Why was it boarded up?

“My dad’s cousin and her husband bought an old Victorian house about 15 years ago with plans to renovate it, restore it, and sell it. They’d been living in it for about a month when they were outside just staring and having that “I can’t believe what we got ourselves into” feeing when they noticed something weird.

On the second floor they recognized their bedroom window, and their daughter’ bedroom window by the curtains they had hung, but there was a window in between. So they went back into the house and walked down the hallway, and as expected, they saw their bedroom door, and down the hall was their daughter’s bedroom door, nothing in between.

They went back outside and threw a ladder up to the mystery window and opened it from the outside. On the other side of the window was another bedroom, filled with fur coats, artwork, jewelry, and other misc possessions. There was also a regular bedroom door, so they opened it and realized that the door had been boarded and plastered over from the outside, so you wouldn’t even know it was there walking down the hallway.

Their daughter was around my age and I used to see her wearing the fur coats to school every once in a while.” — [deleted]

Wonder what this secret tunnel was used for

I used to rent the garage apartment behind this massive 20,000 square foot house that had formerly been an Archdiocese. Place looked like a museum.

Tornado season came around and there was a massive storm so I had to take shelter in the basement beneath the garage. In the basement there’s some old paintings boarded up like they came from the warehouse in Indiana Jones, and all this massive machinery since I guess plumbing and electric for such a large structure is a little different than your average one-bedroom.

I don’t have service and there’s not a lot to do down there so I explore and find this square red metal hatch set about waist high in a concrete wall. Open it up and there’s a tunnel with pipes and lights running down the whole length. I couldn’t explore it then because I didn’t have lights or anything, but I came back later with a flashlight and crawled my way down, eventually reaching a spot where it dropped down to a level where I had to army crawl to the end of the tunnel where I slipped out.

Looked around and saw a bunch of christmas decorations and random junk and realized the tunnel led from the garage to the main house and I was now in their basement. Quickly went back the way I came since I’m sure the rich folks wouldn’t be pleased to find their random Mexican tenant exploring their home.

Pictures of the Hales Mansion.” — piusbovis

70s dream house

“I work in real estate and was visiting a large block of land that a developer was going to develop 40 townhomes on. We’re walking around chatting about what will go where etc, and I ask him if he’s demolishing the house on the front corner of the lot. He then got super excited and took us up to visit it. We walk in, first thing we see is shaggy yellow carpet not only in EVERY room of the house, but also on the walls and the ceiling. We walk around the kitchen, with a bar and pool table in the centre of it, and then see an old 1960’s looking fridge in the dining room. Didn’t think anything of it, considering how weird the place was already. But the developer opened the fridge door AND IT WAS A SECRET STAIRCASE GOING DOWN TO AN UNDERGROUND BASEMENT. The basement had the craziest sound system and disco balls and a motherfkn stage. There was a large canvas painting down there too and the developer took it off the wall and there was an escape tunnel out to the back of the block. Apparently the past owner was a super successful lawyer back in the 1970s who took on a lot of drug cases.” — cwanalisica

Just like Coraline

“There was a teeny Coraline-like door in my bedroom closet that was hidden when the regular door was opened and against the wall. It led to a finished attic room that I’d hide in to scare my parents.

I didn’t mention the rooms existence until we had lived there for a couple years and then they stole it for storage space.” — [deleted]

It was all red

“We found a secret “room” in my aunt’s house, behind the kitchen cabinets when they were being swapped out. It was this walled off area between the unexpectedly wide chimney and the outside wall. Big enough for maybe 3 adults to stand in somewhat uncomfortably.

The weirdest part is that it was all painted red. Floor, ceiling, walls. Everything.” — [deleted]

This sounds like Hogwarts

“After a decade of working for a poorly managed embroidery company, my mother offered to buy out the owners and take over. They said no, so she quit and opened up her own shop in a smallish mall in our town. The building was pretty old over the years had seen busineses and owners come and go.

Each store had a small door at the back that had access to a service corridor. It didn’t get much use since it only really gave access to the plumbing and electrical, but those of us kids whose parents owned and operated shops would play in it frequently. We thought we were pretty clever being able to randomly appear at different parts of the mall like magic.

One day, we came across a panel that looked like it didn’t quite fit right. We pushed on it, and found a small room that had apparently been used as storage, but had been sealed off for no reason. We showed our parents, and the landlord. The landlord was cool enough to have it cleaned up – put a sofa, a small refrigerator and a TV in it. It became the de facto kid hangout for those of us in the mall.” — ViperThreat

This sounds so cool

“The landing on the staircase going upstairs was hinged. If you opened it you could drop into the area below the staircase.

From there you could open a door in the wall which leads down into the basement.

In theory you could act as if you were going upstairs from the main floor and go though the above, get into the basement and escape the house from the basement door.” — PaperPhoneBox

An old church

“About 18 months ago my dad purchased a house that was a church in a past life. At some point the church closed and the pastor continued living there for several years as he remodeled the church into a house which eventually bankrupted him and ended with the home going into foreclosure. Almost every room in the house on the main floor has an exterior door, and there are a couple different staircases that lead to the basement. Several months after purchasing the house while going up the stairs from the basement into the attached garage my dad noticed a weird carpeted shelf off to the side of the stairs. Looking more closely he realized there was a handle, which when lifted up revealed a hidden door that goes to another small staircase down. Once down the hidden stairs he realized there was a hidden 8 foot by 10 foot secret room with all concrete/brick walls. The room is nearly soundproof and you really wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking very closely. He jokes that he is going to use it as a storage space for all of his food, water, and weapons for the apocalypse.

Makes me wonder what the church used the room for though…” — Npakaderm

Soundproofed secret rooms are creepy

“I moved into a house with my friend – was an old Victorian house complete with a basement. (Am in the UK)

Went down to put some furniture there and checked it out – 2 carpeted rooms with old junk in it and then some bricks on the floor from the wall. Look at the wall and theres a hole in there, just big enough for me to fit through at a squeeze, dirt slope down into a huge high ceiling room, complete with a shelf with a sleeping bag and duvet on. The room had been soundproofed, had electricity and water in it, with a huge closed off fireplace (floor to ceiling) in it. Only way in and out of the room was the hole I crawled through.

Didn’t freak me out too much, figured I was underneath next doors house – but the duvet bothered me! Lived there for a year with no problems though!” — Gremalem

The thing of nightmares

“When I was in highschool my dad purchased this old Victorian that he intended to flip. Before he got around to working on it, he’d let me hang out there with friends. It seemed pretty cool until the first (and only) night we decided to spend the night. We set up an old tv, DVD player, and basically made the whole empty living room a big lounge/sleeping area with beanbags and blankets. It was getting pretty late when we started to hear noises coming from upstairs. It sounded like scratching and rustling… nothing too freaky, probably mice or something. Well, anyways, one of the guys that was over decided we should go investigate. We head up the stairs and used our phones for light as none of the fixtures upstairs had light bulbs. We’re walking through the hall, getting closer and closer to the noise. We get to the huge built-in bookshelf at the end of the hall and the noise somehow seems to be coming from behind it. My friend starts knocking on the wall around it to see if it stirs up anymore noise (we’re still assuming some kind of animal or something). He starts monkeying with the shelf and he manages to pull the entire thing towards us and it ends up being a freakin’ door to a hidden room! Of course we were giddy, cause this is some shit you only read about or see in movies. We shine our phones into the room and it’s straight out of a horror film. Filth everywhere, super old looking kids toys, spider webs up the ying yang and the creepiest part of all, super deep scratches on the back of the bookshelf from fingernails. You could even see the dirty handprints that went along with them. It was the thing of nightmares and we got the hell out of there quick. Definitely one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.” — SmugUgly

An old military room

“I went to a Military School in New Mexico that had been around for a really long time. The place looks like an old fort. Anyway, senior year we are messing around in the Sally Port — wrestling, shoving, whatever—just being idiots. One of us slams into a green door and it popped open. In the fours years I had been there, I had never really thought about those doors, nor had I seen anyone use them. The door opened to a spiral, metal staircase that went down into the darkness. Cobwebs abound. Long story short, it was a creepy, musty, old storage area. I don’t remember if the catacombs went the whole perimeter of the barracks or what, but I know we explored pretty fully—found some old furniture, some clothing / bedding, and some other dated items, most likely just things various cadets had left behind in their room. I think I took an expired fire extinguisher that was in some forgotten corner of the area.” — kjob

Urban exploring

“I used to live in downtown Greenville, TX in the 1990s. Greenville used to be a thriving cotton town in the 1950s, but the population has declined and downtown is mostly abandoned. My friends and I used to explore the abandoned buildings for fun before “urban exploring” became a thing.

Anyway, there was a multi-story building that used to have a Mexican restaurant downstairs in the 1970s, but it had been abandoned since then. The bottom of that building was locked up tight, but we were able to gain access to the roof from an neighboring building, and finally got inside that building that way.

Inside were some old offices, nothing much of interest there, but then I noticed a crack in the wall behind some peeling wallpaper. There was a door-sized sliding panel that had been papered over decades before. Behind it was an apartment that would have been used as housing by the people who owned the business downstairs, and it was largely untouched – I found newspapers from the 1940s and the last one was dated 1947.” — [deleted]

Trap door

“My husband and I bought a 100+ year old farm house. It needed to be refurbished. It was the biggest undertaking that I’ve ever done. We peeled up the carpet to find asbestos tile. JOY! Then we peeled up the tile to find laminate! WOOT! Then we peeled up the laminate to find WOOD FLOORS! Holy shit! And not just a wood floor, a fucking trap door in the kitchen! I thought that was super freaking cool. It was extremely water damaged having been right next to the kitchen sink. But we pried that sucker open to find…. the coal room. There’s still coal down there. A few tons of it. I don’t know why that hatch was there. There’s no stairway leading down but we found a tiny door in the basement behind a cabinet and it also leads to the coal room. I assume back in the day they burnt coal.

Eventually we plan to make it into cold storage with a stairway and I’ll just be able to walk down from the hatch I rebuilt all by myself.” — thechairinfront

Priest’s tunnel

“I clean nice houses for a living and one day was in the home of a priest. He was moving out due to retirement, so his house was empty. I was just there to vacuum all the rugs. Anyway, I’m in his bedroom vacuuming and I open his closet door to get the rug in there. Since all of his clothing was gone, I noticed a small door (probably 3 ft x 3 ft) on the back wall of his closet. It had a lock on the outside so needless to say I immediately try to unlock it. It was a slide lock so it took me a minute to undo it. Finally I did, and I inched the door open a bit. I look around the corner to see what is behind this door…. it was some sort of insulated tunnel which led downward….just very large blackness with a bit of weird pink melted insulation stuff around the corners. I shut the door and locked it after only a few seconds because I thought it was super weird…The retired priest has since been replaced, so I continue to clean this home bi-weekly. I’ll have to look at it again and get a photo.” — Upwiththekites

Panic rooms

“I used to rent a house that had a fake electrical panel in the basement. Behind the panel was steel door that led to a panic room of sorts, built into a hill. The room also had a toilet and shower, along with a shop sink. There were fans that blew fresh air into the room from pipes leading outside. There was a huge 3d topographic map of the surrounding area on one wall. All of the electrical for the room was powered directly from the solar panels on the roof. The panic room had a secret panel of its own in one wall that led to a tunnel (culvert) lined with ribbon lights. The tunnel led to a false floor in the garage, so you could make your escape. The guy who built the house was a Y2K nut.” — buttsniffingmonkey

High school hideout

“My old high school was built in the 1800s. It is a very beautiful building that is 4 stories tall. There are lots of stairs throughout the building and near one corner of the building are stairs that no one ever uses (very far from all classrooms). During my senior year my buddy and I were wasting time just wandering the hallways and we got to these seldom used stairs. We were on the bottom floor and noticed there were stairs leading down to another level below. We followed those stairs, and noticed they lead to a door which was cracked open. We went inside the door, and it lead to a large room filled with cubicles and dozens of employees on computers. The weird thing was, none of these employees were school staff (we were seniors, we’d seen everyone for 4 years). We were confused and we left. We tried to return a few times later but the door leading to the room was always locked. This was in 2006, and I still wonder who the hell all those people were…” — JefferyGoldberg

Bunker

“I have a beach house in Rhode Island. There is an old World War II bunker right next to the beach and all the main entrances are blocked off. There is also a decoy house a few hundred yards away. It was a ment to look like an old weathered house but was more like two pill boxes stacked up. Inside the decoy houses basement there was a hole with a later going down it into tunnels that lead to the bunker. There are also many more tunnels that go for miles all over the coast to other bunkers and such or just come out in random places although most of them are locked. Me and my friends found them a few years back and not we still use them as hang out spots every summer it’s a great time. The bunker is huge probably around 8-10 thousand square feet all under a giant hill and it has many blocked off tunnels and paths inside. To this day it’s one of the darkest/coolest places I have ever been.” — Jonnyapplebeed

A staircase in the closet

“Did construction work and was often sent out of town for jobs. The company would cover the hotel and food. In northern California, perhaps San Leandro, there was a hotel right off the freeway. The closet had a staircase that would lead you upon to an attic to where you could see in the people’s rooms. Shady as fuck. I did not go up there. A coworker did.” — mods_are_pussies1

Inside a Subway

“I used to work at Subway (yes was I was a Sandwich Artist) in Newcastle, UK. Anyway the shop was just up from Castle Keep. Downstairs next to the freezers was this open hole of rubble, so dark you couldn’t see into it very far. I was too scared to go down and didn’t have a torch but apparently it is connected to a series of tunnels underneath the city.” — TheShanbo

It’s just a storage room

“Not really a secret secret, but we have a hidden room in our house. If you open the closet door in my office, there is another door on the back wall that leads to a room. It was going to be our spy headquarters but now it just holds boxes.” — ControlYourPoison

Servant’s quarters

“I was going to spend the night with a friend who’s mother was a real estate agent. Before we went to his place we had to go to this old Victorian house his mother was going to show the next day and she wanted to do a few things while there. My friend and I went exploring and found a secret servent’s hall way that was tucked behind the interior walls. There was only one door that led to the attic area where the servent’s quarters were at. I remember seeing where a bell assortment hung that went to each room of the house. It was long gone, but the stained glass was still there. I loved that secret room and plan on making one if I ever build a house.” — QcumberKid

Secret tunnel practice

“One of the tractor drivers in the farm whilst ploughing fell into a hole. Suddenly appeared beneath one of the tires. Turned out it was a series of tunnels dug by a Canadian tunnelling company (as in army unit) practicing here in England for the invasion of Germany. A whole network of tunnels hidden beneath us all kept secret.” — Necroporta

“Kid sized” room

“I found a room in the back of a closet at my parents’ house when I was a kid. It was essentially a kid-sized hole cut in drywall that led to a small room under the stairs leading to the basement. None of us had known it was there.

The room was all concrete, with some 2x4s stretching across the ceiling and others acting as supporting beams for the stairs (I’m assuming). Totally empty, but it was covered in graffiti from the previous owners, and that’s how I learned about curse words.” — uglyratdog

A horror movie

“I worked as an intern for the Architecture and engineering department at uni and was assigned to work on a survey to make sure that the blueprints were accurate for every building. I get through maybe 80 percent of the work and then I have to go to the Army ROTC HQ on campus to do the survey. No big deal, everything in the office was correctly represented on the blueprints, but the guy working the desk told me that there was a hallway behind the office. So he takes me back there and opens the door to a hallway full of dust, cobwebs and high windows on the right that disappear a few feet in as the building is built on a hill. Dutifully, I go forward into the darkness. I can’t remember if I didn’t have a flashlight or what, but I went in there and all I could think was that I was going to find a body or something. So I just said that the blueprints were right and got the fuck out of there. Definitely something you’d see in a horror movie.” — SVMESSEFVIFVTVRVS