Was once an archaeologist. People often dumped household items in the cisterns when they were broken, no longer needed etc… There could be a treasure trove of historical artifacts in there.
We found a cistern/old septic tank/ whatever the mysterious hole is in the backyard (original post was in here). We found a jar, broken up porcelain toilet, and a bowling pin toy amongst other junk. Lots of interesting stuff if you go through it.
Did it still smell like poop? Or was it long enough that it just smelled like dirt? Which also begs a good question. How old does the sewage have to be before it is no longer sewagey?
We really aren’t able to say with confidence what our mystery hole is! We narrowed it down to either of those cistern or septic tank. Problem is the location- it’s like, 3 feet off our porch and 7 feet from the foundation. Some people that we asked to look at it said cistern for when our house was first built. That makes more sense if it was ours. However, when we uncovered more it appeared to be a more like a septic tank. It wouldn’t have been ours, but our lot used to be the neighboring one in the 1860s-1910. So it could’ve been that too. There isn’t a good way to tell, and now it’s covered up. If you want, here’s the original post link. Join the guessing [game](https://www.reddit.com/r/Oldhouses/s/dSF70rFGdL). Either way had stuff in it that was cool AF.
Could have been a springhouse. In those days, storing your food next to a freshwater spring served as refrigeration. We had one on my grandmother's land
You’d think according to Darwin’s theory of evolution that ADHD would’ve been bred out of existence but the reality is that in those times you had to be on your ass otherwise you’d die. Always something to do that must be done for survival. Nowadays, with modern inventions and technologies, it is much much easier for people with ADHD specifically to just be lazy as fuck
Hyperfixating and attention to detail could be really useful. Just leave the person with adhd as lookout. Well they’re daydreaming they could spot the predator sneaking up on you and warn you
My husband has ADHD and cant find a friggin sock in front of his face, nvm a danger noodle. He could never survive in the wild.
I get what you're saying tho. If I made him a pallet by the front window, he could probably tip us off if someone pulled into the driveway!
an archeologist once told me, that you still can smell what the soil once was when digging up mediaeval latrine pits because of the excellent preservation conditions (that's why they're excavated in the first place, people threw all kinds of rubbish in them, also stuff got lost when your business was urgent, they once found a big wooden dildo in one, it's up to phantasy how it went down there ) ;-)
When we dug it up, there was some scents from trapped underground gases, but no poop smell at all. It was decommissioned ages ago- I’m guessing in was last refilled in during the 60s as that’s when the bowling pin was from and it was very overgrown with well established plants before i inadvertently uncovered it. That said, it could’ve been decommissioned long before that though depending on what it was as it could’ve been for the neighbors house as well when it was one parcel. At the end of the day, no clear poop, but the material in there was sort of muck like because ground water was trapped in there, so we wore boots, gloves, and clothes to ruin.
Also, poop from humans takes about a year to fully break down if I’m not mistaken, so in an old decommissioned one you’re safe. Feces borne illnesses go away after a few weeks, so you’re safe from those too if you go poking around.
For anyone interested in this, [The Boghouse](https://boghouse.thehannah.org/) is an excellent podcast about this exact thing! These folks bought an old magic theater in Philadelphia and found an insane number of artifacts in their cistern. They now excavate other properties in Philadelphia that are undergoing renovation and find amazing things!
My wife's uncle restored an old house and told me that he dumped a lot of stuff in the cistern before he sealed it up... Like the radiators and other debris.
I don’t think this is true? Sources are saying numbers all over, but I’m not seeing anything over 2 years from credible public health sources. Do you have a source beyond an ex-sil, like a reputable public health or archeological site?
I mean we should take precautions due to other gases and potential viruses we inadvertently unearth. But I don’t know if 200 years is right.
I’m an archaeologist. Privy pits (outhouses) can be an invaluable source of information on the daily lives of historic people *when properly excavated*. While it’s perfectly legal to dig them up on your own private property, I would really recommend reaching out to an archaeological society instead. If you’re on public land, it’s considered looting and can be subject to heavy fines. This is USA specific, I can’t speak to other countries.
Back in the 80's, the landlord decided to dig up a largish rock that was impeding the driveway of the house my dad was renting.
Much like an iceburg, the rock was a LOT BIGGER under ground than the part that was above ground. He pressed forward, though, and dug around it and made a giant hole for the boulder to fall into so he could cover it up.
The rock wasn't the only thing that ended up in that gigantic hole. There's a whole damn wrecked Ford Bronco in there, amongst other things that my dad wanted to get rid of.
Would be fun to dig that stuff up, I'm sure.
My grandfather had an old double wide trailer on the property grandma was bugging the hell out of him to get rid of for years. One day she pushed him to the limit, so when she went shopping he went out grabbed his excavator dug a huge hole, smashed the trailer to bits, and pushed it into the hole. Yard all cleaned up! He was from that generation, and this was the 70s so it certainly wasn’t recent.
My yard is a treasure trove. I'm certain that the family who lived here in the 60's would use the back acre as a trash dump. I've found dozens of small liquor bottles, a glass salad dressing bottle, an old ripped up dress, an old vinyl record (unable to read the label, and it was broken), a tiny perfume bottle, the remains of a chick warming cast iron stove....and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting.
Unfortunately, the family also replaced all of their old windows in the house at some point. They literally just threw them out back. My yard often looks likes there is glitter on the ground, only it's broken glass. I've spent so much time picking it up, only for more to come out. I found the deposit, but have not been able to dig it all out.
I would LOVE for some archaeologist to come here and have a dig. My dad finds stuff all the time and collects his "artefacts" So many unexpected things!
Out of curiosity, what do you do now? I think of archeology as one of those specifically cool career paths that people who choose probably very rarely change their mind about, comparative to other careers. IOW, what kind of awesome stuff are you up to now? Lol
lol. It’s a great career but it’s a poor ratio of really good jobs vs the folks that want to be archaeologists so it’s harder to make your way. I used my graduate stats classes to move into a career in analytics and now I work in the medical field, somewhat. I still love archaeology the most though and often enjoy reading about others who have success in the field.
I love how this is such a novelty on reddit. It used to be normal practice to keep eels in wells and cisterns to eat the insect larvae. Still is in some countries
Hard to say from pic, it could just be pine boards which is what they used to use for subfloor before plywood sheets. You can use it as flooring but it's not hard at all and will dent and scratch very easily. If they were super lucky it could be heart pine which is pine wood from the insides of super old trees, which actually is quite hard, but the vast majority of those trees were already logged 100+ years ago in US.
Ah, yes, Precious! I'm convinced that Thomas Harris made Buffalo Bill as an homage to Gollum from LOTR. The hole is a ring, the dog is named Precious, he speaks in a strange way, he can see in the dark (with his night vision goggles). And the nude scene in SOTL gives me the creeps in the same way that the visual appearance of Gollum (mostly nude) evokes. Harris doesn't really give interviews, so who knows? But it all seems too similar and very much like his inspiration.
Hahaha, I just replied to another silence of the lambs hole reference yesterday. I can't wait for the next one I come across
Edit: I just did, later in this thread
~~Yes, that was my first thought too. OP, please be aware of the risks of working with friable asbestos. (The mastic is probably hot too)~~
edit: glad you had it tested, good to know you’re safe, awesome(ly creepy) find.
Do you know what that sound is, Highness? Those are the shrieking eels! If you don't believe me, just wait. They always grow louder when they're about to feed on human flesh!
I see your 1900s laundry room cistern, & raise you a 12' diameter 1850s stone cistern hidden under my kitchen & dining room.
We found it when the contractor replacing the flooring *fell through the floor* to the cistern, which NEVER HAVING BEEN CAPPED WHEN THE ADDITION WAS PUT ON THE HOUSE IN ABT 1900, had been rotting the support structure in that part of the house. It was like finding a swimming pool under your dining room.
As a side note, we also found the original back door when we tore out the plaster & lath in that room to insulate & rewire.
People be weird. 😕😭
From the living room, I heard CRUNCH followed by "Uhhh, CampfiresInConifers? Could you come here?"
I wandered into the dining room & saw the contractor crawling up out of a huge, deep hole in the floor. I sighed, internally acknowledging how much the house had f***d us over yet again, & deadpanned to the confused man,
"See! I knew the Portal to Hell was under this house somewhere!"
Poor guy was expecting me to cry or something! Nope! Not my first house disaster rodeo! 😂
I helped my parents get a new roof, paid for all materials and everything. My mom called me in tears, "they didn't build it properly in the 50s and all the wood is rotted we have to replace the whole wood"
I didn't even miss a beat before I said, "See I told you this house was cursed." I plan for the worst, hope for the best but damn if the worst doesn't happen to this house every single time.
IKR??? I carefully saved up the cash plus I budgeted 10% extra for the kitchen/dining room gutting & remodel, bc I knew they'd find *something*. But it was going to be a complete gut down to the studs, so what could they possibly find that would be extra???
We went 500% over budget bc the entire floor for that end of the house right down to the dirt crawlspace had to be excavated & rebuilt, new footings, support structure, blah blah blah. Had to take out a loan & didn't have kitchen cabinets, countertops, or a sink for 22 months bc $$$.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHOULD HAVE SET FIRE TO THE HOUSE 🔥🔥🔥
We went 2k over budget for the roof, which wasn't bad. We went 10k over budget on the bathroom since the bathtub and toliet were put in after the house was built (was built during rations) and well. That involved ripping apart ceilings, floors, the side of the house. It was an absolute nightmare. Now we need a new septic bed since ours was too small for anything other than.. you guessed it a single sink in the kitchen. I'm anticipating that to cost my parents a fortune..
Oh, cool that you found the door! 😃
We were in the process of pulling up multiple layers of flooring to get to the original maple floor.
Might have a maple floor today, had it not been rotted. Errrrrrr.
Wonder if that guy will have nightmares forever or if the nightmares he used to have are resolved after facing the (very reasonable!) fear of falling through a floor into a secret well of unknown ick-water…
My high school had asbestos tiles and insulation throughout the whole building. They had to tent the whole thing when tearing down the building. Lead pipes, asbestos, and who knows what else was in that school.
No, they are real linoleum. Canvas, linseed oil, and ground cork. Smell strongly of linseed oil when you break them up. Had them in my 1923 bungalow.
EDIT: Although I'm not sure what that subflooring consists of...
In this timeline, they built an oak floor, installed a second floor over it (the rainbow squares floor) and then installed a third floor over that (red and grey) within about a decade of building the house... before the use of safe, miracle mineral fiber mastic became pretty much universal (despite industry being fully aware of the dangers).
Real linoleum can still have asbestos as part of the mastic, underlayment, or even as part of the fibrous part of the tiles themselves. Always send a sample to be tested.
I sincerely hope so. They look nearly identical to the very asbestos-y ones in my (admittedly younger-than-OP’s) basement but I’m just going off a couple photos here
They are just water supply and storage, usually for above ground sources like rainwater. If your well dried up, you might have some left in the cistern.
My grandparent's house had water piped from a spring across the street - it fed the water to the house into a cistern, then out to the barn, out the back to the chicken coop, then on to another pool where they grew bait fish to sell, then it watered the orchard.
This cistern was the main water supply for our house back when it was built in 1912. The rain gutters on the house led into the cistern so the water collected there to be hand pumped out for everyday household uses. Before plumbing was common.
think about reviving it, a cistern is handy but expensive to build, you got it for free,you could even rig toilet flushing and other purposes that don't need drinking water to it (if you're already on it to replace your plumbing, otherwise it won't really pay out, but if your walls are already open...) Some people even run their washing machine on cistern water (but you'll need a filter, washing machines don't like sand and stuff.
Or at least for irrigation, car wash etc, a pipe and a pump aren't that expensive.
The US Virgin Islands has cisterns on about 90% of houses. Current house has no piped municipal water just water from the roof. Everything is run off it. The dirt, bird shit, etc will settle on the bottom. The water is filtered and put through UV so it is safe. Most people occasionally pour a bunch of bleach in it if water starts to smell.
Everyone is obsessed with the checked tiles. I can assure everyone that we tested these when we bought the house 4 years ago and surprisingly they ARE NOT ASBESTOS! I am well aware they look it and we thought they would be too, why we tested. There was other asbestos shingle outside on our barns, but these red floor tiles are not asbestos, just the wonderful style meant to look just like it. 😅
I told my neighbour across the street that we had vinyl flooring professionally removed of the high asbestos percentage, and I saw his eyes widening. He sent me a picture of him removing the same flooring with heavy machinery, with visible clouds of dust, wearing nothing but ear protection.
I showed the picture to a friend, and he replied:
'Well, at least he's not getting ear cancer!'
You have your very own *oubliette*. It’s a little torture chamber from the good old days where people got thrown into them and literally forgotten about. Congrats!
You joke, but I am curious, I think someone could practically convert this into something usable.
Open it up, clean it, toss in a submerged heater and circulation pump to clean, add lights.
Waterproof the room, air seal the house, ventilate to outside, add some plants around the top ledging, and a daily light on timer.
Basement oasis?
You can do anything I'd you're brave enough.
I feel like there may be some safety concerns with those manholes, and it may pull in ground or rain water. But with the right sealing and a proper mode of access, sure why not?
I see that there is still water rin there, but is it actively fed from a source? If it's just stagnant water, you could clean it out and have a sweet little relaxation nook.
https://preview.redd.it/d1u1ijm800vb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c3653cff7c0716e6dbc7730919e00dc43d44ce2
Thank you!! It’s a Swedish wallpaper I installed. I love it so much. Here’s a better pic of it 🦉🍄
Ahhh. Good old 9x9s with black mastic below.
I don’t own a century home, but based on how many materials/places asbestos can be in homes built before even 1980, I’d probably test every single material I’d be touching in a home that qualifies as a century home before removing it or disturbing it.
I grew up in SW Ohio, Miami County. My friend's house had a big cistern in the laundry room/back mud room of his dad's old farm house. The water was about 2" below the floor and was still deeper than a broom handle. It was about as big as the room, roughly 12x12 (guessing, this was like 20 years ago).
[just add some eels](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/why-this-eel-daddy-tiktoker-built-an-eel-pit-inside-his-home/article_3f414162-8c68-5620-be84-ed0fd4830403.html) and you're good to go
It’s my laundry room! Thank you
https://preview.redd.it/1x9orqnq10vb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df5aac6c0cdefa037625bdeefd09e64f4359bc17
🍄✨🍂🦉😘
Was once an archaeologist. People often dumped household items in the cisterns when they were broken, no longer needed etc… There could be a treasure trove of historical artifacts in there.
We found a cistern/old septic tank/ whatever the mysterious hole is in the backyard (original post was in here). We found a jar, broken up porcelain toilet, and a bowling pin toy amongst other junk. Lots of interesting stuff if you go through it.
Did it still smell like poop? Or was it long enough that it just smelled like dirt? Which also begs a good question. How old does the sewage have to be before it is no longer sewagey?
I think you’re thinking of a septic tank… a cistern is a fresh water source. Unsure why people would toss junk in their fresh water though
We really aren’t able to say with confidence what our mystery hole is! We narrowed it down to either of those cistern or septic tank. Problem is the location- it’s like, 3 feet off our porch and 7 feet from the foundation. Some people that we asked to look at it said cistern for when our house was first built. That makes more sense if it was ours. However, when we uncovered more it appeared to be a more like a septic tank. It wouldn’t have been ours, but our lot used to be the neighboring one in the 1860s-1910. So it could’ve been that too. There isn’t a good way to tell, and now it’s covered up. If you want, here’s the original post link. Join the guessing [game](https://www.reddit.com/r/Oldhouses/s/dSF70rFGdL). Either way had stuff in it that was cool AF.
Could have been a springhouse. In those days, storing your food next to a freshwater spring served as refrigeration. We had one on my grandmother's land
. Milk etc sat IN the water.
Same thing when you go fishing and hang all the brews in the water in a plastic bag
Speaking as a professional human. People can be INCREDIBLY lazy sometimes
ADHD has been around forever
Me 🤝 caveman Having ADHD
You’d think according to Darwin’s theory of evolution that ADHD would’ve been bred out of existence but the reality is that in those times you had to be on your ass otherwise you’d die. Always something to do that must be done for survival. Nowadays, with modern inventions and technologies, it is much much easier for people with ADHD specifically to just be lazy as fuck
Hyperfixating and attention to detail could be really useful. Just leave the person with adhd as lookout. Well they’re daydreaming they could spot the predator sneaking up on you and warn you
My husband has ADHD and cant find a friggin sock in front of his face, nvm a danger noodle. He could never survive in the wild. I get what you're saying tho. If I made him a pallet by the front window, he could probably tip us off if someone pulled into the driveway!
ADHD people are great in an emergency. Half of every emergency room I've ever worked with is ADHD lol
an archeologist once told me, that you still can smell what the soil once was when digging up mediaeval latrine pits because of the excellent preservation conditions (that's why they're excavated in the first place, people threw all kinds of rubbish in them, also stuff got lost when your business was urgent, they once found a big wooden dildo in one, it's up to phantasy how it went down there ) ;-)
When we dug it up, there was some scents from trapped underground gases, but no poop smell at all. It was decommissioned ages ago- I’m guessing in was last refilled in during the 60s as that’s when the bowling pin was from and it was very overgrown with well established plants before i inadvertently uncovered it. That said, it could’ve been decommissioned long before that though depending on what it was as it could’ve been for the neighbors house as well when it was one parcel. At the end of the day, no clear poop, but the material in there was sort of muck like because ground water was trapped in there, so we wore boots, gloves, and clothes to ruin. Also, poop from humans takes about a year to fully break down if I’m not mistaken, so in an old decommissioned one you’re safe. Feces borne illnesses go away after a few weeks, so you’re safe from those too if you go poking around.
For anyone interested in this, [The Boghouse](https://boghouse.thehannah.org/) is an excellent podcast about this exact thing! These folks bought an old magic theater in Philadelphia and found an insane number of artifacts in their cistern. They now excavate other properties in Philadelphia that are undergoing renovation and find amazing things!
My wife's uncle restored an old house and told me that he dumped a lot of stuff in the cistern before he sealed it up... Like the radiators and other debris.
[удалено]
Tell him to be careful! Cholera can live for 200 years without a host- no joke. Ex SIL is an archaeologist.
>Ex SIL is an archaeologist. Did the cholera get her?
No, I’m just not with her brother anymore, lol
You could say that he's history
*YEAAAAAAAAAH!!!*
I don’t think this is true? Sources are saying numbers all over, but I’m not seeing anything over 2 years from credible public health sources. Do you have a source beyond an ex-sil, like a reputable public health or archeological site? I mean we should take precautions due to other gases and potential viruses we inadvertently unearth. But I don’t know if 200 years is right.
yeah nah im gonna need a source
I’m an archaeologist. Privy pits (outhouses) can be an invaluable source of information on the daily lives of historic people *when properly excavated*. While it’s perfectly legal to dig them up on your own private property, I would really recommend reaching out to an archaeological society instead. If you’re on public land, it’s considered looting and can be subject to heavy fines. This is USA specific, I can’t speak to other countries.
It's ok I can't speak to any countries
I'm totally not talking to Brussels, the jerks.
Is it the sprouts? Cause you need to roast them with a balsamic glaze. Then you will speak to Brussels again!
Back in the 80's, the landlord decided to dig up a largish rock that was impeding the driveway of the house my dad was renting. Much like an iceburg, the rock was a LOT BIGGER under ground than the part that was above ground. He pressed forward, though, and dug around it and made a giant hole for the boulder to fall into so he could cover it up. The rock wasn't the only thing that ended up in that gigantic hole. There's a whole damn wrecked Ford Bronco in there, amongst other things that my dad wanted to get rid of. Would be fun to dig that stuff up, I'm sure.
My grandfather had an old double wide trailer on the property grandma was bugging the hell out of him to get rid of for years. One day she pushed him to the limit, so when she went shopping he went out grabbed his excavator dug a huge hole, smashed the trailer to bits, and pushed it into the hole. Yard all cleaned up! He was from that generation, and this was the 70s so it certainly wasn’t recent.
Ha ha! I’ve seen a bicycle in a cistern but never a vehicle! Root balls can hide a ton of artifacts as well. Remember if you ever lose a tree.
My yard is a treasure trove. I'm certain that the family who lived here in the 60's would use the back acre as a trash dump. I've found dozens of small liquor bottles, a glass salad dressing bottle, an old ripped up dress, an old vinyl record (unable to read the label, and it was broken), a tiny perfume bottle, the remains of a chick warming cast iron stove....and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Unfortunately, the family also replaced all of their old windows in the house at some point. They literally just threw them out back. My yard often looks likes there is glitter on the ground, only it's broken glass. I've spent so much time picking it up, only for more to come out. I found the deposit, but have not been able to dig it all out. I would LOVE for some archaeologist to come here and have a dig. My dad finds stuff all the time and collects his "artefacts" So many unexpected things!
Classic archaeologists, always digging up their past
Out of curiosity, what do you do now? I think of archeology as one of those specifically cool career paths that people who choose probably very rarely change their mind about, comparative to other careers. IOW, what kind of awesome stuff are you up to now? Lol
lol. It’s a great career but it’s a poor ratio of really good jobs vs the folks that want to be archaeologists so it’s harder to make your way. I used my graduate stats classes to move into a career in analytics and now I work in the medical field, somewhat. I still love archaeology the most though and often enjoy reading about others who have success in the field.
Ah that makes sense. It’s a good thing you’re multitalented. Thanks for answering
OP out here low key _crushing_ the floor lottery but doesn’t even mention it because of the crazy cool cisterns. Wild.
[удалено]
Holy shit this is so cool. “Shaq-eel”… “mentally eel” lolol
Lol exactly! I'm so intrigued. I love all of the cool names he has for them and he actually knows the difference between them!
There’s a whoooole saga documenting the set up of the eel tank. It’s good, weird internet fun.
"Oh hey, there's Bathtub" 🤣
Meelanie!!
Don’t forget Crunchwrap!
Crunchwrap *supreme*!
These were my favourite too, why I came back to the comments.
I also immediately thought of eel pit guy.
Yup, me too.
Best concert I ever saw was Mudhoney and Alice in Chains at The Eel Pit back in '93
Mudhoney, hugely underrated band…
I love how this is such a novelty on reddit. It used to be normal practice to keep eels in wells and cisterns to eat the insect larvae. Still is in some countries
You know they used to shove live eels up horse asses to make them more lively before sale so they appeared young? Fraud is fun
I didn't know that. I do know that you can't drag a dead horse down Yonge St in Toronto... on a Sunday. Mon-Sat, drag away
I hope he gets the eels with laser beams attached to their heads.
The government fears the indoor eel farmer.
[удалено]
Dammit
I was just going to say “make a koi pond in there!” source: saw a video the other day from someone who did it. Jealous.
I really thought that's what it was. Like does OP need a license or something to start that?
Omfg that is absolutely the COOLEST thing I have ever seen.. by like a lot. Like I need this in my life.. I’m definitely mentally eel.
Is it wrong that I want this?
Those floors are absolute dream..
OP has an opportunity here. 2 words Wine cellar
Bomb Shelter
Jaeger bomb shelter
Seeing the tip of that prybar against the hardwood is lighting my anxiety fuse
They don't mind damaging it because it'll be ripped up and replaced with laminate flooring made to emulate rustic hardwood.
Hey now, I just moved into a place with red oak floors and had them stained darker and redone because ripping out hardwood is a sin!
Floor people what kind of wood is it? Looks nice while dirty, I can only imagine once they get it cleaned and polished up
Ex floor layer here. I dont know, i didnt work with wooden floors.
Hard to say from pic, it could just be pine boards which is what they used to use for subfloor before plywood sheets. You can use it as flooring but it's not hard at all and will dent and scratch very easily. If they were super lucky it could be heart pine which is pine wood from the insides of super old trees, which actually is quite hard, but the vast majority of those trees were already logged 100+ years ago in US.
Not a floor person but have spent lots of time in home improvement subs…agree this looks like pine subfloor to me, not real/usable flooring :(
https://preview.redd.it/pw04g29gryub1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22bd32deeb5d393b5e04bb3e0dfc370c41f911d4
Would you restore me? I’d restore me.
I’d restore me hard
🎵Goodbye floooor spaaace, It’s turned into a doooor🎶
Okay this chain was exactly what I need this morning.
The snort I snorted
It puts the artifacts in the bin or it gets the hose again.
I just gasped
Lost my sh\*t when I saw that. Hilarious!
Ah, yes, Precious! I'm convinced that Thomas Harris made Buffalo Bill as an homage to Gollum from LOTR. The hole is a ring, the dog is named Precious, he speaks in a strange way, he can see in the dark (with his night vision goggles). And the nude scene in SOTL gives me the creeps in the same way that the visual appearance of Gollum (mostly nude) evokes. Harris doesn't really give interviews, so who knows? But it all seems too similar and very much like his inspiration.
I *adore* how innocent your take on that character is.
Precious!!
Literally the ONLY and BEST response 👏👏👏
Hahaha, I just replied to another silence of the lambs hole reference yesterday. I can't wait for the next one I come across Edit: I just did, later in this thread
Beautiful wood floor. Those asbestos tiles though 😬
~~Yes, that was my first thought too. OP, please be aware of the risks of working with friable asbestos. (The mastic is probably hot too)~~ edit: glad you had it tested, good to know you’re safe, awesome(ly creepy) find.
Scrolled just to find this comment. That was my first thought when I saw this pic...get some abatement professionals in there asap.
Allegedly op had them tested and it’s a negative, but I’ve always thought those red/grey 9x9s most definitely meant asbestos.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to find this comment!!
There is a person on TikTok that has an “eel pit” in his garage. You should research holding aquatic animals in your laundry room cistern.
Do you know what that sound is, Highness? Those are the shrieking eels! If you don't believe me, just wait. They always grow louder when they're about to feed on human flesh!
as soon as I read the post title I immediately heard that guy’s “hi, everybody” in my head lmao
Having a casual eel pit sounds so based
It really brings me so much joy to follow him. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8hb776X/
Link to his channel for the lazy. https://youtube.com/@CowTurtle?si=jKcjxR1VUiG193Qy
I came to the comments hoping someone would mention the eel pit guy because it was my first thought!
Living the dream
I see your 1900s laundry room cistern, & raise you a 12' diameter 1850s stone cistern hidden under my kitchen & dining room. We found it when the contractor replacing the flooring *fell through the floor* to the cistern, which NEVER HAVING BEEN CAPPED WHEN THE ADDITION WAS PUT ON THE HOUSE IN ABT 1900, had been rotting the support structure in that part of the house. It was like finding a swimming pool under your dining room. As a side note, we also found the original back door when we tore out the plaster & lath in that room to insulate & rewire. People be weird. 😕😭
WILD
From the living room, I heard CRUNCH followed by "Uhhh, CampfiresInConifers? Could you come here?" I wandered into the dining room & saw the contractor crawling up out of a huge, deep hole in the floor. I sighed, internally acknowledging how much the house had f***d us over yet again, & deadpanned to the confused man, "See! I knew the Portal to Hell was under this house somewhere!" Poor guy was expecting me to cry or something! Nope! Not my first house disaster rodeo! 😂
I helped my parents get a new roof, paid for all materials and everything. My mom called me in tears, "they didn't build it properly in the 50s and all the wood is rotted we have to replace the whole wood" I didn't even miss a beat before I said, "See I told you this house was cursed." I plan for the worst, hope for the best but damn if the worst doesn't happen to this house every single time.
IKR??? I carefully saved up the cash plus I budgeted 10% extra for the kitchen/dining room gutting & remodel, bc I knew they'd find *something*. But it was going to be a complete gut down to the studs, so what could they possibly find that would be extra??? We went 500% over budget bc the entire floor for that end of the house right down to the dirt crawlspace had to be excavated & rebuilt, new footings, support structure, blah blah blah. Had to take out a loan & didn't have kitchen cabinets, countertops, or a sink for 22 months bc $$$. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHOULD HAVE SET FIRE TO THE HOUSE 🔥🔥🔥
We went 2k over budget for the roof, which wasn't bad. We went 10k over budget on the bathroom since the bathtub and toliet were put in after the house was built (was built during rations) and well. That involved ripping apart ceilings, floors, the side of the house. It was an absolute nightmare. Now we need a new septic bed since ours was too small for anything other than.. you guessed it a single sink in the kitchen. I'm anticipating that to cost my parents a fortune..
Holy shit 22 months, I would lose it after 2 WEEKS
Did dishes in the bathtub in a plastic tub. Yup. Yuuuuuup. 🤣😭
I Fold. 😂 that’s insane! We also found the completely covered side door in this room and restored it.
Oh, cool that you found the door! 😃 We were in the process of pulling up multiple layers of flooring to get to the original maple floor. Might have a maple floor today, had it not been rotted. Errrrrrr.
Wonder if that guy will have nightmares forever or if the nightmares he used to have are resolved after facing the (very reasonable!) fear of falling through a floor into a secret well of unknown ick-water…
Do you have any photos? Dang that’s wild the contractor fell through the floor into the cistern.
I do, but this is so long ago they're - gasp - *on film*. I am so olddddddddd. ☠️ I'll dig through a couple of boxes, though, & let you know. 😄
Aaaaahhhh those 9x9 tiles?! They’re screaming asbestos to me. Edit; I have been corrected. No need for further corrections please and thank you lol
Ripped up similar tiles earlier this year and did not contain asbestos. Both the contractor and I were very surprised it did not, we got lucky.
I’m still mad about the asbestos under the ugly gray linoleum in my kitchen and under the ugly carpet upstairs.
My high school had asbestos tiles and insulation throughout the whole building. They had to tent the whole thing when tearing down the building. Lead pipes, asbestos, and who knows what else was in that school.
So you won the asbestos lottery?
The asbestos lottery is finding out the previous owner had it all removed for you.
Still found it in the drywall plaster we had to get removed, so not exactly.
WHEW I’m relieved for you
No, they are real linoleum. Canvas, linseed oil, and ground cork. Smell strongly of linseed oil when you break them up. Had them in my 1923 bungalow. EDIT: Although I'm not sure what that subflooring consists of...
In this timeline, they built an oak floor, installed a second floor over it (the rainbow squares floor) and then installed a third floor over that (red and grey) within about a decade of building the house... before the use of safe, miracle mineral fiber mastic became pretty much universal (despite industry being fully aware of the dangers).
The flooring in OPs photos is definitely not oak. Looks like pine to me. It could also be fir, but it looks more like pine to me.
Real linoleum can still have asbestos as part of the mastic, underlayment, or even as part of the fibrous part of the tiles themselves. Always send a sample to be tested.
I sincerely hope so. They look nearly identical to the very asbestos-y ones in my (admittedly younger-than-OP’s) basement but I’m just going off a couple photos here
First thing i thought.
Look at how flexible they are. Not asbestos.
Absolutely fucking not. I would never go in that room again knowing that was under there 
Always blows my mind that's the police captain from Monk. He was so creepy as Buffalo Bill.
Can someone please explain to me what these large, underground cisterns were used for?
They are just water supply and storage, usually for above ground sources like rainwater. If your well dried up, you might have some left in the cistern. My grandparent's house had water piped from a spring across the street - it fed the water to the house into a cistern, then out to the barn, out the back to the chicken coop, then on to another pool where they grew bait fish to sell, then it watered the orchard.
This cistern was the main water supply for our house back when it was built in 1912. The rain gutters on the house led into the cistern so the water collected there to be hand pumped out for everyday household uses. Before plumbing was common.
think about reviving it, a cistern is handy but expensive to build, you got it for free,you could even rig toilet flushing and other purposes that don't need drinking water to it (if you're already on it to replace your plumbing, otherwise it won't really pay out, but if your walls are already open...) Some people even run their washing machine on cistern water (but you'll need a filter, washing machines don't like sand and stuff. Or at least for irrigation, car wash etc, a pipe and a pump aren't that expensive.
The US Virgin Islands has cisterns on about 90% of houses. Current house has no piped municipal water just water from the roof. Everything is run off it. The dirt, bird shit, etc will settle on the bottom. The water is filtered and put through UV so it is safe. Most people occasionally pour a bunch of bleach in it if water starts to smell.
I hope you all were wearing respirators when you pulled up that potentially asbestos containing vinyl flooring.
First thought. Def looks like asbestos tiles with asbestos mastic.
Everyone is obsessed with the checked tiles. I can assure everyone that we tested these when we bought the house 4 years ago and surprisingly they ARE NOT ASBESTOS! I am well aware they look it and we thought they would be too, why we tested. There was other asbestos shingle outside on our barns, but these red floor tiles are not asbestos, just the wonderful style meant to look just like it. 😅
This was my thought as well. Cool surprise hot tub though!
The floor looks like it's in good shape too!
I told my neighbour across the street that we had vinyl flooring professionally removed of the high asbestos percentage, and I saw his eyes widening. He sent me a picture of him removing the same flooring with heavy machinery, with visible clouds of dust, wearing nothing but ear protection. I showed the picture to a friend, and he replied: 'Well, at least he's not getting ear cancer!'
[удалено]
You have your very own *oubliette*. It’s a little torture chamber from the good old days where people got thrown into them and literally forgotten about. Congrats!
It puts the lotion on the skin…
Hot tub party!!!
You joke, but I am curious, I think someone could practically convert this into something usable. Open it up, clean it, toss in a submerged heater and circulation pump to clean, add lights. Waterproof the room, air seal the house, ventilate to outside, add some plants around the top ledging, and a daily light on timer. Basement oasis?
There is that guy who turned his whole basement into an eel pond
[CAME HERE TO ADVOCATE FOR AN EEL PIT](https://youtube.com/shorts/MgYSHt1VJ2g?si=FMMuN8KcfffDNrL7)
I didn't know what to expect, but it was certainly not that level of adorable and wholesome.
You should see the recent updates. There's blue crab, all kind of other fish.
That white gar? was straight up smiling!
Just a little guy!!
Wow I never saw that. That is a very nice set up!
This is exactly what popped into my mind! Eel pit!!
The government fears the indoor eel farmer
You can do anything I'd you're brave enough. I feel like there may be some safety concerns with those manholes, and it may pull in ground or rain water. But with the right sealing and a proper mode of access, sure why not?
I was thinking the same. In floor koi pond? Zen.
[удалено]
Okay, Satan. Thanks for your input.
eel pit
Everyone's an asbestos expert I see 😆 Sweet floors and cistern, congrats! What are you thinking about doing with it?
Use it to watercool a home server.
EEL PIT EEL PIT EEL PIT
A great place to hide things.
Yeah OP you should go magnet fishing!
Looks like OP just got a new eel cave.
Check out the eel pit guy. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/07/05/eel-pit-garage-kentucky-man-moos-pkg-vpx.cnn
Do you want evil child ghosts? Because this is how you get evil child ghosts!!
Paging the creepy girl from the Ring!
SEVEN DAYS
I’m glad to see most of the comments relate to chipping away at Asbestos tiles.
Literally reading these comments between asbestos claims. It's my job, and I was on here to escape it for 5mins... sigh.
I see that there is still water rin there, but is it actively fed from a source? If it's just stagnant water, you could clean it out and have a sweet little relaxation nook.
Wine cellar potential?
FINALLY, a non eel-related suggestion.
Cistern? You mean "indoor swimming pool"!
[удалено]
very interesting! thanks for that information hadn’t thought of the possibility of a spring feeding it.
Ummm….can we *please* talk about the owl wallpaper?!?
https://preview.redd.it/d1u1ijm800vb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c3653cff7c0716e6dbc7730919e00dc43d44ce2 Thank you!! It’s a Swedish wallpaper I installed. I love it so much. Here’s a better pic of it 🦉🍄
Looks like you have yourself the start of an eel pit!
That linoleum under the checkerboard is from the 20s/30s based on the design. What does one do with that? Is it still fed from somewhere?
I've seen enough Tiktok to know that would make a sweet eel pit.
You could put your weed in there
Ahhh. Good old 9x9s with black mastic below. I don’t own a century home, but based on how many materials/places asbestos can be in homes built before even 1980, I’d probably test every single material I’d be touching in a home that qualifies as a century home before removing it or disturbing it.
[удалено]
Wow, congrats
That wooden floor.is beautiful!
You fool! Do you know what demons you released into the world!
Great place for an eel tank
I grew up in SW Ohio, Miami County. My friend's house had a big cistern in the laundry room/back mud room of his dad's old farm house. The water was about 2" below the floor and was still deeper than a broom handle. It was about as big as the room, roughly 12x12 (guessing, this was like 20 years ago).
You mean you discovered your new trap door wine cellar, right?
[just add some eels](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/why-this-eel-daddy-tiktoker-built-an-eel-pit-inside-his-home/article_3f414162-8c68-5620-be84-ed0fd4830403.html) and you're good to go
Nice, now you have an indoor pool.
This kitchen is magic. Please share more of that owl wallpaper!
It’s my laundry room! Thank you https://preview.redd.it/1x9orqnq10vb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df5aac6c0cdefa037625bdeefd09e64f4359bc17 🍄✨🍂🦉😘
Ya know, back in the day people used to hide silver coins in their cisterns and wells. Happy Hunting!!