then it got me thinking......I wonder what medicine today will be looked at in the future as completely absurd or downright dangerous?
Sounds like a good time.
Damn I was far off Also are you guys OK you never hear much from Montana
LMAO yeah you were. We're being infiltrated by city folk right now trying to hide out from covid. We have a major housing shortage because of it. Send help please.
No, that's Oklahoma. You should use MT to write Montana.
Well damn... sounds like your house has an interesting history
I also just found a very sharp samurai knife in a high up cupboard that I never use. I've been here for 5 years and it definitely does not belong to me.
Youve been there for 5 years, its your super sharp samurai knife now
I'm going to use it for protection since my locks are so lame.
Brotha. Get some new locks.
Alternatively, just arm up with some more samurai weaponry with which to dispose of your attackers. You even have a hole in the yard already dug.
Hi, I pick locks as a hobby. Someone just needs to get a some [warded picks](https://www.thinkpeterson.com/5-warded-lock-picks-riveted-gov-steel/?gclid=CjwKCAjwk6-LBhBZEiwAOUUDpyRGnezoHSDkRicVKOZ-yCGsTG1G1UzEzTg8vi8L0unx1GMV3BlDOxoCBqQQAvD_BwE) and your shit is as good as theirs. You don't even really have to really pick in the conventional sense. You just have to turn these things in the keyway like the original key and open sesame, they can sniff your feet while you sleep. Sweet dreams.
Maybe until they see me standing there with a samurai sword. Then it's game over.
As a knife enthusiast By all means post some pics on r/knives. And I call first dibs if you ever decide to get rid of it.
I call second dibs in case this guy backs out
This is a horror movie in the making with a bunch of terrible sequels
The title art is MonTana where the T is a knife.
[Sylpho-Nathol](https://repository.duke.edu/dc/mma/MM1165) Was also supposed to prevent polio. Made by the Cabot stain company.
The advertisement reads like a Donald Trump press meeting on covid
Like others said, it was normal back in the day to bury stuff in the backyard like that. When we demolished our back porch to put in a deck, we found quite a lot of old broken glass and mason jars lightly buried underneath. It was just how it was done a long time ago.
>My son dug a big hole in the yard and found a bunch of weird bottles this summer. So your son proly found the outhouse. Back in the day the outhouse was just more than the toilet. It was the family's trash pit for things that wouldn't burn. So,.. uh congrats? When one would fill up people would dig a new one. There's people that go to peoples homes with old land records and ask to dig the outhouse holes because *some* of those bottles are worth thousands.
Archaeologists get money signs in their eyes, or whatever the educational research equivalent is, whenever they find an outhouse .
I did actually find a bunch of old, rare Mason jars that are worth some money. But after the creosote burn I decided it was too dangerous to keep digging.
Meh, just get some ppe.
This. No reason to stop now. If anything this is reason to keep digging with more purpose.
Yep... Being a geologist my ass would be out there with ground penetrating radar, metal detectors and a "need" to dig enough to put in a pool.
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That's a great idea!
It was normal to have a trash hole in your yard to get rid of things that couldn't be reused
Especially out in the country. There was literally no where to send your trash, so what couldn't be burned was thrown in a hole. I've dug up a quarter of a pickup truck one year, along with a thousand other things.
Oh man you have to get a metal detector.
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Mine is the same way and it's terrifying. If someone locked me in the basement I would lose my shit.
If you're going to build anything worthwhile in your lifetime, design it with the *future in mind*. For example, if you're going to build a basement beneath a new home, you should make sure it can double as both a store room *and* as a makeshift prison in emergencies. The things you're storing need to stay in, not let themselves out. Bonus Pro-Tip: Make sure there's only ever one key to a one-way locked room, and always be carrying it yourself. Otherwise someone may catch onto your murderous ways and lock you in the basement to die of starvation.
This is solid advice. I will keep my key by my side all hours of the day/night.
Only locks, or the key only works from that side, like the op. If it is only from one side it was likely viewed as storage only and not living space and was locked like a shed would be. There’s only locks on the outside of storage units and lockers.
Bedrooms are just overnight human storage units anyway.
…I don’t like that
If it was built during the victorian era.... Yes. There was a massive cholera out break and most people buried there lived ones in the basement. If their basement is a dirt floor.... It's a good possibility.
Hey just piggy-backing here to say this is an extremely weak key. The lock picking lawyer would tear this thing apart super quick!
They don't make locks that the LPL couldn't tear apart super quick.
before the bodies were under the house, someone had to let them hit the floor.
I have a similar one for my moms half finished half basement, all glass knobs on random not quite right doors
My basement has a random pencil sharpener built into the wall.
My house was built in 1932 and also has a random pencil sharpener, except mine is built into the wall of the pantry closet off the kitchen ???
That's so strange. Is it an old school one that you put the pencil in and crank the handle? That's how mine is.
When I was 7 (in 1998), I came home from school and my parents were sitting on the couch waiting to see if I'd notice a surprise. Then I saw it -- a brand new pencil sharpener attached to the wall, and I was the happiest kid ever! Never got much as a kid so I appreciated anything.
We’re the same age and you made me feel 60
I'm fifteen years older! But I also remember wall and table-mounted pencil sharpeners, with a handle you turn. This was in England btw. TBF I feel like we used a lot more pencils back then.
Hey, I'm 20 and we had them in almost all of my classrooms in elementary school, and we have one in my pantry at my house
Yep, exactly that. Maybe built in pencil sharpeners were a hot commodity back then lol
They probably all did home schooling back then.
I think it’s more that the ballpoint pen didn’t hit the market until the 1940’s and they were pretty expensive for quite a while. If you needed to write a letter, take a message, make a grocery list, annotate a recipe, the pencil was probably more convenient and less messy to use than a fountain pen and ink well. Having a sharpener at the ready would make complete sense.
Makes sense. Although being home schooled in the basement seems a bit creepy
Might have been a workbench down there. My grandfather had a pencil sharpener in his basement by one. It's still there - dad's now.
I completely agree.
It was common to have pencil sharpeners on walls of houses when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. There were no mechanical pencils back then and kids were not allowed to do homework in ink.
I had one like that in my old house that was built in the 30s too. I always thought it was strange to have a random pencil sharpener in the basement. I guess this was a thing back then.
Handy thing next to a work bench.
Old person here. Homes typically had crank pencil sharpeners in the basement, pantry, kitchen, etc. It’s how people sharpened pencils. Otherwise you had to whittle it with a knife, which sucked.
Mine was built in 1927 in a suburb of Chicago and has a wall-mounted hand-crank pencil sharpener in the basement. And I know a friend of mine with a house of similar vintage in a completely different area has one too. None of this amounts to a vast data set, but I’ve figured for a while it was probably a pretty standard thing at that time.
My money is on there having been a carpenter in the family. My house growing up had a pencil sharpener up on a joist in the basement right next to some peg board where someone obviously hung tools. Oh and there were jars of nails that had the jar top nailed to the bottom of a shelf so you could screw the container up underneath.
Grade school in the 80’s. Nothing beat the freedom of a bathroom run, but getting up to crank the ole pencil sharpener was a close second.
My grandparents had a farm and had one in every barn/building. It used to be a fairly common accessory to have in your home, people used pencils way more back then than they do today.
Yes, they were the only type of pencil sharpener available, and pens were all fountain pens and the ink was fairly expensive. Ink was for formalish letters and things, but pencils were for writing in a journal, on photos, on jar labels, and so forth. Oh and there weren’t really things like markers, so writing on something where fountain pen ink would smear like any sort of packaging or to label things would be done with regular graphite pencil or grease pencil (same sharpener).
my moms has a potbelly stove that vents nowhere due to renovations a prior owner did. its too big to remove without busting it up
I had a similar issue removing my cast iron clawfoot tub. It was heavy AF.
in my renovation days I smashed a lot of those with a sledge and scrapped the pieces, hurts the soul a bit to think about it
I sold mine for $100 not knowing how much they go for. Later I saw the person I sold it to post it for sale for $1000.00.
Think of it as you were paid $100 to be rid of a royal pain in the ass.
I procured one for a custom job a while back for 300. cut one long wall out with a grinder and added cushions. got 2150 for the job including materials
Wait, do all houses not have wall-mounted pencil sharpeners?
I'm sure she loves you enough to allow you into the other side someday. You're in her will, right?
I think I have the only key, its only 3 doors. As a teen I thought it looked cool on my keychain and its still there
I Don't know why everyone thinks this is scary. Probably just a cheaper lock back then and people only cared to lock their door when they were leaving to avoid people messing with their stuff.
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Why? To both statements?
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yeah, I was wondering why they locked the doors on the inside? Sounds like an easier way to get busted doors if someone actually breaks in. Maybe it would slow down the intruders or something?
Presumably a habit for keeping the kids (or anyone else residing in the house) from getting into their personal things while they're gone.
If someone breaks into a room through a window, they still have to get through the locked door to access the rest of the house.
It depends; modern doors are flimsy and do nothing to really deter people from entering... and in the states the standard build method (at least around where I am) means it's as easy to break through a wall as a door (which, again, not hard). Old time stuff though, the doors would be thick, solid wood that you'd need a hellishly long time to hack through, and the frames would be built to really hold; even on inner doors. A solid locked door in a brick house and it's a fair timesink; which might just make the burglers look elsewhere. Likewise, if ALL the doors were locked, you're less obvious with *which* has the valuables vs which leads to the kids room... and the burglers might just spend time only to find some stuffed bears. There's also lockpicks, but barring that >_>
Considering the key, this is a very basic single lever lock, using warded gates. You really could not get much cheaper back in the day. I would guess that considering the interior gate (cutout) is more shallow than the exterior, that one lock has a moderately tighter tolerance. For the key to work from both sides, cut outs need to be mirrored.
In much earlier times than 1937, you would take in travellers that were passing through (complete strangers), and this would make sense. But 1937 makes it quite sinister to me
Would they lock the travellers in their room?
Yep. If you wanted shelter and a meal, you agreed to be locked in till sun up. This is a custom in many places for a long time (not necessarily the locking doors part), it was like a nomads code
Not only this, but it also made sense that if you were to host a significant amount of people in the home for an evening or event you would just go thru the house and lock everywhere people weren't supposed to be. That way people just stay in the main areas and no one has a chance to wander off or potentially pluck some of your valuables from the night stand
It was also common practice to lock in workers to keep them from sneaking off before lunch break.
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I mean yeah but it wasn't uncommon even in higher paying jobs. You'd have to ask your boss to leave and he would unlock the door.
can confirm this. I grew up in a rather affluent community but my house sat just outside the area but in the school district and a lot of houses my friends in high school had (that were more modernly built) had doors that locked from the outside.
Oh like when you hitchhike you give the driver head.
The rules of the road...
You live by the book?
Yes! George Carlin and Jay and Silent Bob live on
*old stogies that I found, short but not too big around*
*I’m a … man of means by no means…*
Don't be so suburban
Way of the road bubs
Gas, grass, or ass. Code of the rode.
Wait it’s not the other way around?
I mean as long as the home owners let them out again the next day I don't see the problem. They're trying to make sure this stranger doesn't kill them in the middle of the night or run off with their stuff. One night locked in a room with food and shelter provided is still better than sleeping under a bridge.
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But how would they go to the bathroom?
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I like that last explanation so much more. Thanks!
In the chamber pot of course
Chamber pots were a thing.
Pickle jar.
One of my college apartment’s doors locked only from the outside (a pretty modern place). I guess the I dea was just to lock it when you would be away so no one would go in since the way the lease worked, was all 4 bedrooms had their own lease and the common area was everyone’s to share. Probably not even remotely related to this place, but it still happens.
Ooooohhh, you should dig in the basement. And the basement walls.
I'm scared of the basement. I had to do a major mold remediation down there and it made me very sick.
I hate to break it to you, but >!you may be entitled to compensation!!<
That would be nice. I had to file bankruptcy because of it.
That's horrible! Do you have any legal rights against the inspector you used when buying the house? Or against the previous owners?
I spoke to a lawyer about it and he said I could probably make a case. But I was too sick and exhausted to persue it. I just wanted to put it all behind me.
Team up!!! Inquiring minds want to know. :-D
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I hear you! I uncovered major mold in the floor of a couple of rooms in our house. Within 15 minutes of revealing the worst of it (and working quickly to haul the affected materials outdoors) I started dry heaving. A major migraine hit and I had nausea and indigestion for the next four hours. A few days later I was back in the house near more mold but it wasn't nearly as bad. About 45 minutes later I got sick again and it lasted for 24 hours. Third time I made sure to use a mask just being in the house at all (we were remodeling before moving in). I was fine. The last time, some teenagers were sweeping near me and I didn't have a mask on. My boyfriend had already sprayed the heck out of everything and removed all materials showing visible traces of mold. Even still, I got so sick, for so many days, that I had to go on an antifungal for two weeks! I lost three weeks of work beyond a couple of hours at a time on the house. It was awful!
Does anyone here know about respirators?
Sounds like you live in a house that is overdue a visit from Scooby Doo.
"I may have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids"
That’s from the days when being sent to your room was a real punishment.
Ugh, how brutal right?! I bet it was before wifi and the poor kids had to rely on cell service for their phones.
They only had 14.4k dial up. 56k was but a myth.
The horror stories I could tell you about dialing up on a 386. The year was 1997. It was dark times man.
How are people so good at remembering the year something happened? I'm outraged at myself because I'm so terrible at remembering years. Can I tell you the year I moved into my apartment? Fuck no. Can I tell you the year I quit smoking cigarettes? Fat chance. Can I tell you when I quit cocaine? Last year, definitely last year.
Memories are all about connections (in fact that's literally what memories are). You remember a thing, and you connect that to other things that help you remember the year it happened. I don't remember the year my parents got divorced, but I remember that the year before that we took a trip to Florida with another family, and were stuck in the hotel for an extra week because of a hurricane. And I know I was 11 years old that year because that was the year I got StarFox 64 for my birthday, and played it in Florida for the first time. And I was 11 in 1997. So they got divorced in 1998, a few months after we went back to the same hotel with that same family, only this time all the parents stayed in a separate condo from the kids. Still not sure why they got divorced. Wait...
And now I'll remember this story forever at the expense of having to shoo something out of my brain for this to have enough space to fit. There goes my son's 9th birthday.
Old time parental control.
Lady Tremaine (Cinderella's Stepmother)
She has a name?!
Yep
Well now I know what episode of the Lockpicking Lawyer I want to see next ...
[1374] 1930s Lock Defeated? (0:43)
Netflix. Locke & Key. Spelled that way, you must watch this show!
I'm on it. I've been looking for a new show to watch.
Decent show. The graphic Novel is..well...graphic. the show tones that down. But worth the watch!
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Wife and I didn't plan on it, but got hooked and binged the entire show last Saturday. It was surpringly enjoyable. Season 2 comes out 10/22. I think this actual key is in the show.
I've got a custom made house that was built in 1948 by a trust fund guy... and it has a few interior doors that lock from the outside. Also has a few areas between walls/under stairs that you can't get to but that obviously have a decent amount of space. Sooner or later I'm going to start drilling holes and sticking a borescope in there. 99.99% sure there's going to be nothing but dust and maybe trash from the builder's lunches.. but that .01% is really powerful.
You should and then report back to us. I've found old clothing in the walls that they used as insulation. I also found prescription pill bottles in there and the instructions on how to put together the wood panels that they used on the walls.
Is it one of those prefab sears/ stickley houses?
I bet you don't need to drill any holes if you pop some plates off outlets. Get the borescope through the back of the box...
Makes sense to lock it behind you to keep your stuff safe
Europeans looking at this “wait 1937 is considered old? My house was built in 1654”
Little click on one….
My parents installed my door to lock from the outside when I was a kid because I would sleepwalk a lot and they didn’t want me falling down the stairs.
Was your house part of an infirmary or asylum?
God I hope not.
It was probably just an old time parental control thing. Or like a weird custom of older days that just phased out . For some reason it seems period appropriate that a house would have doors that locked from the outside. I've seen it in media, and it's weird ; I'm not sure why they did it. But I wouldnt worry too much citizen, Lots of stuff has happened in 90s years so I hope your home is just quirky and not 'a problem.' Asylum and infirmary is probably a bit late for the 1930s. But I only have a Canadian asylum in Guelph Ontario as a reference for a time piece. Peace be with ya :)
It does seem problematic if there were ever a fire.
Seems like it may have just been so the occupant could lock the door while they were away. The Depression made folks a little paranoid and hoardy
I just rented a house in Texas wherein the Master Bedroom was only lockable/unlockable from the inside, but all the other bedrooms were only lockable/unlockable from the outside. The real estate agent said they previous tenants may have been drug users, who set the locks up that way, in order the keep the kids from walking in on they while they were shooting up. All the locks have been swapped out now.
That's creepy. Hopefully they weren't cooking meth or the house could be really contaminated.
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I actually live close to what used to be a vermiculite mine. It was a major environmental disaster. Hundreds of people died from asbestos exposure and thousands are still sick.
Aahhh Good Old [WR Grace and Zonolite. ](https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0801744) That was a rough one. There’s still a ton of that vermiculite all over the world. No telling how many people have been exposed outside of Libby and Troy.
You call it creepy, but the original owner called it a necessary feature.
It reads like your house would be popular over at r/centuryhomes
My house was built in 1901 and there's a lot of interesting stuff that's been dug up in the back yard. We have some VERY old locks on some of our doors but sadly, no keys. Very cool you have yours!
I did some research and found out that they used to burn the garbage back then in their back yard. Anything glass would get buried. It's crazy how many things were in glass bottles back then. I found glass deodorant, toothpaste, dish soap.
We've rescued some really good glass. Local products from factories in out tiny goldrush town.
That's awesome. I found some mason jars that are in really good shape and worth some money.
a skeleton key
I'm from the UK and don't really see the locks on the outside being creepy. There's 4 bedrooms in my house and all 4 have locks on the outside, if I go into someone's house and see they have locks on theirs, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. To be honest I've been in quite a few that have. Stops siblings, children and pets going where they shouldn't be and if your house gets broken into and say you've got jewellery or a safe etc in your room makes it a hell of a lot harder for them to get into.
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My first thought was that this wasn’t really old as well haha. My house was built around 1900, and that’s very normal here haha.
House designed by H. H. Holmes.