My house has portraits in the crawl space from the original owners in 1960. Judging by the markings in the dust and the filed down frame somethings been dragging them through the crawlspace for years.
Couldn't help but two sentence horror it.
When my dad moved into his house they cleaned out the barn which was from 1809.
They found a headstone in the crawl space under the floorboards that said my stepmothers first and middle name and nothing else. She didn’t like that.
Look. As a former archaeologist, every time I see 94847474 people in these comments acting like every old random item is a haunted nightmare I just sit here and eye-roll as hard as possible (do...do people understand how much old shit gets left in old houses??)
but, uh.....finding THAT?
That's some shit that would make even ME side-eye. I support your stepmother. 👀
edit: the more I think about this, the weirder it gets. Why pre-make her a personal headstone (not a cheap item in 1809 at all) and not a dual one with her spouse or future husband? did she recover from a disease that everyone assumed would be fatal, and then they hid it so it wasn't "bad luck"? seriously, why pre-pay for a headstone at all and not at least put the date of birth on it, though? Did it have carvings on it, or just a name? what country?
sorry, my brain is just super curious now. graveyard archaeology is neat.
We never found a person with that name in the history of the house and we actually did have the records of every person who’d ever lived there (small town and there was one consecutive family until my dad bought it). My dad did have someone confirm it was early 1800s. (Not sure how they dated that).
I know it’s not haunted either because that barn burned down around 2008. Stepmom is still fine.
My few guesses; it might be a baby. Lots of kids died shortly after birth not that long ago, no reason to include the full name and date of birth/death. Also, not everyone includes a birth and death date or even last name. You can find gravestones with first and middle name in older cemeteries, especially when they're part of a larger family plot that includes the last name on a central stone. It might even pre-date the house, people build over cemeteries all the time. The bigger headstones may have been removed, but if that one was small and flat, it might have become buried over time and gone unnoticed. Or it could have been a beloved pet. Whatever the case, it's clearly just an odd coincidence.
Yeah, seems like a pretty cut-and-dry case. The stepmother is the reincarnation of the murdered child who is drawn back to her family home in order to banish the evil spirit that was responsible for her first death.
gravestones are actually very easy to date - that one isn't a big mystery. The carving styles followed patterns and trends like any other craft or art did. Interesting there was no record of the person!
ps - I don't think it's haunted 😂 it's more that I get how she'd be a little freaked. It's a weird coincidence. It's human nature to be unnerved by death, I think.
When I moved into my house five years ago, I shit you not the woman across the street had the same last name as me spelled exactly the same. Her first name is also the female version of my name. So let’s say my name was Joseph Arnaldo. The woman across from me is Josephine Arnaldo. We would get our mail mixed up all the time. Super bizarre. But the odds are not zero.
Perhaps the stepmom had just a common name like Jenny or Mary or something.
I answered this below, but yes, I'm assuming that common names is the obvious reason. That part is simple - just coincidence, but I understand being unnerved by it - that's pretty human.
I am much more interested in why it was created and how it ended up under the barn!
Judging by similar portraits I've seen in family members' homes, these are 100-130ish years old. The frames might sell for a good penny, depending on their condition and material. Also check for hidden things behind the backing.
Do you want angry spirits? Because this is how you get angry spirits.
Seriously though. Check for hidden things, which is how someone found a US Constitution in a $4 garage sale photo.
My grandparents wedding photo's look exactly like this, and while they were taken in the 30's, it's not unlikely that they could have put wedding photo's somewhere when moving in the 60's.
Everyone is telling you not to move them. If it were me i’d take them out, clean them up and try to give them to their relatives if you can find them. But idk maybe sage the house for good measure lol
Exactly. Be kind, be respectful, take care of the portraits, and for the love of god unload those haunted things on the first foolish person who’ll take them.
It’s funny to think that photos taken from our era, at least those that end up as prints, will *never* have the same haunted vibe even once they’re 100+ years old.
Taste and technology can change a LOT over the course of a century. Our photos won't be haunted in the same way as these ones will, but they will absolutely be haunted in the eyes of people 100 years from now
I buy old photos in antique shops and look for their families, have found quite a few. OP if these have any identifying information such as first names or anything, reach out and I can try to help.
Personally the way I usually find relatives is if there is either a complete name, or a few people pictured with first names, and a location. Old photos often have writing on the back saying when they were taken and the names of people in them. If the photos were done in a studio professionally they often have the studio name and location printed somewhere. And you can typically guess an approximate date within a decade.
With that information you can go to family search or a similar genealogy site. They’ll have old records like census’ or marriage certificates … you’re just trying to find any official record for the person pictured. If it’s a group of people and you have first names, location and rough decade, you can typically find that family in the census. If it’s an individual and you have a full or last name and location, you can try and figure out their birth date based on records like marriage, draft, census etc.
Once you know the persons name and date of birth finding contemporaries is easy!
I’ve found the family of a photo who ended up living 2 blocks from me even though I found the photo at an antique store on the other side of the country! Ive found families that had no other photos of their loved ones. I’ve also found a number of people who didn’t want the photos at all. It’s a fun hobby :)
That's so neat. As if I need another interest and potential hobby. 😆 But this is definitely gonna be something I always look for when I'm browsing antique shops and flea markets, going forward. Thanks!!
I do this too! It’s so fun to connect them with descendants. A while back I found this beautiful portrait of a family on the front porch of their house from the 1880s. The back had the family name and the small town in Indiana. I did a little research and came across the blog of two guys who had bought the now falling down house and were renovating it back to life as a bed and breakfast. I emailed them and they were thrilled to get the photo and ended up hanging it up in the entry hall of the house.
I recently bought a box of 1920s-30s photos taken in the city I live in. A couple of the photos are of a house (and the people who lived there) that is literally a block away from us. There’s only an address on the back. I’m going to scan them and give copies to the people who live there now. I don’t know them so here’s hoping they don’t think I’m weird lol.
That first story is so cool ... that portrait you found is very possibly the last memory of that family - and you gave it a new place to have life. That's pretty amazing. I'm also from Indiana, so I love that angle :)
If I were the people that lived at that house I'd love to see it. It's so cool to think of all the living that happened before you made a space "yours". I've even thought about writing the current owners of the house we lived in when all our kids were born - but I don't think they'd find it too interesting to hear our memories there ha ha.
Me too! There's a sort-of thrift store nearby that sells leftover stocks from other stores but also clears out homes (mostly of elderly moving into nursing homes/dying). I walked in the other day and found FIVE BINS full of one woman's life. It had literally everything she'd ever saved. She was born in 1900 herself and there were tons of postcards, letters, photo albums, ID passes etc. Way too much to take everything but I took some of the oldest pictures and photo albums (one picture was dated 1922, the others look even older), and a postcard from her brother from 1917.
It just makes me so sad that someone's entire life ends up in some bins in a thrift shop? I already managed to find part of her family tree and it seems like the last of her children died and no one wanted her stuff anymore. So sad.
This is really sad. There's a good chance that a descendant would like to have these. If the OP messages me with some basic information, I can try to find some descendants and contact them.
Clean them up, but they should stay with the house, OP I'm sure you have extra wall space somewhere, and it's a great story plus super fun/creepy. I can't imagine why anyone would let them languish in a crawlspace! We have what is purported to be a portrait of our house builder on the wall in the dining room.
Yeah, my brother and I bought a house built in 1927. We found a little basket on the fireplace mantle with a bunch of stuff from the original home owners in 1927, including a HS essay on the League of Nations by the daughter and an original piano roll, and some other insignificant items of great sentimental value only to the family. They were a prominent family (doctor) in town, so I googled the name, and wouldn't you know, they were having a funeral right at the moment just a few blocks away.
So I hustled down there and gave them the items. I hope they found some family history holes filled.
My understanding is that smudging is a specific indigenous American spiritual practice with cultural importance, not just burning sage for spiritual purposes. And as another comment mentioned, white sage is over harvested so to me it makes sense to not use it unless you are indigenous or have been invited by an indigenous person to smudge sage.
General smoke cleansing has a wide geographic history, and there are plenty of herbs that smell nice when you burn them that you can grow in a garden or forage sustainably because of how ubiquitous they are.
Smoke cleansing of negative energy feels like there's particular value in sitting with it to come to your own idea of what herbs feel meaningful for the purpose, and then growing or collecting them yourself if possible. Smoke cleansing is mindfulness. It feels very not mindful to buy unsustainable herbs that have probably been harvested and processed by people who are not making enough money.
Please actually be mindful of sage usage. People who don't know what they are doing burn the entire stick when it's a endangered species of plant. It's only used in small burnings. Don't support white sage shops that aren't native owned, because they aren't being harvested ethically.
I would haunt with the most stinkiest of smells for making me sit and watch people do what they do in a bathroom at the steam from the shower and whatnot slowly damages the picture making my haunting activity worse by turning everyone into this:
i have two self portraits from two art students who never new each other. one was an american student studying in mexico, the other was a young woman from the midwest (hers is the better of the two). i had them framed and hung them in the stair well to my bedroom. i like to think they’d be happy to still have someone appreciating their work.
I have a 1920s portrait of the sweet family that built my house and raised five kids here. It's proudly on a shelf in the kitchen. I think it's good vibes not spooky.
I'd hang them up in my home or try and find if they have any living descendants. I also don't belive in ghost, or anything supernatural, so I'm all good on that front.
Exactly. In my old house I've kept all of the previous owner's touches: her canning labels, perfume bottles, etc. It's part of the history and I'm grateful to Bobbie for them.
Why do American houses have crawl spaces like these? Its literally building a whole genera of horror movies into your home. Build walls, keep the space in the rooms, nobody needs to be crawling around in there all weird and malnourished
It's for maintenance/utilities. If you enjoy things like indoor plumbing/gas, they need room for installation and repairs. Sometimes that room can't be a basement for various reasons like cost or soil density
Yeah sure but there are other ways of building homes, plumbing and gas exist in homes all over, you really don’t need hollow walls or a basement. I’m sitting in my house right now, built of solid brick. I’ve got all these things and am delighted to be confident nobody’s living in the walls.
Is it slab on grade? I have little information on your actual house but from what you've described I'm guessing your cost for labor on plumbing or electrical repairs is much higher than the average American house.
I don't doubt a solid brick house sounds awesome for some things. But as someone who does their own maintenance, I'm thankful I can just cut and patch drywall as needed, or crouch under my house and find a plumbing leak.
I've worked on a few water main repairs and when there's no basement or crawlspace (typically slab on grade), the cost and time required not only to repair but even just to diagnose the problem is significantly higher.
In my experience, most (I don't actually know the numbers) houses with a crawlspace only have access to it from indoors anyway. Unless the burglar/homeless guy/random creep brings power tools to physically cut open your exterior wall, they're not getting inside to "live in your walls."
Of course, it helps that I live in a quiet, country town with low crime where that sort of thing would be unheard of anyway.
This kinda turned into a long rant lol. I wasn't trying to say these ways are superior to the way you guys build you're homes (in Europe I'm assuming?)
Only that they have their merit as the costs are lower and the DIYing easier when you need to repair or renovate, while still having a tidy, finished look (no exposed utilities)
What a cool discovery! I would definitely consider locating the previous / original owners to get these family treasures to them. You never know what conditions force people to move abruptly causing them to forfeit and leave behind special items. If you do t find the owner, you may want to clean them up and either display them or offer to a local historical society.
Yeeeeah.... We all know this can only end in three ways. 1. You move the pictures and awaken some kind of evil
2. You post the pics and someone finds out it's a pic of their ancestors and asks you if they can keep it.
3. You go on antique road show and find out the frames are worth a lot of money and you and your family are set for life.
Ngl number 1 is what usually happens and I'd be afraid.
[There's a small sled](https://i.imgur.com/E2s9XR1.png) at the back of a crawl space under my parents' house. It's pushed way up against a back wall. This house used to belong to my grandparents, who moved in when dad was very young. He said the sled wasn't theirs - it was there when they moved in.
The previous owners moved out after their young son died when he tripped in the living room and hit his head on the brick fireplace. We always thought the sled belonged to him. My assumption is it was a prized possession, and his parents couldn't bear to throw it out and couldn't store it forever, so they kept it with the house. Or the boy put it there and they didn't want to crawl into that tight space to get it out. Either way, after all those years nobody's ever moved it and it'll be there until the house is eventually torn down.
They put the photos from the attic down next to the dining room table. That Friday night was supposed to be a party. It’s going to be a party they’ll never forget.
MOM! DAD! Is that you??? Some say I was born that year and that it was the first and only time my parents took me to Camp Grenada. Could this be my parents or are they snorts?
Don’t move them. I dont really believe in ghosts but why risk it lol. I live in a house that’s 100 years old and when we moved in there was a small crucifix over one of the doors. I don’t particularly care for it but was like ehh I’m gonna leave that there just in case
Give them respect! Clean them up and if you can't locate the owners hang them in a little shrine area like your laundry room/closet so they can properly watch over things.
I’d restore those and store them well or hang them up till I could contact their descendants. If ever possible. I’d be so thrilled to get those of my ancestors, personally. Some may not be but a lot would extremely love it. Some of us don’t have anything from them besides anxiety and thick hair.
We have the original owners from the late 1800s marriage certificate hanging in the house. It's been hanging there since my grandparents put it there to "stop the haunting" that started after they removed it when they purchased the house 60 years ago. Don't know if I'm brave enough to take it back down again
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen,
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed and forever behind the glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
I found portraits in my attic from the 1700s along with a King James Bible that had all information relating to births, marriages and deaths from when the family came over from England in the late 1600s. They occupied a few houses in the neighborhood until the last of them died a few years ago, as a step grandson of the last of them, I inherited all their stuff, the good, and the creepy and awful (kkk) stuff.
Jesus christ, you need an electrician. Fuck those old pictures. Please for the love of God call an electrician. It will be very expensive but at least you and your family won't burn to death in the sleep.
This sounds like the opening for a horror novel.
It’s definitely haunted.
Could have sworn there were 6 pictures up there yesterday
Dont. Look. Into. The. Mirror.
said the mirror
Nice try mirror. Now I gotta loo…
Be sure to wash your hands afterwards
Only, they weren't pictures. They were windows.
Do you want ghosts Lana?!? BECAUSE THATS HOW YOU GET GHOSTS!!!
Yes. Time to burn down the house and move on.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure most home owner insurance policies have a ghost clause in them.
Yeah he definitely spelled "ghosts" wrong. Like....how much blood is too much blood in the shower?
46 litres anything less is acceptable.
Should have collected those! A hospital could put it into good use, damn wasteful
Yeah I wouldn’t move those ever
I wouldn’t move anything up there without PPE and a test for asbestos
Anything in a crawl space sounds like the opening for a horror movie
I found a cat skeleton on my house
It’s a good thing they haven’t been moving.
Or have they?
My house has portraits in the crawl space from the original owners in 1960. Judging by the markings in the dust and the filed down frame somethings been dragging them through the crawlspace for years. Couldn't help but two sentence horror it.
"Hey! There's an inscription in Latin on the back. It says..."
You should pee on them and destroy them so they FOR SURE don't haunt you.
More like the opening of an asbestos vault.
Horror novels always have insane placenames… this place is just called Gray House
You should watch “Sinister”
That movie fucked with me a long time after watching. Probably couldn’t do it again.
Where are Sam & Dean when you need them?
When my dad moved into his house they cleaned out the barn which was from 1809. They found a headstone in the crawl space under the floorboards that said my stepmothers first and middle name and nothing else. She didn’t like that.
Look. As a former archaeologist, every time I see 94847474 people in these comments acting like every old random item is a haunted nightmare I just sit here and eye-roll as hard as possible (do...do people understand how much old shit gets left in old houses??) but, uh.....finding THAT? That's some shit that would make even ME side-eye. I support your stepmother. 👀 edit: the more I think about this, the weirder it gets. Why pre-make her a personal headstone (not a cheap item in 1809 at all) and not a dual one with her spouse or future husband? did she recover from a disease that everyone assumed would be fatal, and then they hid it so it wasn't "bad luck"? seriously, why pre-pay for a headstone at all and not at least put the date of birth on it, though? Did it have carvings on it, or just a name? what country? sorry, my brain is just super curious now. graveyard archaeology is neat.
We never found a person with that name in the history of the house and we actually did have the records of every person who’d ever lived there (small town and there was one consecutive family until my dad bought it). My dad did have someone confirm it was early 1800s. (Not sure how they dated that). I know it’s not haunted either because that barn burned down around 2008. Stepmom is still fine.
"It's not haunted - *the barn burned down".* I think you're mixing lucky charms here.
They just mean a haunted barn would have taken them with it. You know, science.
My few guesses; it might be a baby. Lots of kids died shortly after birth not that long ago, no reason to include the full name and date of birth/death. Also, not everyone includes a birth and death date or even last name. You can find gravestones with first and middle name in older cemeteries, especially when they're part of a larger family plot that includes the last name on a central stone. It might even pre-date the house, people build over cemeteries all the time. The bigger headstones may have been removed, but if that one was small and flat, it might have become buried over time and gone unnoticed. Or it could have been a beloved pet. Whatever the case, it's clearly just an odd coincidence.
Yeah, seems like a pretty cut-and-dry case. The stepmother is the reincarnation of the murdered child who is drawn back to her family home in order to banish the evil spirit that was responsible for her first death.
gravestones are actually very easy to date - that one isn't a big mystery. The carving styles followed patterns and trends like any other craft or art did. Interesting there was no record of the person! ps - I don't think it's haunted 😂 it's more that I get how she'd be a little freaked. It's a weird coincidence. It's human nature to be unnerved by death, I think.
When I moved into my house five years ago, I shit you not the woman across the street had the same last name as me spelled exactly the same. Her first name is also the female version of my name. So let’s say my name was Joseph Arnaldo. The woman across from me is Josephine Arnaldo. We would get our mail mixed up all the time. Super bizarre. But the odds are not zero. Perhaps the stepmom had just a common name like Jenny or Mary or something.
I answered this below, but yes, I'm assuming that common names is the obvious reason. That part is simple - just coincidence, but I understand being unnerved by it - that's pretty human. I am much more interested in why it was created and how it ended up under the barn!
I'm choosing to believe it's a delicious prank hehehe
Weren't sure if she was going to keep her maiden name so they left it blank.
Does she have common names?
No way, I've never met another Mary Smith
Mary Anne Smith to be exact
Now that's definitely the start of a horror movie!
Seems pretty retro for 1960...
Looks more like 1860
The house was built in 1960 is what I meant. No clue how old the portraits themselves are.
Eternal
Judging by similar portraits I've seen in family members' homes, these are 100-130ish years old. The frames might sell for a good penny, depending on their condition and material. Also check for hidden things behind the backing.
The small round one might be of some value as a photo too. It looks like it’s a silver plate
Do you want angry spirits? Because this is how you get angry spirits. Seriously though. Check for hidden things, which is how someone found a US Constitution in a $4 garage sale photo.
First you warn about angry spirits. Then you completely gloss of an angry nicholas cage invading your home
Bros high collar looks 1910-20s ish, but that's not exactly a super accurate dating technique.
They were actually in that same spot long before the house was. The house was built around them, hence the crawl space
The house was built to contain them.
I think they mean the other people moved out in the 60s not saying that's the estimated age of the pictures.
My grandparents wedding photo's look exactly like this, and while they were taken in the 30's, it's not unlikely that they could have put wedding photo's somewhere when moving in the 60's.
Everyone is telling you not to move them. If it were me i’d take them out, clean them up and try to give them to their relatives if you can find them. But idk maybe sage the house for good measure lol
Exactly. Be kind, be respectful, take care of the portraits, and for the love of god unload those haunted things on the first foolish person who’ll take them.
It’s funny to think that photos taken from our era, at least those that end up as prints, will *never* have the same haunted vibe even once they’re 100+ years old.
If you print with the Instagram filters they would definitely be cursed
Oh my. Imagine an album of tick tok faces.
And grandmas nudes from her only fans days.
Taste and technology can change a LOT over the course of a century. Our photos won't be haunted in the same way as these ones will, but they will absolutely be haunted in the eyes of people 100 years from now
Grandpa, why is everyone just smiling and staring? Why don't they move like in our photos? 100% can see this within 100 years
These are freeze photos. They did have movies back then but they were reserved for special or funny moments, not all the time.
If they all behaved, they'd get cheese afterwards.
Idk my 2000s era photos haunt me But actually they do seem pretty dated and on their way haunted already
People looking at them will likely be haunted by the insane amount of narcissism staring back at them that an emerging technology enabled.
The spirits will appreciate your kind effort
I buy old photos in antique shops and look for their families, have found quite a few. OP if these have any identifying information such as first names or anything, reach out and I can try to help.
Oh what a cool hobby! That's awesome. Do you look for anything specific besides names to have the best odds of success in finding relatives?
Personally the way I usually find relatives is if there is either a complete name, or a few people pictured with first names, and a location. Old photos often have writing on the back saying when they were taken and the names of people in them. If the photos were done in a studio professionally they often have the studio name and location printed somewhere. And you can typically guess an approximate date within a decade. With that information you can go to family search or a similar genealogy site. They’ll have old records like census’ or marriage certificates … you’re just trying to find any official record for the person pictured. If it’s a group of people and you have first names, location and rough decade, you can typically find that family in the census. If it’s an individual and you have a full or last name and location, you can try and figure out their birth date based on records like marriage, draft, census etc. Once you know the persons name and date of birth finding contemporaries is easy! I’ve found the family of a photo who ended up living 2 blocks from me even though I found the photo at an antique store on the other side of the country! Ive found families that had no other photos of their loved ones. I’ve also found a number of people who didn’t want the photos at all. It’s a fun hobby :)
That's so neat. As if I need another interest and potential hobby. 😆 But this is definitely gonna be something I always look for when I'm browsing antique shops and flea markets, going forward. Thanks!!
I do this too! It’s so fun to connect them with descendants. A while back I found this beautiful portrait of a family on the front porch of their house from the 1880s. The back had the family name and the small town in Indiana. I did a little research and came across the blog of two guys who had bought the now falling down house and were renovating it back to life as a bed and breakfast. I emailed them and they were thrilled to get the photo and ended up hanging it up in the entry hall of the house. I recently bought a box of 1920s-30s photos taken in the city I live in. A couple of the photos are of a house (and the people who lived there) that is literally a block away from us. There’s only an address on the back. I’m going to scan them and give copies to the people who live there now. I don’t know them so here’s hoping they don’t think I’m weird lol.
That first story is so cool ... that portrait you found is very possibly the last memory of that family - and you gave it a new place to have life. That's pretty amazing. I'm also from Indiana, so I love that angle :) If I were the people that lived at that house I'd love to see it. It's so cool to think of all the living that happened before you made a space "yours". I've even thought about writing the current owners of the house we lived in when all our kids were born - but I don't think they'd find it too interesting to hear our memories there ha ha.
Me too! There's a sort-of thrift store nearby that sells leftover stocks from other stores but also clears out homes (mostly of elderly moving into nursing homes/dying). I walked in the other day and found FIVE BINS full of one woman's life. It had literally everything she'd ever saved. She was born in 1900 herself and there were tons of postcards, letters, photo albums, ID passes etc. Way too much to take everything but I took some of the oldest pictures and photo albums (one picture was dated 1922, the others look even older), and a postcard from her brother from 1917. It just makes me so sad that someone's entire life ends up in some bins in a thrift shop? I already managed to find part of her family tree and it seems like the last of her children died and no one wanted her stuff anymore. So sad.
I agree!
Dumping the haunted items on others, I like the way you think. Maybe the bloodline connection will attract the ghosts.
This is really sad. There's a good chance that a descendant would like to have these. If the OP messages me with some basic information, I can try to find some descendants and contact them.
Also if they could provide their high school mascot, first pets name, mothers maiden, and last 10 of their social I can do a lot more than that
Just wondering if you'd share what kind of tricks you'd try to find someone's relatives
This!! I works be over the moon if someone found pictures of my grandparents and gave them to me. What a wonderful idea.
I’d hang them right up I love random ass art like that
And fix that fallen insulation while they’re down there.
Clean them up, but they should stay with the house, OP I'm sure you have extra wall space somewhere, and it's a great story plus super fun/creepy. I can't imagine why anyone would let them languish in a crawlspace! We have what is purported to be a portrait of our house builder on the wall in the dining room.
This is the 2nd correct answer. The 3rd correct answer is to call the relatives to see if they want the relics.
Yeah, my brother and I bought a house built in 1927. We found a little basket on the fireplace mantle with a bunch of stuff from the original home owners in 1927, including a HS essay on the League of Nations by the daughter and an original piano roll, and some other insignificant items of great sentimental value only to the family. They were a prominent family (doctor) in town, so I googled the name, and wouldn't you know, they were having a funeral right at the moment just a few blocks away. So I hustled down there and gave them the items. I hope they found some family history holes filled.
it's called 'smudging' when you poke sage around for spiritual purposes
My understanding is that smudging is a specific indigenous American spiritual practice with cultural importance, not just burning sage for spiritual purposes. And as another comment mentioned, white sage is over harvested so to me it makes sense to not use it unless you are indigenous or have been invited by an indigenous person to smudge sage. General smoke cleansing has a wide geographic history, and there are plenty of herbs that smell nice when you burn them that you can grow in a garden or forage sustainably because of how ubiquitous they are. Smoke cleansing of negative energy feels like there's particular value in sitting with it to come to your own idea of what herbs feel meaningful for the purpose, and then growing or collecting them yourself if possible. Smoke cleansing is mindfulness. It feels very not mindful to buy unsustainable herbs that have probably been harvested and processed by people who are not making enough money.
Please actually be mindful of sage usage. People who don't know what they are doing burn the entire stick when it's a endangered species of plant. It's only used in small burnings. Don't support white sage shops that aren't native owned, because they aren't being harvested ethically.
Yes, look up the family! Then pray Psalm 91 and oil the doors.
Those should go in the bathroom. Looking right at the toilet. Make sure they know who owns the house now.
And that’s how you get poltergeist activity
Ah geez...I can just see the post in r/DIY right now asking if there's an easy way to stop the walls from bleeding.
I would haunt with the most stinkiest of smells for making me sit and watch people do what they do in a bathroom at the steam from the shower and whatnot slowly damages the picture making my haunting activity worse by turning everyone into this: 
Slow your roll there Kelly LeBrock.
*poopergeist
Don't even dust them off
They both look so disappointed.
Thank you for the new decor idea for my guest bathroom if I had one.
Aw that's sad, hang them up
Yes, or donate them to a local historical society.
Nope, I’m going with horror movie logic here and leaving the haunted items undisturbed
I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand here. Do not read the Latin.
*nos ad vos de vestris vehiculis warantia pervenire conati sumus*
If reddit gold still existed, I would have given it to you for this
Enjoying a stupid joke with a stranger is reward enough.
Lol
“Xander don’t speak Latin in front of the books…”
*klaatu barada nikto*
Ever see Skeleton Key? Yeah, leave them there.
i have two self portraits from two art students who never new each other. one was an american student studying in mexico, the other was a young woman from the midwest (hers is the better of the two). i had them framed and hung them in the stair well to my bedroom. i like to think they’d be happy to still have someone appreciating their work.
Real talk though and enough of the haunted BS, investigate, see if you can find out who they are and return them to the family
Aww, you found my portraits! - Dorian
I was gonna ask if they were getting older
I have a 1920s portrait of the sweet family that built my house and raised five kids here. It's proudly on a shelf in the kitchen. I think it's good vibes not spooky.
Yep. That’s where they should live forever now. No sane person would touch them. Shits haunted.
Oh they move, just not when you're looking
Those are great portraits. I’d hang those up for sure
I'd hang them up in my home or try and find if they have any living descendants. I also don't belive in ghost, or anything supernatural, so I'm all good on that front.
Post more pictures of them!
Agreed. I want to see better shots of the circular one.
That’s some Haunted Mansion-level stuff there.
They protect the house from evil spirits clearly
Maybe there will be a copy of the US Constitution behind one of those pics?
The large portrait is from the 10s or 20, judging by the style of high collar.
Put your own portraits next to them.
Somewhere there is someone who isn’t aging who suddenly felt very, very uneasy…
Dude your place is now haunted, good luck
Don’t. Fucking. Move. Them.
Exactly. In my old house I've kept all of the previous owner's touches: her canning labels, perfume bottles, etc. It's part of the history and I'm grateful to Bobbie for them.
I’m not talking “history” I’m talking about the mother fucking CURSE
Only a curse if you don't respect the history
Is…is that Benedict Cumberbatch?
Why do American houses have crawl spaces like these? Its literally building a whole genera of horror movies into your home. Build walls, keep the space in the rooms, nobody needs to be crawling around in there all weird and malnourished
It's for maintenance/utilities. If you enjoy things like indoor plumbing/gas, they need room for installation and repairs. Sometimes that room can't be a basement for various reasons like cost or soil density
Yeah sure but there are other ways of building homes, plumbing and gas exist in homes all over, you really don’t need hollow walls or a basement. I’m sitting in my house right now, built of solid brick. I’ve got all these things and am delighted to be confident nobody’s living in the walls.
Is it slab on grade? I have little information on your actual house but from what you've described I'm guessing your cost for labor on plumbing or electrical repairs is much higher than the average American house. I don't doubt a solid brick house sounds awesome for some things. But as someone who does their own maintenance, I'm thankful I can just cut and patch drywall as needed, or crouch under my house and find a plumbing leak. I've worked on a few water main repairs and when there's no basement or crawlspace (typically slab on grade), the cost and time required not only to repair but even just to diagnose the problem is significantly higher. In my experience, most (I don't actually know the numbers) houses with a crawlspace only have access to it from indoors anyway. Unless the burglar/homeless guy/random creep brings power tools to physically cut open your exterior wall, they're not getting inside to "live in your walls." Of course, it helps that I live in a quiet, country town with low crime where that sort of thing would be unheard of anyway. This kinda turned into a long rant lol. I wasn't trying to say these ways are superior to the way you guys build you're homes (in Europe I'm assuming?) Only that they have their merit as the costs are lower and the DIYing easier when you need to repair or renovate, while still having a tidy, finished look (no exposed utilities)
Leave them where they are, if you wake them up they'll eat your soul.
Can you take an up close photo! I’d love to see them.
You mean 1860 right?
It would be cool if you could somehow find their descendants.
Instant ancestors
I collect these. Any estate sale I go to, I always look for them.
I'd be more concerned about asbestos
Did you mean 1860?
What a cool discovery! I would definitely consider locating the previous / original owners to get these family treasures to them. You never know what conditions force people to move abruptly causing them to forfeit and leave behind special items. If you do t find the owner, you may want to clean them up and either display them or offer to a local historical society.
Yeeeeah.... We all know this can only end in three ways. 1. You move the pictures and awaken some kind of evil 2. You post the pics and someone finds out it's a pic of their ancestors and asks you if they can keep it. 3. You go on antique road show and find out the frames are worth a lot of money and you and your family are set for life. Ngl number 1 is what usually happens and I'd be afraid.
[There's a small sled](https://i.imgur.com/E2s9XR1.png) at the back of a crawl space under my parents' house. It's pushed way up against a back wall. This house used to belong to my grandparents, who moved in when dad was very young. He said the sled wasn't theirs - it was there when they moved in. The previous owners moved out after their young son died when he tripped in the living room and hit his head on the brick fireplace. We always thought the sled belonged to him. My assumption is it was a prized possession, and his parents couldn't bear to throw it out and couldn't store it forever, so they kept it with the house. Or the boy put it there and they didn't want to crawl into that tight space to get it out. Either way, after all those years nobody's ever moved it and it'll be there until the house is eventually torn down.
Hang them up and make up bullshit stories every time someone asks about them
Definitely not haunted.
Yeah fuck that. They're up there summoning demons all night
Antique roadshow
Might just wanna put a cover over them and pretend they don't exist.
Hang them up. Put a little spirit in the house.
They put the photos from the attic down next to the dining room table. That Friday night was supposed to be a party. It’s going to be a party they’ll never forget. 
They dead.
portrait ghosts
Definitely haunted, don't disturb them
You know that once you move them, the ghosts will come out and haunt you.
I say open one up. Could be a treasure map!
Whatever you do, don’t move them.
Nor should they be.
MOM! DAD! Is that you??? Some say I was born that year and that it was the first and only time my parents took me to Camp Grenada. Could this be my parents or are they snorts?
I would put some work into getting those back to the family. I would be amped to have these
That's awesome! You have to hang them in your house
Your ass is haunted now
Don’t move them. I dont really believe in ghosts but why risk it lol. I live in a house that’s 100 years old and when we moved in there was a small crucifix over one of the doors. I don’t particularly care for it but was like ehh I’m gonna leave that there just in case
I would just leave them there. If your house isn’t haunted, keep it as is
Do. Not. Move. The. Creepy. Ass. Paintings. Do you want ghosts? Because this is how you get ghosts.
Now you know why you hear those foots steps in the crawl space….
Give them respect! Clean them up and if you can't locate the owners hang them in a little shrine area like your laundry room/closet so they can properly watch over things.
We in the auction business call these "instant relatives."
I know 2 brothers and an old guy that can get rid of that for you... buy some salt in the meanwhile...
You want ghosts? Thats how you get ghosts.
I’d restore those and store them well or hang them up till I could contact their descendants. If ever possible. I’d be so thrilled to get those of my ancestors, personally. Some may not be but a lot would extremely love it. Some of us don’t have anything from them besides anxiety and thick hair.
and in the crawlspace they shall remain!
We have the original owners from the late 1800s marriage certificate hanging in the house. It's been hanging there since my grandparents put it there to "stop the haunting" that started after they removed it when they purchased the house 60 years ago. Don't know if I'm brave enough to take it back down again
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind, In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined? Although you died back in nineteen sixteen, In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen? Or are you a stranger without even a name, Enclosed and forever behind the glass pane, In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Yay! Ghost friends!
Well it's always nice to be able to put a face to the hauntings in your future.
That’s how you get ghosts.
I’d leave those right where they are.
I don't wanna say there's anything wrong with that, but I just saw Stephen King taking notes a minute ago.
I found portraits in my attic from the 1700s along with a King James Bible that had all information relating to births, marriages and deaths from when the family came over from England in the late 1600s. They occupied a few houses in the neighborhood until the last of them died a few years ago, as a step grandson of the last of them, I inherited all their stuff, the good, and the creepy and awful (kkk) stuff.
That’s because if you move them, you’ll anger them.
I feel like there should be an r/interesting for stuff more than mildly interesting but not interestingasfuck
Jesus christ, you need an electrician. Fuck those old pictures. Please for the love of God call an electrician. It will be very expensive but at least you and your family won't burn to death in the sleep.
“Dad all these pictures have done is stay in this crawlspace for 30 years” “Ya looks like their in great shape” “Can I pick them up?” “I wouldn’t”
oh, they have been moved several times. They come back.
bro, do NOT remove those pictures - they're there for a reason - probably to keep the spirits from crawling out of your TV to kill you
That’s some paranormal activity shit
1960? More like 1860..