I read too much news and it’s ruining my life.
I am not talking about political news though that does tend to send me around the bend. Instead, the stories that are doing me in are the ones about people who find incredible things hidden in their homes. Being ever in search of riches beyond imagining as I am well aware that money most certainly can buy happiness, I have practically torn our little blue shack apart, board by board, drywall sheet by ceramic tile, to find something, anything, that would fill up my bank account.
One couple, for example, found a 50-year-old safe hidden in their kitchen wall. What was inside? $51,080, mostly in $100 notes.
A California couple spotted a strange area underneath their bathroom vanity. After pushing on the space, they found tons of pieces of vintage jewelry from Mexico.
An unsigned Van Gogh painting was surprisingly found in the attic of a Norwegian home. I did crawl up in our attic and found some finger paint sketches our kids did in kindergarten and while they are treasures for their parents, they are no Van Goghs.
Construction workers found $500,000 in cash underneath a house and that set off an ugly dispute over who should get the money: Them or the owners of the home. If that happened to me, I would give each of the workers $10 and send them on their way.
An old Action Comics book was found after a wall was demolished in a family’s home. It sold at auction for $175,000.
A Utah man found $45,000 in his house and then he tracked down the rightful owner and returned it. I would, of course, have given the rightful owner $10, maybe 20.
In one home, a figurine of a former Russian czar was found and then auctioned for five million dollars. The best I can do are some figurines of long-retired hockey players but not even the hockey players want them.
One couple found some archaeological treasures buried under their house and the treasures were over 2,000 years old. So far, all I’ve found in our basement is a spider’s nest, and it isn’t that old, and spiders generally sell for a dime a dozen, if you can sell them at all.
It just goes on and on. In a secret room of one person’s home, a box with ammunition, a defused grenade, and thousands of pennies were found.
Another homeowner found an entire servants’ kitchen in the basement of a property that had been in their family for years. I can kind of relate to that. I moved into our house when I was still single and not being a cook, two years went by before I discovered the house had a kitchen.
One couple found a medieval well underneath the floor of their living room. An old briefcase was unearthed inside someone else’s house. It contained money from all over the world, silver, and other treasures. One family discovered an ancient chapel space under their home.
But I think I might just slow down on ripping our house apart after reading that homeowners found thousands of snakes living in the walls of their Idaho house.
Either that, or I will cancel my plans to move to Idaho.
©2023 Jim Hagarty
