Nothing compares to the thrill of moving into your dream house. The joy you feel when you walk around the place trying to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the beautiful surroundings — it knows no bounds. It’s also quite fun to find the little things left behind by previous homeowners, whether by accident or on purpose... Unless they look anything but ordinary and make you feel like you're living in a scene of an old horror movie.
See, some dwellings seem to be treasure troves of the weird, the creepy, and the bizarre. In a couple of 'Ask Reddit' threads, users have opened up about the creepiest and scariest things they’ve ever found in seemingly ordinary houses, either their own or someone else’s.
From eerie-looking porcelain dolls to spine-chilling photographs and even embalmed animal fetuses, these stories really make you wonder about the darker side of life. We’ve wrapped up a terrifyingly uneasy collection of responses for you to read through right below. So continue scrolling, but proceed with caution! Some of them are bound to make you feel chilly. Keep reading to also find our in-depth interview about our fascination with mysterious things with psychologist Joshua Klapow, Ph.D. Be sure to upvote your favorite entries and share your own similar experiences with us in the comments.
Psst! If you’re keen on witnessing a whole new level of creepy, check out our earlier post about the scariest things that happened in someone else’s home right here.
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I'm not sure it's creepy, but definitely startling. We bought a new house and shortly after we moved in we heard a strange noise downstairs. I went to investigate and it was coming from a little old door where a coal stove used to be installed. Nervously, I opened the door and a small bird flew out. After getting him back to the outdoors, I reached back in the hole behind the door and discovered bird and squirrel skeletons. How the previous owners did not smell it, I have no idea. Apparently, the little guys would fall down the chimney and get stuck with no way to return. We installed a chimney cap after this discovery. No more animal deaths on my watch.
my old house had a big chimney and fireplace and mantle. but before we had moved in the neighbours had already replaced the fireplace for an electric heater. but we often had ducks (there was a creek nearby so there was lots of them) that would fall down into the heater, thankfully not when it was on. my dad put a big flat rock on the chimney so thankfully that never happened again
My mom bought her house 12 years ago, but last year, my brother kicked the front door down. The door had a giant metal lock on it (it didn't work, we just used the deadbolt but kept the lock on because the house was built in 1795 and looked cool), [but] the lock broke off and a bunch of little papers and cards fell out of it. Among them were CIA ID badges, business cards that had to do with cryptography, and other things that had to do with the CIA.
A few days later, I thought I would look through the house in search of more CIA stuff and stumbled upon a WWII round under one of the floorboards in the attic.
I feel there is an additional story around kicking the door down to your mother's house.
A headstone in the basement - and it had my name on it. Turns out my grandpa kept the stone of my great grandpa. We share the same name
I could see how it would be creepy to find a headstone in a house, but this case is different. I'm sure there's a heartfelt story behind why it was saved.
To better understand why we feel drawn to creepy things and seek out fear, from pictures to stories, we reached out to Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., a psychologist and creator of Mental Drive. He started this well-being initiative to create and curate tips, strategies, and affirmations to help people access the best-in-class psychological and performance tools to live healthier, more fulfilled, and successful lives.
According to Klapow, human beings are 100% drawn to scary, dangerous, and mysterious situations. "Now, we may feel fearful, but it is an 'approach/avoidance' experience. This is a very primal, survival mechanism. By being drawn towards danger and uncertainty, but also feeling scared or anxious or hesitant, we are able to 'see' and learn what might harm us."
"It is the same reason we stop to look at traffic accidents, or feel like we want to peer over a cliff but also feel scared. This is our evolution helping us to learn what not to do in a way that allows us to survive," Klapow told Bored Panda.
When my husband and I were house hunting, we stopped by one house that was actually quite nice. While we were checking out the basement, my husband noticed a narrow hallway. Thinking that some mechanical stuff might be down there we followed the tiny passageway. At the end was a bunker like room, with a single lightbulb on a string and giant Children’s drawings on the wall.
We did not make an offer.
This actually happened last night.
I woke up and saw my dog scratching himself on the floor next to my bed. I called his name and told him to get on the bed, but he just sat there scratching. I called out to him again and again, however he just sat there scratching his head furiously. I used a sterner voice, hoping to get his attention. Suddenly my dog walked out from under the bed and sat in front of the Scratching Dog. He was completely oblivious to his doppelganger. I just laid there frozen, staring at my dog and what could only be explained as the creature from The Thing. What felt like minutes pass and then, suddenly, the Scratching Dog just f*****g vanishes.
That's when I remembered all the caffeine I drank in the evening and how it triggers my sleep related hallucinations. I called to my (hopefully) real dog and he hopped up on the bed and laid next to me. I struggled to fall back asleep, thankful I didn't have a full-blown episode of sleep paralysis.
I bought a very old house. The prior owner was born in and died in the house at age 97. He had been in bad health and rather senile before he died so my house was in bad shape and very dirty. One day I was in the small, strange, poorly lit shelf basement cleaning up. I was in a dark corner looking at some stuff and trying to decide what to do with it when I glanced up and saw a brown curved thing hanging from the joists. It was about 4 feet by 4 feet and a foot thick or more. My first thought was that it was a pod like in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” I got a flashlight and and took a close look and realized it was much worse. . . . it was the biggest wasp nest I had or have ever seen. I ran out and tried to figure out what to do. After some thought I realized I had not seen wasps in the basement or the house so it was most likely empty. So l cautiously and carefully removed it with as little destruction as possible. The outside was a beautiful, fragile paper like structure with a marbeled patten. I was able to save a piece that was about 12 x 18 x 10. I still have it hanging in my studio.
It turns out we are hardwired to notice the mysterious side of life. And we also feel a sense of fascination when it comes to frightening stories. We are captivated by the genre and devour these tales because they provide us with a physical and emotional release — we feel the thrill while staying in the comfort of our homes, in a completely safe environment. This way, we get the flood of adrenaline pumping through our veins, but our brains know these threats are not real.
I used to do social service at a hospital here in Mexico as part of my computer science degree requirements. Most of the time we were doing little tasks like cleaning computers or checking the internet, the boring jobs the actual workers didn't want to do. One day the manager wants us to change the cables located at the basement so me and two other students went down the basement with ladders to remove and replace all the old ethernet cable. Now the thing about hospitals in Mexico is that as long as the infrastructure works its the same decade after decade, no renovations and it shows. The basement while well lit and clean was really old. So we were assigned a different hall and started with the job. About 2 hours into it one of the students came running looking mortified and asked me what's wrong. I just looked confused and asked him what he meant and he said he heard a man yelling for help and though I had had an accident. We checked with the other student and she said that she didn't heard anything. We just finished the job and later we told the manager. He just said "Oh you met the basement ghost".
My stepbrother had a basement that was full of gigantic spiders. And I mean huge spiders of all kinds. Wolf spiders near the floor, black widows in the corners, and giant spindly ones near the ceiling. It’s terrifying.
my wife's parents basement
at the foot of the stairs was a pool table.
my wife (was my girlfriend at the time) and I went down to shoot some pool. as we got to the bottom step we saw 3 pool balls rolling around on the table. no one else was down there.
Moreover, we pursue and enjoy these stories because they allow us to realize our own chilling experiences aren’t isolated cases. "Scary stories are a means to convey danger in the safety of conversation. By expressing the danger and then collectively reacting to it, we feel part of a group," Klapow told us.
"There is a mechanism of support by experiencing it with others," the psychologist added. "Danger and fear are much more intense when we are alone. By expressing and receiving the scary content as a group, we feel more connected, thus safer and more willing to express the scary information and more tolerant of receiving it."
When I was about 8, my parents left a bag of potatoes in one of our basement closets (one with the sump pump and water equipment, so it was humid) for several months. Everybody forgot about it until my younger brother randomly opened the door one day and freaked out, thinking it was some kind of alien creature. The potatoes had grown into a tentacle-like mass in the months they were forgotten.
When I was younger, we had a family friend who collected ancient Chinese artifacts / antiques. They had a room in their finished basement where they kept all of the items on display. Their prized possession was some sort of gold burial shroud from a king or emperor (supposedly). That room was always colder and creeper than the rest of the basement. You always felt like someone was behind you, a little too close. Watching you from the corners. I always thought I saw shadow figures just at the edge of my peripheral vision.
Oh yeah that’s what you get for pissing off a very old ghost and taking it stuff
My friends and I broke into an abandoned "haunted house" when we were kids. It was in typical abandoned haunted house condition, some old furnature and other household junk. When we went down to the basement there was no light bulbs, so there was only natural daylight from the small windows - dark, but we could still see around. We didn't search very long because a piano that we couldn't see started playing. We ran out of the house, and though I didn't see it, a couple friends saw someone in the upstairs window as we ran back into the woods.
As I typed this out for the first time ever, I'm wondering if the house wasn't even abandoned and someone living there decided to f**k with us instead of getting mad. Regardless I was spooked for days.
Scientists have long been interested in why people pursue and enjoy fear. Sociologist and author Dr. Margee Kerr told the Atlantic that certain people like feeling afraid because of the natural high from the fight-or-flight response. Humans evolved this reaction to scary situations because our ancestors would not have survived without it. When they sensed fear, hormones that make people faster and stronger hit their bodies, ensuring they have an opportunity to survive and pass on genes to future generations.
"One of the main hormones released during scary and thrilling activities is dopamine, and it turns out some individuals may get more of a kick from this dopamine response than others do," Dr. Kerr added.
Another reason stems from the fact that when people survive scary situations, they feel a sense of confidence after it’s over. "Think about the last time you made it through a scary movie, or through a haunted house. You might have thought, Yes! I did it! I made it all the way through! So it can be a real self-esteem boost," Dr. Kerr said. "But again, self-scaring isn’t for everyone, and there are lots of psychological and personal reasons someone may not enjoy scary situations."
This doll no one knows who it belongs to. It’s a porcelain doll, with a red dress on it. No one knows where it came from, or where it’s been. It’s just around. And continues to pop around the house and people claim someone is putting the doll places, but nah. No one wants to touch that creepy thing.
Go home with this girl and she's showing me around her place. On a shelf she shows off her large collection of jars with embalmed animal fetuses - mainly monkeys
She worked in a staff canteen and had no university degree in an associated field. I still have no idea why she had them or where she got them from. Frankly, I was too scared to ask
My parents bought a home that used to be a funeral parlor almost 100 years ago. Dad had never questioned why there was a second bulkhead that went nowhere and when there was a bust pipe they finally had to cut it open
Inside we found a small walled off room that had hundreds of old bottles, odd equipment, chemicals/perfumed salts, stained glass windows from the original building and a few old ledgers + accounting books. Parents had no use for it and a local antique shop owner/town historian happily took it when offered.
We had received some cool old copies of photos of how the house originally looked a few years later
Is it weird that I would have just kept that stuff? I love old bottles!
Psychologist Klapow pointed out that when we stumble across something "creepy" or scary in our own or someone else’s home, it’s the discovery itself that mainly drives the fear. "Then linking the scary or creepy object to either the person we know (if it is in their home), or to ourselves (if it’s in our home), creates a stronger fear and sense of danger."
"It’s one thing to discover something creepy or dangerous outside of our dwelling or a dwelling of someone we know. But if it’s inside, then the danger and creepiness become much more real," he added.
I got called out on a job to clean out a hoarders house. The basement looked like it was an insane asylum that a serial killer moved into. Animal skins hanging from the ceiling, old style sewing machines, newspapers covering up windows and clippings of certain people, glass jars filled with...something, stacks of wet mattresses, old style bed frames,few rats, mold.
It's actually quite harmless but: My Grandma shared a place with my Uncle's family (they basically built a house with a small flat integrated on one side of the house, the basement was connected). Me, being like 5 years old, trying to find my cousin's TV room (we always played N64 back then) open the wrong door - it's really dark and all I see is like a pyramid of dolls. My Grandma's puppet collection.
I never noped out of a room that quickly.
I found my old 3DS I completely forgot I owned, I was excited to go through games and stuff, I noticed I had some photos on it and thought it would be a cool blast from the past.
I've never felt so unsafe when I saw the selfies of this girl I've never met before in my life and me asleep next to her.
As disturbing objects found around the house can change our sense of safety in the environment, Klapow offered several suggestions on how to handle these situations emotionally. According to him, key factors to consider are perspective and reality testing.
"When we find ourselves in a state of fear, or anxiousness or even uncertainty, it’s easy for our thoughts to be driven to a very irrational place. Our emotions can literally influence our ability to think rationally."
"So, if we are feeling scared or creeped out, it’s important to engage in self-talk. To tell ourselves, 'This is scary or creepy, but what is the explanation for it?' or 'This makes me feel uncomfortable or fearful, but what impact will it really have?' Self-talk and reality grounding will help you experience the creepy situation and still stay within rational control," Klapow concluded.
Not a basement, but under a "plantation style" house in Hawaii. Helping someone get ready to sell a home, bunch of old tools were being left under the house, but owners wanted to make sure nothing valuable was being left behind. Two big lumps of dirt, each about the size of a human body, side by side. I informed the owners and they were like,"oh, never mind about those..."
Years ago when my familly moved home, we had to clean the basement (the access was outside the building and the door was old and a bit broken)
First, the smell was just disgusting. After cleaning for a few hours, we eventually found dead cats, litterally rotten and full of worms. Like they came there to die during winter coz it was a bit warmer than outside, or something ...
Scary is not the word to define the feeling, but that was definitly unexpected.
A pickle jar full of brine with a Barbie floating inside
Sister and I went downstairs to try and find my softball bag so we could play catch in the backyard. I bent down to lift up a blanket and there were hundreds of baby spiders crawling on the underside of the blacket
CUE THE AAAAAAH I NEED A FLAMETHROWER (no long AAAAs this time. My throat hurts from the last spider that appeared.)
Cave crickets. They jump at you and have no mercy. I've never felt more like a wimp than when I screamed at a cricket. My aunt lived with my family briefly when I was 13 and we once spent 30 minutes fighting one off. It was awful.
we have similar ones in south africa called parktown prawns. Except they're red.
My buddies old house was haunted and we would always hear foot steps, freaking floors, see a black figure around the house.(I didn't) One night we are all over and my friend who lives in the house dares someone to go into the basement. Me being the only one who didn't see s**t. Was fully willing to go to the basement. I got down there and waited for about 2 min. Then when I'm about to get out of the basement and see a shadow in the corner of my left eye. I snap to my left and see a large dark figure. Like not black. It seemed devoid of anything or any presence other then the cold that came over my body. As soon as i saw it my hairs jumped to a stand on my neck And froze. Just.... staring at it. The feeling was surreal. I can't put it into words at all. Then the feeling took a steep feeling into bloodlust. The way I feel it is that my heart pumps super fast and my body goes really warm. And everything just screams danger in my head. So I turn to my right and run towards the stairs. I look for half a second back at it for me to only see it just feet away. That's when everything in my body went wild and I just jumped up the stairs and ran for it up to the first floor where everyone is. Where I drop behind the arm chair staring at the stairs. While everyone's asking me what's wrong. Then finally everyone looks as I point to see the thing on the stairs towards the basement and we booked it towards the balcony with a siding door. We got out and we jumped over it landing Into his back yard. We looked up expecting to see if standing there but nothing.... nothing was there.
Sometimes darkness messes with people’s sensory nerves, so this is kind of normal. But creepy.
Not my story, but my mom was playing with her sister and decided to scare her. They had big rubber insects, my mom had a grasshopper and my aunt had a fly, but my mom could not remember what her sister had. So when she saw a giant spider, like paper plate sized, she went to grab it, but it's leg moved,so of course my mom and my aunt freaked out.
When I was first learning to drive, I was always worried about running over animals and things. It was a rural area, and I'd sort of drive constantly on alert of my surroundings. One night, I could see an animal run out onto the road in front of me, so I started slowing down to let it pass. When I got a little closer, I could see it was a tarantula skittling along as best it could. It was so unexpected I just burst out laughing. I didn't know they could get big enough to spot from that far away with nothing but headlights. Godspeed, little buddy. Er, big buddy. Sir.
Dude had a human skull just chillin in a china cabiney in his basement. I always got real bad vibes from his place.
Human skulls were listed on Ebay as recently as 2016. One guy bought so many bones (animal and otherwise) on Ebay that he started a museum with them: https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/museum.
I was at my grandparents house and I walked down to their basement work studio to find my grandpa (papa) I turn the corner and papa was hacking a taxidermied squirrel in half. My child mind though it was a real squirrel and went and told my grandma and papa got in trouble.
True fact: if you desecrate squirrel remains, the ghost of the squirrel returns and asphyxiates you by stuffing acorns down your throat as you sleep
I think I saw a weird looking figure in my friends basement . It was wearing something old fashioned , and has no face at all . When I turned on the lights , it's just a mannequin . But it did scared me and my friend
That reminds me of that doctor who episode! The one with Christopher Eccleston (9th doctor). It was called 'Rose' and it was the first 9th series episode. Basically, the mannequins came to life
This happened a few years ago.
Back Story:
The house I live in and grew up in was built back in early 1900's. It's still a nice house, and we've renovated it over the years and I doubt we would ever sell the home, since the lot size is huge compared to newer homes on the market in my city.
A few years ago, my mom got a settlement payout from an accident which resulted in her breaking her leg. She won a good amount of money from the case, and she and my father decided to put most of that money into renovating the house. We started by renovating the upstairs bathroom, and converting the tub into a standing shower, replacing the lights for LED lights for energy savings, ect.
After the upstairs bathroom was renovated, my parents decided to put a bathroom downstairs (where I currently reside) so that I can have my own space, since I live on disability and my parents are getting older, so helping them out with certain things is needed sometimes.
Well when they started Demo on the laundry room (now the bath/laundry room) They took down a wall and behind it was a set of CHILD SIZED CRUTCHES. I'm not even s******g you. They were very old, wooden, and they looked to be from the 1930's or 1940's. The demo team brought them up to my father to look at. My father had no clue who used those crutches prior.
I instantly got the chills when I saw them, because they were for a 6-8 year old child. I remember them sitting there for a few days till I told my father to either trash them, or toss them into the fire pit because they creeped me out so much.
A lot of children used to get polio and end up needing crutches permanently unfortunately that is likely the case. Though hopefully it was just a temporary break they used those for instead
My great aunt's basement is terrifying. The ceilings are low and it has a dirt floor. Her daughters painted Elmo on the wall and made hand prints in red paint back in the 70s, and it's all chipped and peeling now like something out of a horror movie.
One time when I slept over night there, I went into the basement to scare myself. I got this really bad vibe--like a stomach churning, skin crawling feeling that I had to get out. I ran upstairs and hid in bed.
Note: this post originally had 41 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Not my story, but one I heard from my Terminix guy. He had a trainee that he was taking to this apartment that was infested with roaches. They noticed some roaches running into a light fixture on the ceiling, so my guy tells the trainee to remove the fixture. Well he pulls it down and it starts raining roaches. The trainee quit his job on the spot. I would too.
After burying a few bodies in the basement, Fred and Rose West turned it into a bedroom for the children.
I was cleaning the place I just moved into today, I thought I saw a bright pink scrunchie or headband in one of the vents (how it got there, I have no idea) I pulled it out and was momentarily distracted by the dead moth that came with it. Then I realized it wasn't a scrunchie or a head band . . . It was a thong. A dirty thong.
Oh and I was cleaning the place because the previous tenant had left bags of garbage in the basement and I had sprayed the entire place with raid a couple of days before. Also flies have three things in common with babies, they eat, sleep, and poop! Unfortunately flies do it wherever they please, on walls, counters, windows, etc. . .
Load More Replies... Not my story, but one I heard from my Terminix guy. He had a trainee that he was taking to this apartment that was infested with roaches. They noticed some roaches running into a light fixture on the ceiling, so my guy tells the trainee to remove the fixture. Well he pulls it down and it starts raining roaches. The trainee quit his job on the spot. I would too.
After burying a few bodies in the basement, Fred and Rose West turned it into a bedroom for the children.
I was cleaning the place I just moved into today, I thought I saw a bright pink scrunchie or headband in one of the vents (how it got there, I have no idea) I pulled it out and was momentarily distracted by the dead moth that came with it. Then I realized it wasn't a scrunchie or a head band . . . It was a thong. A dirty thong.
Oh and I was cleaning the place because the previous tenant had left bags of garbage in the basement and I had sprayed the entire place with raid a couple of days before. Also flies have three things in common with babies, they eat, sleep, and poop! Unfortunately flies do it wherever they please, on walls, counters, windows, etc. . .
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