What have you found? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Bencouver · 09-17-2009, 12:49 AM

I am not making this up. A friend of mine has been renovating an old house in the seedy part of town. They broke up a big old slab and began to dig it out by hand to get ready to build forms. One of the labourers soon began digging up what he thought were pig bones. The pile of bones grew and it kept getting weirder and weirder until finally a shoe was found soon followed by three more. The shoes and presumably the bones were of a woman and a child. Judging by the style of the shoes, my friend guessed they were from the thirties or forties. He called the cops because, well ,you kinda have to. Especially when you see little shoes. The job is now on hold during the investigation but it probably won't last long,after all this is real life not CSI. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to excavate and fully investigate some thing that happened so long ago. This just happened yesterday though so thats all the details I've got.

ScipioAfricanus · 09-17-2009, 01:25 AM

Wow, weird stuff, I for one wish to be kept informed, (and I am serious about this) thank you. I just think stuff like this is really interesting.

Andy.

AmeliaP · 09-17-2009, 09:25 AM

Quote:

I for one wish to be kept informed

Me too, that is weird!

PA woodbutcher · 09-17-2009, 09:37 AM

How is that for the contractor...he gets part of the excavation done by the government. He can't be held responsible for the delay, but it could cost him a few dollars for it.

CScalf · 09-17-2009, 10:22 AM

weird...

SelfContract · 09-17-2009, 10:28 AM

Either .. someone had murdered somebody & hidden there, or it was an old family grave back there when the house foundation was poured on? Anywho... any 1 thousand year Egyptian Mummy found yet??

CScalf · 09-17-2009, 10:31 AM

what have I found? Not jimmy hoffa's family that's for sure...

**ChrWright** · 09-17-2009, 10:32 AM

Wow, that's a new one.

I've always joked about finding dead bodies in a crawl space some day, but I can't imagine actually coming across something like that. There have to be many things like that (perhaps not as gruesome) floating around in the old houses we all work on.

The proverbial coffee can full of silver dollars has continued to elude me.

Definitely let us know how it turns out, and post a link if the local news covers it.

CScalf · 09-17-2009, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrWright

Wow, that's a new one.

I've always joked about finding dead bodies in a crawl space some day, but I can't imagine actually coming across something like that. There have to be many things like that (perhaps not as gruesome) floating around in the old houses we all work on.

The proverbial coffee can full of silver dollars has continued to elude me.

Definitely let us know how it turns out, and post a link if the local news covers it.

I have never joked about finding them, always joked about leaving one tho...

neolitic · 09-17-2009, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bencouver

I am not making this up. A friend of mine has been renovating an old house in the seedy part of town. They broke up a big old slab and began to dig it out by hand to get ready to build forms. One of the labourers soon began digging up what he thought were pig bones. The pile of bones grew and it kept getting weirder and weirder until finally a shoe was found soon followed by three more. The shoes and presumably the bones were of a woman and a child. Judging by the style of the shoes, my friend guessed they were from the thirties or forties. He called the cops because, well ,you kinda have to. Especially when you see little shoes. The job is now on hold during the investigation but it probably won't last long,after all this is real life not CSI. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to excavate and fully investigate some thing that happened so long ago. This just happened yesterday though so thats all the details I've got.

Is this the same story?
It's all I saw in Google...
http://www.news1130.com/news/local/m...15_223451_8840

Bencouver · 09-18-2009, 09:15 AM

It is the same house. Believe me though they found more than just cat bones(I think). My friend actually has about six jobs on the go so in a way he is relieved because it frees up some hands. I haven't talked to him yet though.

KellyD&B · 09-18-2009, 11:08 AM

A few years back I was working in a club in NYC and I found a huge snake skin in one of the air ducts. That was one job I couldnt wait to finish.

bob_cntrctr · 09-18-2009, 12:05 PM

There's a news story right now in Canada about a woman's body being found stuffed inside a cabling passage in a wall in a university building.

carpentershane · 09-18-2009, 09:04 PM

I was putting in a fence for my neighbor when I was in high school... As I was digging a post hole with a set of hand diggers the post hole diggers just dropped 8" with virtually no effort... It appeared that I hand found a plywood box of sorts.

I carefully excavated the top and removed the lid... Hoping possibly for buried treasure.... But inside was a baby blanket... (My mind immediately went to a story I had read in the paper the week before... some nutjob in NY city that had killed one of her twin children and put it in a trunk in a hall closet. She had lost it mentally and called the police about 25 years later saying that she heard a baby crying in the closet and they found the mummified child in the chest and hauled the woman to jail for murder)

Anyways... I brought my neighbor out to the back fence line and told what I had found.... In trepidation I peeled back the baby blanket and there was a skull and bones... I was kind of freaked out at this point... What if this is someones dead kid.... the police are going to have to investigate, etc...

I don't remember who picked up the skull... to see "what" it was... and it turned out to be nothing (somewhat of a relief) more than the skull of dog... I reburied the little coffin and relocated the post hole... But that really freaked me out.

**ChrWright** · 09-18-2009, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carpentershane

... (My mind immediately went to a story I had read in the paper the week before... some nutjob in NY city that had killed one of her twin children and put it in a trunk in a hall closet. She had lost it mentally and called the police about 25 years later saying that she heard a baby crying in the closet and they found the mummified child in the chest and hauled the woman to jail for murder)...

Sounds like "The Tell Tale Heart"...

Magnettica · 09-18-2009, 09:29 PM

I read not too long ago about a skeleton found in a return duct. Officials believe it was a burglar who got stuck. Imagine that?

CookeCarpentry · 09-19-2009, 12:28 PM

I found a dead cat in a pool skimmer once....

Sorry, I guess none of my finds are as good as the O/P's friend.

SC sawdaddy · 09-19-2009, 03:02 PM

I finished up a porch job Friday and found myself out of work.

Mellison · 09-19-2009, 05:36 PM

I posted this a while back.
Behind a radiator cover, inside a lobby I found a piece of unopened mail dated 1975.
Inside was an invitation to a party for the late Jack lemmon's 50th, being held at the Plaza Hotel.
By the way, lunch at the Plaza in 1975....$12.00
Pictures to follow when I have a few moments.

davitk · 09-19-2009, 10:49 PM

With as much demo as the remodeling community does, it's surprising how little of interest is ever found. Those old timers either were better hiders, or had better memories than I.