# strange stuff in HO's homes



## Mrmac204 (Dec 27, 2006)

was at a small job Friday, workin in the kitchen installing some trim- about noon or so- I hear a gawd awful sound! sorta like a skinny moose! several times! its the clock on the wall! HO is laughing his head off at me! 
well it was kinda funny- next hour? some other sound, I don't know what it was, could'a been a seal? maybe a cougar? not sure. Strange stuff out there in HO land....I don't know where you'd even buy something that..... different!

Nice folks though!  fed me cookies, and tried to sign me up to buy some sorta energy drink LOL kinda why I have a coffee now and then!


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## CharlesD (Feb 12, 2007)

One day laying on my back under a sink after putting in a new countertop I heard the customer let out a shriek at the top of her lungs and scream out "No don't do that." 
I jumped out from under the sink with hammer in hand and cautiously made my way to the family room where the lady was expecting to see something I didn't want to see.
When she saw me and the look on my face she started laughing. Seems she really gets involved in her soap operas and someone was about to get murdered so she screamed.


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## mickey69125 (Dec 8, 2007)

I was putting in all new windows and new vinyl siding for an elderly lady, I think she was 87 at the time. Lived out in the country, Anyway I'm working along all around the house and she comes up to me with a small snake that was smashed to smithereens, holding it by the tail. Then proceeded to ask me if it was a rattlesnake. I looked closer and sure enough it was, and if you are all familiar with rattlesnakes you know the young ones are the worst. They don't rattle all the time and they haven't learned how to control the amount of venom they inject, so if they bite, you get the full dose. Scared the crap out of me, almost called it a day and it was only 10 in the morning. Nice little old lady though, one of those people it's a pleasure to work for.


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## macography (Jun 21, 2009)

I was jamming insulation when i heard a extremely loud scream, like a ladies voice, there were no ladies in the sight! I coulden't believe how loud it was, i was the only one on the sight, so it wasn't mechaninacal. Really screechin'!

I turned off the Power from the breaker and guess what, it was the ancient fan in the bathroom.


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## Resta (Feb 11, 2009)

I like strange stuff. These are from my last job.


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## Morning Wood (Jan 12, 2008)

What really gets me is how dirty some peoples' houses can be. It is f'ing gross at times. I feel like telling them- clean this place up and then I'll come back and work. One place, been using pantyhose over the dryer vent for 20 years or so. I almost offered to install a vent no charge.


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## strathd (Jan 12, 2009)

Resta said:


> I like strange stuff. These are from my last job.


Chair coffin. Yep thats strange.


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## neolitic (Apr 20, 2006)

strathd said:


> Chair coffin. Yep thats strange.


Fireside chair.
Keeps the draft from your back
and captures all the radiant heat
from the fire.


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## KMac (Dec 2, 2007)

The hands down strangest for me was plaster casts of the Mr. & Mrs. genitalia proudly displayed on a second floor hall table.


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## strathd (Jan 12, 2009)

neolitic said:


> Fireside chair.
> Keeps the draft from your back
> and captures all the radiant heat
> from the fire.


 Maybe so............ But that one's a Lurch size chair. :laughing:


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## strathd (Jan 12, 2009)

KMac said:


> The hands down strangest for me was plaster casts of the Mr. & Mrs. genitalia proudly displayed on a second floor hall table.


That one's gonna be hard to beat.


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## Mike(VA) (Jan 9, 2008)

Stars Hollow. Somebody was into Gilmore Girls. Musta hada crush on Rory Gilmore. :laughing:


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## CTDiesel (May 13, 2009)

Morning Wood said:


> What really gets me is how dirty some peoples' houses can be. It is f'ing gross at times. I feel like telling them- clean this place up and then I'll come back and work. One place, been using pantyhose over the dryer vent for 20 years or so. I almost offered to install a vent no charge.


Agreed. I hate bathrooms, and bedrooms sometimes. I can't stand the bathrooms because it seems like some people sit at the john and pick loose pubes while doing their duty and toss them behind. I always tell people to make sure they clean their bathrooms before I paint if I noticed it is dirty at all.


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## Resta (Feb 11, 2009)

Power flush.


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## OGStilts (Aug 30, 2007)

KMac said:


> The hands down strangest for me was plaster casts of the Mr. & Mrs. genitalia proudly displayed on a second floor hall table.


Come on, how is anyone going to top this. 

I was going to tell my story about a women who was rushing to clean up as she was showing me a problem she was having in her bathroom when it sounded like she accidentally must have turned on that finish sander she was storing in her drawer . But I guess that wasn't all that strange just a little awkward. 

I think the plaster casts take the cake. :clap:


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## 480sparky (Feb 1, 2009)

Closet? Or shower?












The coolest thing I ever saw was a table in a hallway. Chess table, all inlaid wood with hand-carved pieces. Looked to be a couple hundred years old. HO told me this yarn about how Lee and Grant had played chess on that table while they were at West Point.

I thought to myself "Riiiiiiiiight!" So I commented, "Too bad you couldn't prove that. It would make the table worth a lot of money."

She pointed to a framed photo on the wall right above the table. Sure 'nuff, there was Grant and Lee sitting on either side of it.


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## JonM (Nov 1, 2007)

A pet skunk....


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## BrianFox (Apr 6, 2009)

was doing a small baseboard job in center city here and in the guys bedroom was an armoire that needed to be moved so me and the homeowner go to move this thing. I tip it towards me and from the top a stack of polaroids slides down right into my face of this gentlemen doing provocative(dont have the stomach or diction tpo describe) things to another guy. Needless to say Im freaked out and HO bursts out " I dont know what those are or where they came from"....

moral of the story:
too many to count


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## chris n (Oct 14, 2003)

Stars Hollow. Somebody was into Gilmore Girls. Musta hada crush on Rory Gilmore. :001_huh::huh: ???


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## CTDiesel (May 13, 2009)

I remember once we had this real weird lady for a customer. She had this little loft that we were working in and it had a mattress on the floor and near it was a bowl that was about half full of a liquid that looked an awful lot like piss. Strange for sure.


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## PrestigeR&D (Jan 6, 2010)

*I would not be able to ......*



Gus Dering said:


> I met a contractor at a house a few months ago to look at a master bath remodel. Nice tract house , good neighborhood, the kind that could support our kind of work.
> 
> We approach the front door and he warns me the HO is not home and not to freak out when we go inside. I say wtf? He gets a rye smile and just asks me not to freak out. What ever, Ive seen plenty of weird stuff.
> 
> ...


 
Handle that....
All I would think of is......


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## Snobnd (Jul 1, 2008)

Yum.......:whistling


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

MarkNoV said:


> ........Hanging on the back of the bathroom door was a black latex corset, black stockings and a whip.
> 
> The HO came in (a hot brunette MILF) removed the stuff, and said casually: *"It was the husband's birthday yesterday."
> *
> Mark



I'd say the only appropriate response to that would be.......

"What a coincidence, today is my Birthday ! :devil2: arty: :innocent:


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## hbiss (May 23, 2007)

The pay phone is what threw me.


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## On The Rock (Feb 5, 2010)

Several years ago I had a no heat call to this old guy's house, a tri-level. Looked a little run down from the outside, but not too bad. Got inside and wished I'd never stepped in the door....Hoarder extraordinaire....Miscellaneous junk and trash everywhere....Only a narrow path to the kitchen where water was leaking through a gaping hole in the vaulted ceiling...right down through a hole in the floor to the crawlspace, and yet everything else was dry. He directed me down the hall and past the stairs where even the stairs were stacked with...stuff. He didn't go downstairs. He just told me how to get into the crawl. As I walked down the hall in the basement, I glanced into 2 rooms lit only by the light coming in from the high windows. One was a guest bedroom, and everything in it looked like it was from the 60's. The other room had a bicycle leaning on its kickstand in the middle of it with a few other things by the walls. Get this: Both rooms had wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling cobwebs thicker than what Indiana Jones plowed through when he was escaping with the idol in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Creepy to the nth degree....

I replaced the thermocouple, refused payment, and got the heck outta there!


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## AmeliaP (Apr 22, 2007)

Doing some work for a coroner years ago - we moved a couch and there was polaroids of an autopsy.


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## displacedtexan (Nov 24, 2009)

Nothing overly odd.

Small grow operation in a closet.

The usual miscellaneous "adult novelties"

Single guy had some Ben Wa balls for dog toys. The noise drove his Min Pin nuts.


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## boman47k (Oct 13, 2006)

Sportioli said:


> Went to a home with over 80 exterior doors and windows.
> 
> Guy lets me in the front door and we as we pass through the house (it's unbelievably huge) we come to a monster set of pocket doors. He opens them into a room with what had to be 20 foot ceiling, and it's huge, really huge.
> 
> ...


Maybe there weren't any fake money. Maybe they played with real money.


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## Sportioli (Dec 18, 2007)

boman47k said:


> Maybe there weren't any fake money. Maybe they played with real money.


I never thought of that boman! You just may be right :w00t:


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## Resta (Feb 11, 2009)

In Manhattan, Soho...Little Italy...Hive...Honeynees and mushrooms.


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## MKnAs Dad (Mar 20, 2011)

A few years ago, we wqere putting windows in a house. I the master bedroom, on a nightstand I saw a bottle of teflon paste for plumbing. I hope he wasnt using it for lube!!!


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## Tech Dawg (Dec 13, 2010)

Years ago, I was working with another guy on a bathroom and when it was time to shut off the main water we had to move some shelving in the way. Luckily, the single homeowner was at work(woman) because a box fell off the shelf and videos & toys spilled all over the floor :laughing:  
We had to put it all back in the box and at the end of the day we were kinda scared to say anything but the other guy said "we had to move your shelf and some things fell off so we put them back into place..."


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## mgb (Oct 31, 2008)

You guys have some doosey's.

Worst I've had is a hoarder in the making.


Inner10 - Did you at least offer assistance?


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## Redliz75 (Jun 23, 2011)

MarkNoV said:


> Installing windows in the master bedroom and the en-suite bathroom. Hanging on the back of the bathroom door was a black latex corset, black stockings and a whip.
> 
> The HO came in (a hot brunette MILF) removed the stuff, and said casually: "It was the husband's birthday yesterday."
> 
> Mark




:laughing:

I don't do much residential, but I had a nearly identical experience in a home. The items were leather with chains and obviously his and hers attire! The wife was a milf, but she said it was their anniversery last night. Since it was just me, she was not embarrassed. Her hubby came home from work as I was leaving and the poor guy looked wore out!:laughing:I think she must have molested him pretty thoroughly. She looked quite capable of leaving a guy drained.


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## Dirtywhiteboy (Oct 15, 2010)

Redliz75 said:


> :laughing:
> She looked quite capable of leaving a guy drained.


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## Redliz75 (Jun 23, 2011)

Dirtywhiteboy said:


>




She was a hottie, you guys here would have been drooling on yourselves.:thumbsup: Her hubby wasn't so bad either, just tired looking.:laughing:


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## Dirtywhiteboy (Oct 15, 2010)

Redliz75 said:


> She was a hottie, you guys here would have been drooling on yourselves.:thumbsup: Her hubby wasn't so bad either, just tired looking.:laughing:


We get that way after being drained.:sad:


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## Redliz75 (Jun 23, 2011)

Dirtywhiteboy said:


> We get that way after being drained.:sad:



He looked like he only got 4 hours of sleep.


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## Dirtywhiteboy (Oct 15, 2010)

Sleep is over rated


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

JonM said:


> A pet skunk....


Great Pets!


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## TimelessQuality (Sep 23, 2007)

I have a client with a turn of the century home that (they were told) has an old speak-easy in the basement.. 

There's a 3" thick wooden door leading to a room under the porch..


It has tin ceilings, old gas lights, and a safe built into the wall that would make any bank proud.

Here's some crappy pics


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## javatom (Sep 9, 2008)

We did a new kitchen for a certified wild life rehabilitationist. She did this in her house. I contained all manner of crawling, noisy, slithering critters. The smell was so bad, we had to do the demo with two crews in rapid cycle shifts (with respirators). We placed a plastic air tight seal between the kitchen and the rest of the house while we did the work.  Last man out pulled the plastic sheet down and we got out of there. The new kitchen probable lasted less than 10 min. before it was ruined.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

EMINNYS said:


> I will try and remember a picture tomorrow....It doesnt look like a cheapo


Send the pic, I have a method that will get you in to _most_ old safes, and all of the new ones.....

Breaking the hinge pins usually won't work if the safe is of any quality.


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## KellyD&B (May 4, 2009)

I did a painting job a few months ago for an art collector. He had a huge loft and it was empty when we started. Really normal, boring guy- I thought... I went back on the last day to do my punch list. He had moved in and hung all of his paintings and photographs. Huge pieces. A 10' wide picture of school boys killing and eating each other, a baby being Baptized in blood, huge photos of ants. And an 8'x8' portrait of Brad Pitt...Lots of weird stuff. Nice guy. Just weird. 

I took some pictures on my camera phone to show my wife. Ill see if I can post some.


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

Round or Square, It has NO exposed hinges. If it does, there are 3/8" pins in the door that will PREVENT you from opening it.

Probably a S&G (Sergeant & Greenleaf) 3 number Dial combo. Need a PRO to "Manipulate" it. 

Highly unlikely that it has a spring loaded "relocker", but it MOST CERTAINLY is "Hard Steel Faced" so you are NOT drilling it! Its WEAKEST point is the actual compartment. Most floor safes have a removable dial.

Your best bet it to dig it out and attack it from the containment area. Or call a locksmith. It will cost you less than $200 to open it. 


On a round FS, the entire piece that the dial is on rotates to open. Sort of like the top to a pill jar, but only rotates 45 degrees.










https://bankssafeco.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/product/Gardall G700-G-C.jpg










http://uncrate.com/p/2006/12/sentry-in-floor-safe.jpg


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

tgeb said:


> Send the pic, I have a method that will get you in to _most_ old safes, and all of the new ones.....
> 
> Breaking the hinge pins usually won't work if the safe is of any quality.


I find this "Blanket Statement" a bit hard to accept. Safes are QUITE diverse.


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## EMINNYS (Nov 29, 2010)

tgeb said:


> Send the pic, I have a method that will get you in to _most_ old safes, and all of the new ones.....
> 
> Breaking the hinge pins usually won't work if the safe is of any quality.


OK, so I took the pictures today and left my camera on the window sill. Will post saturday or monday....Thanks


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

MALCO.New.York said:


> I find this "Blanket Statement" a bit hard to accept. Safes are QUITE diverse.


I'm guessing you're referring to my all of the new safes comment, and you're right that was kind of a "blanket statement", as opposed to the hinge/hammer not working.

I'd be referring to the common consumer type of "safe". the mass marketed less than $500- $1,000 that you might find in a home.

I don't intend to post the method that I am referring to out here, I'll PM the OP with my suggestions. I'll CC you in Malco. and you can critique my procedures.

I'm sure you know more about the hardware than I do but, one of your earlier statements would be my plan of attack.....


I do think we should remember that this is the "WWW" and not get too carried away with "sharing" the knowledge on how to defeat these security vessels.


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## CarrPainting (Jun 29, 2010)

I think my 'worst' was finding the box of vibrators (what SIZE do you 'need') under the ladies bed when we moved all the furniture to the center of the room. Thing is.. the lady was about 400lbs and 50 years old


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

CarrPainting said:


> I think my 'worst' was finding the box of vibrators (what SIZE do you 'need') under the ladies bed when we moved all the furniture to the center of the room. Thing is.. the lady was about 400lbs and 50 years old


Fat Chicks need Love too!


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## Mrmac204 (Dec 27, 2006)

I did up a quote for a home owner a few weeks back, and I noticed that there were a couple of large photo's on the wall of what appeared to be a young ghdaffi! holy crap! 
The "sitting" room just to the right of the front door has a full sized stuffed african lion on a tree trunk, and a zebra skin on the floor.


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## SSC (Feb 8, 2011)

EMINNYS said:


> OK, so I took the pictures today and left my camera on the window sill. Will post saturday or monday....Thanks


I think a contract is needed between you and the HO before safe is opened. You dont want to be out on all the riches that "could" be in there or at the least a days worth of labor he might not pay you for.

2 cents


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## EMINNYS (Nov 29, 2010)

SSC said:


> I think a contract is needed between you and the HO before safe is opened. You dont want to be out on all the riches that "could" be in there or at the least a days worth of labor he might not pay you for.
> 
> 2 cents


The homeowner is a good friend of mine, if he changed his mind and decided he wanted whatever(if anything) was in the safe, I would let him have it.....I am expecting nothing to be in there, but if there is , it rightfully belongs to him , he owns the home.....


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## EMINNYS (Nov 29, 2010)




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## Resta (Feb 11, 2009)

I saw this stainless steel tree yesterday..yes yes I did work on Saturday.....Maybe next week I'll find who did that tree and how much it cost....Right now I'm guessin ~ 110K:whistling


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

EMINNYS said:


> View attachment 56731
> 
> 
> View attachment 56732
> ...


Yup... EXACTLY what I imagined. An S & G 3# Floor Safe.

Did NOT expect it to be so badly worn. The "Door" on that box is, without any reservation, "Fused" to the Safe Body!

Gonna be a fun one!


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## Resta (Feb 11, 2009)

Found that an artist Roxy Paine create stainless steel trees..It maybe his...


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## MALCO.New.York (Feb 27, 2008)

Resta said:


> Found that an artist Roxy Paine create stainless steel trees..It maybe his...


I would say "Without a doubt", his work.

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/30038/roxy-paine/










http://i1.exhibit-e.com/jamescohan/RPaine_YieldPress_121.jpg


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## smalpierre (Jan 19, 2011)

480sparky said:


> The coolest thing I ever saw was a table in a hallway. Chess table, all inlaid wood with hand-carved pieces. Looked to be a couple hundred years old. HO told me this yarn about how Lee and Grant had played chess on that table while they were at West Point.
> 
> I thought to myself "Riiiiiiiiight!" So I commented, "Too bad you couldn't prove that. It would make the table worth a lot of money."
> 
> She pointed to a framed photo on the wall right above the table. Sure 'nuff, there was Grant and Lee sitting on either side of it.


Grant and Lee didn't go to West Point together. Lee was there from 1825 - 1829. Grant was there from 1839 - 1843


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## smalpierre (Jan 19, 2011)

Hmrepairs said:


> Small bag of pot in a cabinet drawer.


That's not very strange ...


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