The Scariest Things Discovered Inside Walls

Home improvement projects can be a nightmare, especially when they involve tearing down walls. Costs can pile up and there are often unexpected problems that make the project take way longer than it should. In some cases, however, the problems that take things off track are truly disturbing. Take a look at the 10 scariest things discovered inside walls that terrified homeowners.

10. Discovered Inside Walls – Hidden Cameras

In an age where just about everyone is carrying a camera in their pocket, many of us have gotten used to the fact that we could be filmed at any time. However, we usually feel like we’re free from prying eyes in the privacy of our own homes. Unfortunately, that was not the case for one Australian couple who encountered one of the scariest things discovered inside walls.

The couple were renting a home in Sydney when they came across a post on the internet claiming that their landlord had been known to secretly record his tenants. The couple decided to investigate, and ended up finding several cameras in the walls of the home. They eventually discovered that the landlord regularly watched the feeds of their most private moments from a nearby shed. He was promptly arrested and pled guilty.

9. Undergarments

Most of us prefer to keep our dirty laundry private. However, it seems as if that wasn’t always the case. In Western Europe, it is not at all unusual for unsuspecting homeowners to come across dirty undergarments hidden inside of their home’s walls. In fact, it is so common that most people who make these discoveries don’t even bother reporting the incidents to authorities.

It is believed that at one time, during the Middle Ages, hiding dirty underwear inside the walls of one’s home provided a level of protection on a superstitious level. While this is a likely explanation for these bizarre discoveries, it doesn’t make the discovery of centuries-old laundry any less disturbing.

8. Discovered Inside Walls – An Arsenal of Weapons

People will go to some strange lengths to protect their homes from both real and imagined threats. This desire has led to one of the scariest things discovered inside walls: weapons.

One man who was renovating a new home was excited to discover a hidden room behind a staircase. When he investigated the room, he was shocked at what he found. The room was filled with guns, ammunition, and even grenades. Other evidence in the room, such as a stash of old pennies, suggests that a former owner believed the collapse of the US government was imminent, so it seems that he prepared an arsenal in anticipation of the event. The room also contained a safe, but the man was unable to open it.

Another home-improvement project revealed an even scarier weapon: a live Korean missile. The woman who found it immediately called the police, who sent a bomb squad to safely detonate the missile. The former owner of the home was a Korean War veteran, so the missile was likely brought home as a souvenir of sorts.

7. Thousands of Shoes

Much like the dirty undergarments that are often found in walls, shoes also used to be placed inside of walls of one’s home to ward off evil. Usually, this was done to rid the family of some sort of curse that had been plaguing them.

However, one particular incident of interred shoes stands out as particularly frightening. In 2010, a castle in Korschenbroich, Germany was being restored when workers came across a massive collection of shoes hidden inside the walls. The sheer number of men’s, women’s, and children’s shoes makes it unlikely that this particular collection was the result of an attempt at ritual protection. No one has been able to determine the story behind this bizarre discovery.

6. Discovered Inside Walls – Creepy Crawly Critters

Although we like to believe that the walls of our homes protect us from the things outside, animals and insects are often among the scariest things discovered inside walls. For example, a couple who moved into a new home in Idaho, USA discovered a den of venomous snakes living inside the walls of the home.

Another family in St. Louis was forced to abandon their new home when thousands of venomous brown recluse spiders began pouring from the walls. They were horrified to discover that the infestation was the very reason the home had gone up for sale.

Another man in Colorado was ready to call an exorcist when a strange substance began oozing from his walls. Although the cause was not demonic, it was just as frightening; a hive of 60,000 bees had taken up residence.

5. Toxic Waste

In an age of industry, one problem that many manufacturers face is how to dispose of the waste produced by their factories. For one Colorado man, this sticky problem became one of the scariest things discovered inside walls.

The man was renovating a building that he owned when he decided to knock down a wall. Much to his horror, the wall was hiding 800 barrels of toxic waste. The material inside of the barrels was extremely dangerous, and extended contact with it can lead to cancer and other health problems. Because he had worked in the building for a while, this man is now at risk.

Evidently, the former owner of the building operated a tar product business in the building and had gotten into legal trouble for improperly disposing of dangerous materials. It seems that his later disposal methods were no less dangerous.

4. Witch’s Bottles

It is well-known that in times long past, it was a common practice for homeowners to store an item known as a “witch’s bottle” in the walls of their home. For a long time, the exact makeup of these bottles was unknown. Typically, the bottles that are found are broken and the contents are damaged are destroyed.

However, in 2004 a couple renovating a home in Greenwich, England made an exciting, yet frightening, discovery: a fully intact witch’s bottle. Inside of the bottle, they found the urine, hair, and fingernail clippings of the individual who placed the bottle there along with nails, brimstone, and a scrap of leather shaped like a heart and pierced with a pin.

According to folklore, the purpose of a witch’s bottle was to direct bad energy at the bottle instead of to the inhabitant of the home. By finding and opening the bottle, it raises the possibility that the curses contained inside may have been unleashed on the unsuspecting homeowners.

3. Human Remains

We often hear of “skeletons in the closet,” but what about skeletons in the walls? In July 2009, contractors were preparing to renovate an old chapel at Harvard University when they made a surprising discovery: human bones hidden inside of the walls. This particular building was once used for anatomy classes, so it is likely that the bones were used for teaching purposes. However, this does not explain why someone made the deliberate choice to hide the bones inside of a wall.

Additionally, in a home that a journalist was researching, an even more shocking discovery was made: the petrified head of King Henry IV of France. This horrifying discovery has yet to be explained. The home belonged to a retired tax accountant, so no one has been able to come up with a logical reason for the head’s presence inside the house’s walls.

2. Secret Corridors

Many of us scoured our homes when we were children hoping to find some sort of secret passageway that would lead us to a hidden room or perhaps a cache of treasure. When a family in South Carolina came across their very own secret corridor, they felt the same way. Unfortunately, they were about to realize they had actually found one of the scariest things discovered inside walls.

The entrance to the corridor had been blocked by an old bookcase. The family moved the bookcase during renovations and uncovered the corridor. The excitement of the discovery was short-lived, however. The tunnel did lead to a secret room; Instead of a buried treasure, the family found a note informing them that the corridor had been blocked off because the walls were filled with deadly black mold. The previous residents had become sick because of the mold and abandoned the house. Unfortunately, these new owners suffered the same fate and were forced to leave their new home.

1. An Old Ouija Board

If folklore and movies have taught us anything, it is that it is unwise to meddle with demons. Someone who apparently ignored this sage advice ended up creating one of the scariest things discovered inside walls.

In 2016, an unnamed man in an unnamed location decided to do some construction work on his home. When the contractor began tearing up a wall, he came across something truly eerie: a 100-year-old Ouija board.

Ouija boards are typically used to contact spirits and sometimes even demons. Many see the boards as a harmless toy, but others have had truly terrifying experiences with them. It seems probable that the user of this particular board was among the latter group, given that they deemed it necessary to seal this board inside of a wall.

The man who found the Ouija board took to the internet to share his find. Other users advised the man to hide the board again, fearful of whatever terrified the original owner enough to go to such extreme lengths to be rid of it. The man instead stated that he was going to conduct a further search in hopes of finding the board’s accompanying planchette. He never provided an update, so his fate is unknown.