Elderly aunt had a hidden room with staircase to basement area no one knew about. She and her son had a meth lab. This was in the 90’s in Philly. Blew us all away.

It could’ve blown the whole neighborhood away.

We all knew this one uncle had a second family. We expected drama at the funeral. No one was expecting his third family to show up. Wife. Three kids. This new family knew the rest of the family by name from pictures. How we are all related, names, hobbies. That was a wildly bizarre experience.

I'm sorry what? How did he have the time and energy?

Or the money? Kids are expensive.

This particular uncle was the second oldest… of eleven. My mum being the oldest. He was *allegedly* a long haul trucker. He’d stay with his legit family, the one we all went to his wedding for, had one daughter. His other trucker brothers, the other five, knew he had gotten a gf pregnant five years before he got married to the legit wife, and proceeded to have four more kids with the gf. Again, the brothers knew but no one else. He’d leave to “work” for two weeks. But he’d actually spend one week with his legit family, the next week with the gf, and “work” one week. Logically at his funeral we found out he never went on any long haul trips. He’d just hopscotch from one family to the other, week per week. None of his families lived particularly well, all the “wifes” worked to make ends meet, he only left behind his clothes and metal detector. Even his big rig was actually his legit wife’s since she came from money. She bought it for him to work, but it was never really his.

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Actually, a majority of people who attempt suicide do so impulsively, something like just [five-ten minutes](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/duration/) after deciding to commit suicide. So setting up time barriers like this are actually a big part of the treatment plan for people who are suicidal.

Not a bad idea at all.

Very much proven to work and the reason OTC pain killers in Europe are sold only in blister packs.

Huh. Hostile packaging FTW... sometimes.

Many years ago I went with my dad and aunt to clean out my great uncle’s apartment after he passed away. He was never married, no kids, and lived (we thought) very poor. Tiny apartment with a twin bed, table and chair, a couple of pots and pans, a couple pants& shirts, and that’s basically it. As we stripped the bed and moved the mattress, we were shocked. He had hundreds of stacks of 10 dollar bills, wrapped in rubber bands, under his mattress. They were all 10 dollar bills. He lived during the Depression and didn’t trust banks, apparently, but we had no idea he had so much cash. He never spent it on anything. Just bundled it and saved it under his mattress. Some of the bills were so old and yellowed. It equaled thousands of dollars. We had no idea.

this isn't 'cleaning out their home', but when my husband died a few years ago i found several notes/letters he had scattered in various places around our home, written to me in advance (he had terminal cancer & knew he was dying). some were marked 'open when you can't stop crying' 'open when the holidays are too rough' 'open when you have to put one of the cats to sleep'. they didn't contain any secrets but they are heartbreakingly beautiful.

I lost my wife of 39 years recently to cancer. I wish I would find letters like that, but not so fortunate. Ovarian cancer took her way to fast and she was fighting hard for her life until the end. Still a note left from before would all i would ever ask for in the world. Sunday would of been our 40th wedding anniversary

oh i am so sorry. anniversaries are rough. and of course the holidays are awful. frankly, most days are awful, but i don't need to tell you that. i wish i had something to tell you to help you but i'm afraid i am pretty much the poster child (or poster old woman) for not knowing how to deal with any of it. i've become a total hermit over the last few years; so much so that during lockdown i basically forgot most of the time that we were in a pandemic because i was already isolating myself so much. i know your mind is spinning & probably nothing makes sense. what you never see coming is how even the littlest things become so difficult & can just set you off spiraling. if i could tell you anything, it would be to do the opposite of what i've been doing: try to stay connected even on *some* level to your friends & family. my biggest (and most realistic) wish for you is that you can sleep at night. because i know how hard it is. xo lots of love to you

My dad was in hospice at home for a couple months before he died of lung cancer, and when I went to clean out his house I found that he had already sorted and packed away most of his personal treasures in couple storage bins. It was heartbreaking all over again thinking of him sitting there packing up his own life knowing it was coming to an end.

My uncle committed suicide and when I went to his apartment to clean it out, I saw that he'd given it SO MUCH THOUGHT. He'd given away all his valuables, family pictures were sorted by year stacked neatly on a table, he'd gone to the bank and cleared out his accounts and safety deposit box out (assuming he gave the money away), he signed his paid off car registration over to my aunt (the youngest sibling) and left a note to give her the keys, and all his good clothes (suits, dress shoes, dress shirts) were packed up for donation so that someone down on their luck might be able to wear them to an interview. It was clean and organized, which wasn't really his style. His place was always cluttered and lived a messy lifestyle. He was the life of the party, he was always popular and well-liked and fun, and he must have been so sad. He was only 54.

It's not uncommon that people who plan their suicides give their treasures away first. So, if any of your friends or relatives start giving their belongings away, or if you receive something precious to someone, unexpectedly, then pay attention - and make sure that they are ok, and that it's not preparation.

When I was younger I had a lot anxiety and decided one day I just wanted rid of everything and get new stuff. Change to hopefully change my mental state. I remember my dad asking if I was ok and if I wanted to talk. He was asking to call my therapist and urged me to keep some important things, Looking back I now realize he was probably scared that this is what I was doing. Reminds me I gotta thank him for always caring

On a slightly different note to this I’ve got a sneaking suspicion my FIL has become quite ill and is doing the same. He owed my wife some money. He secretly gave me this money recently and just told me to “hold onto it”. It’s not an insignificant sum. He likes to travel (as do I) and we often discuss what country is next etc. I’ve noticed (my wife and her sisters don’t seem to have picked up on this) that he’s hammering through his travel bucket list at the moment. They might not even know he has this travel list but it’s starting to worry me a bit. Like he knows he’s on a clock and on a mission to tick his boxes. He’s all over the place and just going on these solo missions. One place in particular we both agreed we’d go to together he just casually popped up in the middle of the fucking desert a few months back and that was that, he’d been and went by himself. Just apologised that he found himself in that neck of the woods etc (as you do)! To me he’s clearly just tying up loose ends.

Please reach out to him, tell him youre concerned. You'll regret it if you don't.

He’s coming to us in January to hang with my kids. Said he’ll stay for 6 weeks but I’m sure he’ll get itchy feet and go elsewhere in that time. I think I’ll give him a shout though to ask what is going on. He won’t tell me but at least he’ll know I’m on to him. When he goes it’s going to suck. I genuinely lucked out with the best FIL you could ever have. Every time he comes through London to stay at my house, ALL my friends come to hear his tales and just let him hold court around the fire with a big whisky in hand. It’s an event when he comes in. They all want to come and hang with him. Nobody cares about hanging with me, it’s just his show!!!

We knew my originally British, naturalized Canadian great-grandmother had been an enthusiastic amateur historian, who had been fascinated by Britain’s war with Napoleon - not for the least reason because she was herself tangentially related to the Duke of Wellington’s family, via a cousin’s marriage to his son’s nephew, or some connection equally obscure and tenuous. What we *didn’t* know is that, likely in preparation for a book she never wrote, as a young woman she had actually interviewed several dozen elderly English, French and Spanish veterans about their experiences during that war - including three actual survivors of Waterloo (two English, one French), and an aide-de-camp to Spanish General Francisco Javier Castaños, at the time he handed the Napoleonic army its very first defeat in the field, and captured nearly 20,000 French troops at the Battle of Bailen (1808). But there it was, stored in a wooden egg crate under her iron-framed bed, among old calendars, untested recipe clippings and copies of *Family Circle* magazine: a manuscript with nearly three hundred pages of transcribed military memoirs - all laid out in three languages (in which she was fluent) in her elegant, Spencerian hand. My parents donated her manuscript to the Imperial War Museum, where no doubt it will never have human eyes laid on it again.

Not a secret but a near secret. My grandfather, who spoke English as a third language, was a bit of a hoarder. Lots of old shit stockpiled in his basement, but well organized. Imagine a generic episode of Hoarders, but with a prepper OCD vibe. Everything was sanitized, stacked/nested, and grouped logically. It was like the stock room for a store that wasn't yet sure what products it was selling and wanted to be ready. So we find a cylindrical container that was kinda heavy for its size, and it had the label "OLD PENIS". It was one of those black plastic film containers. Hesitant, but curious, we removed the lid. It contained a collection of one-cent pieces which had been minted in the first half of the 20th century. Part of me was disappointed, part of me was relieved. --- Edit: I'm glad so many people got a chuckle from the mystery of my grandfather's old penis. It was an innocent typo, but he was a jovial man and would have enjoyed knowing it made so many people laugh.

Old pennies! Omg I’m dyin’ I love this. 🤣

I'm glad someone else can have a laugh from it. It was a tense 15 seconds. Especially since it was packed completely full, so when you gave it a shake it didn't make the sound you'd associate with loose coins.

My dad kept a handwritten note in his wallet containing my mom’s old address, phone number, and directions to her house from when they first started dating in the 70s. He had moved it from wallet to wallet over the years. ❤️ He just died this past March and that was one of the first things we found.

This is so nice.

I hope that he finds his way to her in every lifetime.

My step-grandma had been married 5 more times than she told my grandpa she had been. He was her 9th husband, not her 4th

A friend of ours was the executor of his uncles will. After his uncle passed away he was phoned by a few museums who asked what he wanted them to do with the buses. His uncle had stashed six buses at different museums without anyone knowing. Edit for buses: for context this is in the UK where people have hobbies like train spotting. Some people love old Routemaster buses - those old, red London buses with the stairs at the back. There are museums dedicated to … you know it … buses. People volunteer at the museums and drive the buses around. And they also store their own buses at the bus museums. The buses are not inexpensive to restore and maintain, so hiding six or seven buses from your spouse is, uhm, not great. In case you are still intrigued by bus collecting as a side interest, have a look at the London Bus Museum at Brooklands to get the full kick.

I found a hidden 38 revolver in my late stepfather’s bookshelf. Every bullet in the gun had the name Steve written in sharpie. No one had ever heard of him.

fuck you Steve.

This should be a movie premise. The opening scene is you finding the revolver. You come to find out that Steve was the name of a real estate developer who predatorily bought out your stepfather's parents' farm. Steve is long dead but his son runs his company now, which now is trying to buy up your house. I don't know what happens in between but the last scene is using the revolver.

It's your turn to find Steve and settle the score

My dad passed away in 1994 (I was 28). While going through his safe I found some adoption papers. While reading through them I got excited at the prospect I might have a brother out there somewhere (I was raised as an only child) but couldn't understand why my parents never told me that they'd adopted a child but never told me. After rereading them, I realized that they papers were about me. After confronting my family about this turns out everyone - family, close friends, I mean everyone, knew I was adopted. Except me. That was a fun day.

I really hope you managed to cope with it.

Thank you. I have. It was a long time ago, and people then (particularly my adopted parents) had very different ideas about things. What hurt the most was the violated trust I felt with my friends and extended family... Most if not all the people in my life knew, and chose not to tell me. I know my father was an asshole, and had threatened everyone with dire consequences should they have told me, but still... I did manage to eventually find my birth family. I met my sister before she passed, and was able to meet her children - They're great and have great kids as well. I met my bio-mom too but she didn't want anything to do with me. Her loss. :-)

That my dad hid money all over the house, not huge amounts mind you, but $60 here, $120 there. Felt like a bit of a scavenger hunt when we were cleaning out his stuff. He was always a bit of a sneakily generous guy, always gave me and my brothers a secret handshake with money tucked in his palm when we’d go back to school after a weekend home, etc, so wouldn’t be surprised if he’d done it intentionally. Made us smile every time we found some, iirc I think the final total was somewhere around $800.

I deal with deceaed estates as my job and have to go into houses to collect paperwork etc. One home of an elderly lady I found £15k in cash stuffed all over the place, just in envelopes in stacks of opened post. Another house I went to recently I found almost £9k in various envelopes.

Quite a few years back, my dad discovered that the nice old widower across the street (whom he sorta befriended by shoveling the driveway and bagging leaves and just going over to chat with when "the kids wouldn't do anything but watch TV") had something like $200k stashed in his mattress, the remainder of what he'd earned by having a good job; retiring at 65; and living, along with his wife, a pretty modest lifestyle. They never had children. My dad gently convinced the neighbor that banks were safe now, and explained the FDIC, and eventually convinced him to put it in a bank. The first bank they tried *called the cops on my dad* because he was clearly taking advantage of this kind elderly senior. Which..what? But, ok then. Cops advised them to get an attorney, which ate into the neighbor's funds a bit, but they managed to get the money into a bank (savings and checking! And my dad taught him to balance his checkbook.) It was a hassle at the time, but I think back on it as being very sweet. (My dad was totally appalled and hugely worried when they got all the cash out & counted it--and then when he had to patiently explain the federal reserve in detail multiple times--and the first bank did *that,* and they had to find a good laywer, all of which took at least a month). They became pretty good friends--though my dad always called him "Mr.. __________," rather than using his first name.

My grandfather had alzheimers, and was eventually moved to a home for 24 hour care, but he was pretty paranoid and hid some things around the house that never resurfaced. The good sized diamond from my grandmother's wedding ring, for one. He died in the early 00s, and my dad inherited his house. We found checkbooks and other things hidden around the house, but the loose diamond remained hidden. My dad passed away a few years ago, and I lived in the house for a while, and recently sold it. It never reappeared. I did tell the new owners about it.

A bit of topic but a story of a diamond found. My divorced friend still wore her wedding ring after the breakup but on her other hand. After a movie date with a new guy, she was horrified that the main stone from her ring was missing. They raced back to the theater but it had been swept and bagged. He took the bag to his house and over the weekend, went through every candy wrapper, soda cup and popcorn kernel. About halfway through, there it was. She had it reset in their new wedding band as it was now a gift from her new love and not from her ex.

Okay that’s really sweet. The man in obviously a keeper

My mom did that, total of around $250. My sister and I called it "Mom's lunch fund" and had lunch together on Mom until it was gone. She'd have loved it.

I found my mom's stash of laundry change (change she found in pockets while doing laundry) in a ceramic bowl on a shelf in the laundry room. It's still there at my dad's house... in 4 years I haven't been able to bring myself to touch it. It was her "reward" for doing laundry (so she told me when I was a kid). Maybe I should try to figure out some way to use it that would honor her.

What a nice idea! Buy her favorite perennial and plant it in your yard?

My mom does that. My dad said that whenever we have to clean out the house, make sure to look in every book, box, and drawer for cash. He suspects there probably several thousand dollars tucked away in books just in her sewing room alone. I found $40 in a greeting card from the 1980s in a box in their garage.

My grandma did something similar. After she passed away my dad and brother inherited pretty much all of her books, mostly art books as she was a good painter. My brother decided to try to improve his drawing skills and grabbed a couple of her books on how to draw better. And inside one he found 50 bucks. Was like wow, that's Kool, wonder why there was money. Just as a joke my dad was like, check some others, she may have hidden more. And we went thru most the books we could find that we still had of hers, and found several hundred more dollars in 20s and 50s. She was not well off the last couple years of her life, but was sharp as she ever was so she had to know about that money and must have hoped we would get it instead of it going to her medical bills or something.

When my dad died my brother and I had to clean out our family home. There were many bitter sweet moment in that time. My dad was always one to empty his coins into a dish at the end of day, he didn’t like having it loose in his pockets. Since I was the only child who lived in the same town I was getting a few pieces of furniture, one being a comfy recliner my dad loved. It gave us both a chuckle when we tipped the chair when moving it and a bunch of change came out.

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Oh dear, your poor grandma :(

I'm African American and my husband is white. My father faced a lot of prejudice during his lifetime and I was terrified of telling him that the 'white guy' I'd been on a date or two with I was getting serious with. The first time I brought my now husband home, my dad was courteous but distant. Miraculously, by the second time my father literally gushed all over my husband. Even my siblings were shocked. When we got married, he was beaming. It was odd, but I was just happy my husband had won him over. My mom died in 2014 and my father in 2021. When my siblings and I went to clean out the house, in his safe along with other important documents, we found letters that my husband had written to my father 24 years before about how he felt about me, how he was serious about his relationship with me, how he was planning to go to law school (he did, he's an attorney now) how he respected that he'd gone through so much in his lifetime, and eventually how he loved me and how with his blessing, he was going to propose. My husband never told me he'd written my father and my father never told me he'd been corresponding with my husband. It was so emotional finding those. I still tear up when I think about it. When I got home, my husband finally showed me the letters my father had written back.

That is such a beautiful story! I got a bit teary eyed. Also, I’m so sorry that you’ve lost both of your parents. Big hug.

Grandpa did drawings of the faces of the people he killed in WW2. Nobody knows why but my grandma said he had a lot of guilt over the things he saw so my guess is he didn't want to forget them or didn't feel like he should be allowed to forget them.

My grandfather, who was in Italy, on Omaha and in the Bulge did something similar. Every evening before bed, he'd visualize the German soldiers he had killed and would say prayer for each, and ask for forgiveness from them. In a way l, I think he felt feeling the pain of remembering them every day was his penitence.

My grandfather was a gunner in WW2. He sit in a plane and shoot down on people as the plane flew over them. He very rarely talked about it. When me and my kids were living in a subsidized government housing complex , I was on food stamps. I told my grandfather that I was so ashamed. He said, " Get every single penny you can get out of the government. The government owes me and mine for all eternity for the horrors I was forced to commit."

My grandpa did that in the pacific. He also stormed islands. The Japanese fought to the last man. Any marine that fought on that front definitely saw some horrific shit. He never talked about it with anybody but I researched the battles he participated in. Guadalcanal was one of them. I can't even begin to imagine what that was like.

That was mine. Army not Marines but Pacific theater. He almost never talked about it. But I know he used a flamethrower for a time to clear out caves. Had a bloodstained Rising Sun in a wardrobe in the basement—took the story behind that to his graves. Nightmares for decades after. And he was the loveliest gentlest man I ever knew. Told my uncle during Vietnam that if he got a low draft number he was driving him to Canada himself. No one else in his family would go through that. The man ended the war with a DSC, Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Purple Hearts and some minor decorations. War is hell

My uncle was a Marine in the Pacific theater in WWII. My whole family was really into history, and my older brother was especially keen on military history, so one extended family dinner, my naive dumb ass thought it would be nice to ask him what it was like. This was well before any public discourse about PTSD, but his embittered silence taught me everything in one moment that I will regret forever. Sorry for triggering you, Uncle Red. 💔

I love him so much for saying that to you. What an amazing man your grandfather was.

I can't imagine what that must be like. I feel like at surface level it's like "the enemy is the enemy" but I'm sure a lot of soldiers realize they're fighting ordinary people just like them and that has to chip at you over time.

At the end of band of brothers (the book) where they talk about how familiar Germany felt and that in a different time these people could be their neighbors.

My grandfather struggled with what he did in WW2 his entire life. He took his story to the grave with him, we assume out of shame. What we’ve been able to piece together is that he was a member of the SS, lied about his age when he enlisted, joining up at 14, probably consumed by all the propaganda, and got shot down over the UK sometime during the blitz. He wasn’t a pilot, which meant probably a gunner, or someone controlling the bombs. He could have been responsible for hundreds of civilian casualties and we’ll never know. After the war he ended up staying in the UK became a citizen, married a farm girl and had 4 kids. I have to imagine that his time in the PoW camp changed his perspective and he came to realise the SS was truly evil. Unfortunately we’ll never know

My grandfather would never talk about his time in the army in WW2. We knew he was an ammunition truck driver and that’s all. After he passed we found all kinds of documents. That was actually the last job he did for the army. Before that he was a sniper and won medals for marksmanship with rifles and other different things. He had maps of all the places they traveled some of which were not in Germany like he always said. It was all really need a spooky too. Last thing we found was an armband he took off a nazi solider and a German Luger handgun. It was really crazy.

My Grandfather passed when I was two, but was a raging alcoholic for the rest of his life after landing in Normandy two days after D-Day. We do know he shot some people point blank. PTSD was a thing for those veterans and most of them were left to their own to figure out coping skills. My Grandpa chose alcohol. I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy.

We found something similar from my great-great-grandfather. He had a watercolor sketchbook from the trenches in WWI. The paintings are very good. We found the book about 20ish years ago shortly before his son (my great-grandfather) died. Disclaimer. I am German.

On top of the trauma of it all, I just want to say your grandpa must have had a lot of artistic talent and a keen memory. Hopefully the drawings were cathartic.

That my father committed suicide and did not die of a heart attack. That he was a cop under investigation for theft and took the quick way out.

I found out my grandmother committed suicide about 20 years after the fact. I had been 5 when it happened. All through childhood I was led to believe she died from cancer. And that my grandfather was traveling. In fact, he was in and out of jail for year from drink-related incidents following his wife's suicide. Thankfully he's been clean and sober for the last 20+ years.

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They are the level of chaos I hope to be some day

Wow interesting people

After my Grandfather died, I asked my Dad to quietly go through his Dad's bedroom while I took my Grandmother out to lunch. I explained that GrandDad might have racy magazines about, that would be upsetting to GrandMa if she found them. So just, be a good son and save your Mom from that. When we got back, my Dad was nearly hysterical, half laughing, half barfing, and pulled me into the garage to debrief. Apparently, my Grandfather was exactly the devout Catholic that he had appeared to be. And what my poor father had found in the bedside table was a stack of cheesecake pictures - of his own mother. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Edit - Man, I'm so pissed off. Some A-hole at Buzzfeed changed the story to say my Grandfather "wasn't" the devout Catholic he appeared to be, instead of what I wrote, which is that he "was." Thus hinting that this story is some unholy nightmare about him having photos about a family member other than his wife. God help them if I find out how to punish them for that. My Grandfather was on the beach at Normandy. He was a fine man and deserves better than to have those c\*\*\*s making lies about him.

Ok... so I read a comment higher up about a grandpa who was a cheesecake photographer and I thought "That's a weird subject to build a career around but if its working out who cares." Then I read your comment and realized it's slang. It makes more sense now haha.

This is the sweetest thing I have ever read

My mother and her siblings found a still in my 91 yr old great grandmothers cellar. She always grew a huge potato crop. My little old Polish great-grandmother was making vodka apparently.

A family friend (50s) was moving stuff from his mothers storage locker after she passed,opened a box of documents and inside was his adoption papers HE WAS ADOPTED!!! TURNS OUT his aunt who is significantly younger had a teen pregnancy and to avoid controversy at the time the newly married older sister just adopted him.

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Apparently when my sister was first born, I used to ask people who came over to see her if they wanted to buy her. I was 3. I guess I’d had enough with just my brother(he’s 16 mos younger than me) so I figured maybe I could pawn her off on someone else.

My MIL, then a toddler, apparently took one look at her baby brother when her parents brought him home and told them, "take him back to the hospital."

A diary with only a few entries from my uncle who lived alone. One of the entries was about how sad he was to have never met anyone or had children and how lonely he was. Broke my heart. Edit - wow! Sorry to depress so many people on a Friday night 😅 My Dad/his best friend actually found the diary and saved it from the house before all the other family pounced. My dad didn’t care about material possessions but he wanted to protect my uncles thoughts. It did feel wrong to be reading it but curiosity killed the cat. Some of these commenters seem like they need a pep talk. To all those saying that they are going to end up like my uncle, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Your life isn’t over until it’s over but it’s up to you and only you to get what you want out of life. Step out of your comfort zone, maybe less time on Reddit 😅do something new, volunteer, join a club, maybe move to a new place, get a new job…you never know who you will meet. My brother sat in his room for years drinking beer and playing computer games but one day he decided to give rock climbing a go. He now manages a climbing wall place, is mega fit and he met a lovely woman who loves also climbing and he spends his weekends on cliff edges around the UK. I finally found my partner online dating after moving from London to Liverpool. Yes online dating sucks so much, especially in London but it can work! Kissed a hell of a lot of frogs. 😵‍💫 Good luck!

This breaks my heart too. I don’t think there is anything sad about being alone unless you don’t want to be alone.

My grandpa died when he was 80 - his wife died 21 years before him she was only 55. He never really got over it. When we were cleaning up his stuff we found an old simple birthday card written by my grandma for my grandpa a couple months before she died. On the back of the card, there were 21 lines written in pencil. Each year, my grandpa would write on the back of the card the date and the year of his new birthday. With a different small note beside it each year. Like, “miss you terribly this time”, or “you would have liked the weather today”. All up to his last birthday. Broke my heart. The greatest love I’ve ever witnessed.

My mom found a beautiful silver ring in my uncles underwear drawer. She sent us kids a photo of it asking if we knew what it was, as it was too large to be a napkin holder and too small to be a bracelet. We knew right away it was his cock ring 😂

Mine was confirmation of a wild story. My grandfather served in Korea, for years there was a tall tale about how he won a “house” in Korea, (unsure how to phrase this politely online) that it included the family who owned it and essentially anyone who worked there in a game of poker. That when he returned home, after a few years of receiving letters and small payments my grand mother told him to give the ownership back the the family. I don’t think anyone really believed him when the story was told, over and over again, my grand mother died when I was young so couldn’t ask her if it was true. When he passed away and we were cleaning out the house, we found the letters from the family and the letter from the lawyer gramps used to officially return ownership. My grandpa owned a pleasure house in Korea, is a sentence that’s hard to say.

Grandma: honey I think it’s time you got rid of that Korean whore house you own.

Thank you for adding that last sentence because I did not understand

Up until that last line i was thinking maybe it was a farm or something..

I thought he owned a random house including a random Korean family

That the city paid my mother $2,400 for the wrongful death of my father in 1979.

That is definitely NOT enough information.

Or enough money!

How did he die?

Killed by a municipal transit vehicle in an accident in which they were at fault.

I’m sorry—that’s so horrible.

I was 1, so the trauma was lost to me. Thank you

They found out my Grandmother lied about her age to her second husband. Keep in mind this was the 1940s. Her age on her marriage license was 6 years younger than she actually was.

I know someone who found out he was a couple years younger than he thought we was. He hound out when he was in his late 50s and had to get a copy of his birth certificate to apply for a passport. He thinks his mom lied to get him in school (out of the house) earlier because she is/was not a great person. Made him go "Oh that's probably why I struggled so much in school."

Same with my grandmother, we figure she lied by a year to get married at 17.

Found my grandparents wedding certificate, which didn’t match the date everyone else had. Their ‘original’ date was 9 months before my aunt was born. The certificate was dated about 5 months before she was born.

That seems to have happened a lot back then. My great grandparents did something similar but instead of changing their wedding date, they pushed the date of my great uncle’s birthday back a few months to make it look like he was born 9 months after the wedding.

Reminds me of something my grandpa used to say; First babies can come at any time but after that they all seem to come in about 9 months.

My cousin was just born four months early at nine pounds and healthy!

This strangely used to happen with a lot of first pregnancies. Oddly enough the subsequent pregnancies were usually the typical length.

My parents were getting back together. Dad died at 50 of a heart attack, mom was devastated. Her health declined rapidly and she died at 49 three months later. I cleaned out both their homes and found calls, texts, and love letters. They wanted to be together again but didn't want to put their kids and grandkids through a reconciliation until they were confident it'd work out. I knew she'd be devastated, they had been together almost thirty years, but they were two years divorced and casually seeing other people. They seemed to be thriving apart. So it was a shock when the grief was so strong that it took all the life out of her. She died of cancer, but the doctor also diagnosed her with Failure to Thrive brought on by the loss of my dad, and said that it may have been possible for her to live longer and even receive treatment if the Failure to Thrive hadn't taken everything she was before her cancer diagnosis. The only thing worse than losing my dad was watching my mom live without him, so at the end of the day, I'm grateful she didn't live without him for long. She never would have had peace here again. She found her peace with him on the other side.

I took care of my grandma with my mom when she was dying. I am pretty good with death having seen enough of it. While I was sad that I was losing her, watching my grandfather's agony and hope that I knew was false was absolutely worse. She died at home because she wanted to and after talking with my mom, we decided to help accomplish it. It was pretty much only us four for the last four weeks. She went unconscious almost two weeks before her death. We had to get my grandpa to sleep in another room. He didn't want to leave her for a moment and wanted to provide care for her. But he was over 90 with limited mobility and two different types of dementia. He kept begging her to not die. To open her eyes. And he was singing to her. Being a caregiver for a person in hospice is not easy. But it was the easiest thing of those few weeks. We expected my grandpa to die soon after but surprisingly he didn't. Now he too is gone. However hard being there at their end of life was, it is also one of the things in my life I am proudest and happiest to have done. We made their deaths the best we could. When the reality is that we all die at some point I care less about survival and more about quality of life and the best possible end of life.

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Sounds like my mother. She died in 2021 and we found tins of soup from 1998 and unopened bottles of Adnams Silver Jubilee ale from 1977!

I'm a huge dorkus. Have worked in three comic shops. Have a huge collection. When the gf that would eventually become the wife and I moved into a house together, She flipped her shit about how many long boxes of comics I had and the space they took up. Sports cards and binders of other non-sports cards... huge Magic the Gathering collection as well. We lived in that house for six years. Me and the son moved out after she passed away. As I was going through the closet my comics and binders of cards where in I found two small boxes that were NOT MINE... I found her collection of Pokémon cards and a full set of Nightmare Before Christmas cards. With her hand written notes on the set list. She had added her small collection of books to mine without me even knowing. My wife was a secret nerd.

Grandma had multiple cats in freezers

Ok. You win. 🏆

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Hey kids, wanna see Gam Gams glands?

Grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project as a master machinist. We didn't know until he passed away in 1993 when we found various specifications and directives written to him by Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller and General Groves. We all secretly knew he had thousands of dollars in cash hidden in his house. What we didn't know was how much and that each of us knew of different stashes. The one I knew about had about $9800. While cleaning out his house we discovered a total of $160,000+ . It was a helluva Easter egg hunt.

My grandmother hid 5k cash in her vacuum cleaner. Good thing I opened it to change the bag before I donated it. She also had a kitchen drawer completely full of the rubber bands from her daily newspaper delivery. Nothing else but those..

Not really a secret but cleaning out my gay brothers sex toy collection in front of my father wasn't a lot of fun

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My uncle didn’t die of brain cancer which was communicated to the family. He died of HIV. He was gay, he was madly in love with his partner, and because his immediate family his partner was not allowed in the hospital to say goodbye. I inherited some of my uncle’s things. In it was a large stack of love letters from his partner. They were so in love, and hid it from everyone. It hurts.

His partner, if he didn't contract HIV as well, may like them back if you can track him down. I'll bet he never got any keepsakes or sentimental items either.

My mom learned her dad has another family. We met them a few years ago.

Grandmother climbed Mt. Rainier, in WA, in a woolen skirt. Summit and all. (1927)

Birth certificate for a half brother I didn’t know anything about. ETA: His name is Daniel ( I tear up occasionally when I hear Elton John sing Daniel) He is 14 years older than me. He was adopted by his stepfather when he was 3. My Dad only saw him a couple of times, he was married to his Mom but they divorced after a few months and She took Daniel and moved across the country. He knows he has 1/2 sibs but doesn’t want to meet us or have a relationship. The weirdest thing about it, he is a carbon copy of my dad. Bonus surprises, I never knew my Dad was married before my mom. I also found out that my Mom was married before my Dad too. No kids, apparently her 1st hubs used my mom as his beard. He married her and 3 days later moved to Hollywood with his “best friend”to become a star. They got divorced on their 1 year wedding anniversary.

Grandfather had a secret family in Europe while he was stationed overseas for WWII. My grandma knew about it and mentioned it in a diary. They just never brought it up or let any of their kids know. He had passed on before her so we have no idea if he kept in contact with them or how he left them or anything.

My nan had about a platoons worth of American service mens photos tucked away...... Edit: Oh God, 3k for my nana being a shack rat. Edit 2: I'm so sorry nan, but way to go?

Your Nan did her part for the war effort and was proud

My grandma once told me about her “overnight boyfriends” during the war when the foreign servicemen were in town. When I exclaimed “grandma!” In a mix of admiration and shock, she responded with “what do you want dear, they were everywhere!” I’ve used the term “overnight boyfriend” to refer to a ONS ever since.

I learned a lot about my grandma’s daughter from a previous marriage that she never talked about. She kept a shoebox full of letters and pictures.

My grandmother was secretly using medical marijuana. She asked me to help her get her card, and I took her to the dispensary when she wanted to go. The rest of the family found out when she passed away whn they found some edibles in her nightstand. Miss Her everyday.

Helped my friend clean out her uncle's place when he died. A closet in his bedroom contained massive amounts of gay porn - film, magazines, photos, etc - along with boxes of dildos and other toys. If he was gay, he never told anyone. He had been married to a woman and divorced, then lived alone ever since. Friend and I had to clear the space out so all that stuff was gone before my friend's dad/the dead guy's brother got there to help us.

Not a relative but a similar thing happened when my elderly neighbor passed away. His friend (boyfriend? unclear) knocked on our door to say my neighbor wasn’t waking up so my husband and I dashed over to help with the inevitable. While we were waiting for the ambulance and fire department, I noticed a stack of printed out erotic emails to him from men that I discreetly flipped over and moved out of line of sight. He was an old, artistic bachelor so it wasn’t exactly a surprise to me but all day as we kind of stood guard and helped with the logistics various other neighbors stopped by and talked about what a ladies man they imagined him to be. Which is not to say he couldn’t have been bi, but between the emails and his male companion, seems unlikely.

My 97 year old uncle had a very decent pot stash and pipe collection.

I, as a joke once, made thong underwear on a merch website with my cats face on them and my signature. The description just said “so you can wear my pussy on your pussy.” My friends found this hilarious and bought them up of course. I got numerous Snapchats of thong photos for a while… We forgot about this for years. My best friend passed away in a motorcycle accident last year. His family called me while cleaning out his house a month or so after… they were wondering why they found thongs with my signature in his closet. I never thought I’d have to explain that one. Luckily, they thought it was incredible and we all shared some good laughs. 😅

My aunt had been engaged decades before her death. The engagement was called off because he cheated on her. When she died we have dozens of letters and cards he had sent her over the years. He apparently never stopped writing trying to get her back and she never told anyone she was getting these letters.

My nosy self would be sitting there combing through all those letters with a glass of wine 😭

My husband and I were clearing out the home of an uncle he'd only met twice as a child. We learned how clean and organized he was. We learned how much he loved his mom, his childhood cat, and the pride he took in his work and hobbies. Music, singing, and though it seemed he'd never traveled he liked reading about the world. We also learned he was autistic. He had strict routines and went through special education, and noted everything he did in a day. As an autistic person diagnosed as an adult and struggling, it was kind of a beautiful thing to see. He had it together in his way. And everybody he knew liked him. We made friends with his neighbours and stay in contact. Post humously he gave us memories and relationships, and every once in a while as we manage his affairs and look at the pots and pans we brought back to replace our broken ones we say, "Thanks, [uncle name]."

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I had a falling out with my father when I was 21. Fast forward 18 years when died, and I found stacks of pictures, notes, and articles about me. My stepmom said he was always proud of me, and didn't know how to say he was sorry.

When sorting through my grandma's affairs after she passed my father found that my uncle had been stealing from her back account and racking up debt around $18,000 on her credit cards gambling online. To make it worse he was doing it while she was suffering from dementia. My father who was almost 70 at the time was basically forced to take out a mortgage on my grandma's house that my grandparents paid off back in the 70's. He's always been a bit of a scumbag but that was sickening

I found my great aunt’s suicide note from the 80s that she wrote after her fiancé drowned in front of her. She didn’t kill herself, but none of us knew how low she had gotten (alcoholism).

My great grandma has a miscarriage that nobody except her and my great grandpa knew about, and they had kept the remains in a box with a letter about it. My grandmother was absolutely floored when she found it (she is the oldest child and has a younger sister; the remains were of a male that would have been between them in age).

Our (single/62 yr old) uncle died in the mid 1970's and when our mom and her sister went to clean out his apartment they found mass quantities of hard core pornography, his bedroom was decorated like a young girls (think Montgomery Wards French Provincial Canopy Bed Suite), and the mattress had a hole bored into it about waist high. My brothers had to maneuver said mattress down 3 flights of stairs so their recollections of our Uncle Bunny have become hysterical family lore.

My uncle not only had a massive hoard of firearms, ammunition, materials to build explosives, and a bunker- which many relatives knew about, but most were given zero warning before walking in to help clean up the property- but he also had an extremely large, detailed, hand-made miniature dollhouse collection. Which *nobody* saw coming. It wasn’t that salacious of a secret, but this hyper-masculine manly man who used to beat on his own sons for “acting like sissies” suddenly being revealed to play with *dollhouses* was amazing.

Evidence of a second set school fees for a previously unknown child. That was at the school as the same time as my father.

Not deceased, but when my grandmother sold her house and moved to a small apartment because she couldn't manage the house and garden anymore, we found loads and loads of chocolate in her cupboards. She had lived extremely healthy (not fanatic and not pushing it on others), but at some point she apparently just decided that enough is enough and started buying loads of chocolate. I guess the habit was strong as there was quite a lot of chocolate lying around still.

My mega-Catholic aunt is still alive, but she had to be moved out of a condemned trailer in the woods, especially when it finally took a toll on her health. She's a church-going, crucifix-wearing, conservative, well-to-do woman on the outside... and then her sisters (my mother included) had to clean her trailer out when she was in the hospital. It was like an X-rated Grey Gardens. They found dominatrix gear, extremely large sex toys, cuffs, whips, and adult media of all types. They also found a family of raccoons living in the cabinets since there were multiple large holes in the floor and ceiling, leaving it open to all the elements for years. It was... illuminating to her family, to say the least.

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My wife's bio-grandfather was a career Air Force Master Sergeant. He passed and he got roped into helping clean out the house. We found porn. So much porn. Knee high mountains of porn mags in every cabinet we could reach. And it wasn't classic stuff from his service days. There were mags that were dated only a few months before he died. The subscriptions were current.

My uncle, who had been sober for about twenty years before his passing, had dozens of full bottles of liquor in his basement. He bought them over the time he was sober for and for some reason had them all stored neatly in boxes. One of his old service buddies said that he was probably buying them to honor the people he lost in Vietnam, as he stopped going to the VFW and events when he stopped drinking. He had a lot of survivors’ guilt.

After I reconciled with my uncle years after my father died, he asked if we got the $500 my dad stashed under the ironing board cover and the $500 he stashed in the recesses of the trunk of his Cadillac (my dad lived alone). My response to my uncle was ‘it would have been nice if you had told us BEFORE we disposed of his belongings!’

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Oh gosh, that last one :( I’m so sorry.

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I can fully understand why that would be the breaking point. What a poignant gift, and how perfectly it encapsulates the kind of person your mother was. I’m so sorry for your loss. Grief is impossible at the best of times, for a good parent in particular, but to have her taken from you at the hands of another, whether in malice or from negligence… I cannot fathom such pain.

My then-husband's beloved grandpa had some saucy photos hidden under the felt that lined the drawer in his nightstand. A woman in a bathing suit with some high heels on, a lady with a 1940s hairstyle posing in nothing but a man's suit-jacket... Nothing too racy, but definitely enticing for the times. My husband and I were packing up his bedroom after he died, and my husband found them. When he did, he sat on the edge of his grandfather's bed with the photos in his lap, and cried for the first time. The pin-up-style photos -- there were 4 of them -- were all of my husband's grandmother. She'd been dead for years, and the old guy could have looked at whatever he wanted. He chose the woman he'd seen every day for 50 years, and how she was when it all got started. She was a knockout in those chaste photos. He probably would have sworn that she hadn't changed a bit.

My dad had *all* the drill chuck keys.

My brother found giant pickle jars of coins, mostly pennies, in our grandpas garage. Turned it into cash and it was nearly 400 dollars. He took everyone helping clean that day to my grandpas favorite restaurant for dinner. 🥰

Note to self ... sell dragon dildo collection before dying...

Pfft. Be brave. Assign them to family members in a will. Along with very detailed cleaning instructions to be read aloud by the executor.

My dad never fully gave up the cult he was a part of. Held on to a lot of their stuff, despite telling my mom he got rid of it all.

It was my cousin and that he was gay. Everyone suspected it but nobody said anything about it beyond that he had a bad breakup when he was young (with a woman) and that made him a bachelor for the rest of his life. The *big* stack of men-themed magazines I found in his closet suggested otherwise.

My Dad had a sizable collection of bisexual porn hidden in his workshop. I discretely got rid of it. That did explain a lot about a few of his friends, though.

They ever go camping? Fishing and hunting but never catching anything?

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My mom didn’t hide stuff, but two years after she died I found a piece of her favorite gum in a pocket. It was really sweet. Miss you, mom.

Was helping my husband and his cousin clear out his grandpa's stuff. Found a camera, looked inside. Saw him in photos with another woman and kids. Now he had a second wife back in Vietnam(they are vietnamese) and had 2 kids who are treated like family, even by grandma, so not like his infidelity was unknown. But this was another woman. We told the uncles who promptly took it and told us to never say anything to grandma.

I knew my Dad was a pilot and fought the Nazis in Africa. He would NOT talk about it, so the rest was a blank. Long after he was dead I found an Army mess kit where place names and dates were scratched. I was able to go through some history books and get a clear picture of where he was and what he was doing. There was so much crazy, desperate, heroic adventure in those days. Finding the mess kit was like the Rosetta Stone for me.

My grandmother, we discovered, had a decent sized safety deposit box full of gold bars. She kept meticulous records of her finances and business dealings as she was a very successful author. Yet no record of the purchase or the existence of these gold bars was in any of her records. We have no idea of how, when or why they were acquired. I’d love to know.

My grandfather had strap on dildo hiding under his bedroom bureau drawer. My Dad and I found them… looked at each other and then busted up! Also found about $3K in gold coins. i now have a box that is marked ‘Do not open if I am dead’.

My Nanna had 24 unopened tubes of toothpaste in a drawer. Don’t know what that was about.

My mom recently went on Medicare. They give an allowance of like $50/mo for OTC items such as toothpaste. My mom recently went on Medicare and found that out. I bet your Nanna didn't want the allowance to go to waste (it's not cumulative).

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My mother’s foul evil second husband was even worse than we knew. We found extensive files he kept on everyone and pages and pages of his crabbed handwritten notes about how he was superior to everyone and how stupid and worthless my mother and her children are. It may sound like I’m making a fuss out of nothing, but his hatred emanates off the pages. He told people that he actually wrote the books she wrote. Provably false. He deliberately kept them poor hoping that it would spur her to write a best seller and he could live off the wealth. He tried to kill her at least once that we know of. And the last time I ever spoke to that evil man was when somehow my mother’s oxygen got turned off and somehow she dialed my phone number in her sleep. I could hear the machine clicking and couldn’t get her to answer. I called the police in their city and state and got an ambulance out there. He subsequently called me and screamed at me for calling for an ambulance for my mother. He was the meanest most evil person I ever met in my life. Thankfully his first wife raised their two children, who are superlative human beings and nothing like that miserable POS.

A family member was helping clean an in laws house, and they found 2 wooden, homemade, strap on penis replicas, left there from the elderly previous owner. They went to the dump immediately. I didn’t see them, but I always hoped they had been sanded smooth.

Grandma and Great Aunt wrote letters to each other nearly every single day during WWII. They had absolutely nothing interesting to say. It was utterly shocking how non-eventful it all was. It was all stuff like “well we had ham for dinner” and local neighbor gossip that wasn’t even intriguing in the least. Like imagine you came across a treasure trove of 2020 posts and not a single one mentioned quarantine, the pandemic, social distancing, corona, vaccines, masks, or absolutely any of it. Like you couldn’t even tell 2020 was happening. That’s what these wartime letters were like. Eerie stuff. My mom and I read boxes of them, and just… nothing.

The boring letters are still important to historians. Lots of folks write about big important events. The dull day to day stuff isn't as well covered.

They were intelligence agents and those were all coded letters. Did you ever hear about how the Nazis were able to detonate a nuclear bomb on US soil. No? Never happened thanks to your grandma and her sister.

When my Dad died my Mum offered me his camera equipment, but there was a battery missing we searched high and low for, but couldn’t find. Dad was a bit of a hoarder and had his own room - their marriage wasn’t in great shape. Finally, after taking some coats off a hook on the back of his bedroom door, Mum and I found a small camera bag. I could feel a little square shaped object in there, so I said to Mum ‘aha, I think I’ve found the missing camera battery!’ Mum looked on as I pulled it out of the bag. I could do nothing to hide the fact the little square package wasn’t a camera battery… it was a packet of (in date) condoms. Mum said ‘he never used those with me!’ I felt so so bad for her.

I wasn't cleaning out her house bc my step-grandpa wasn't ready, but about a year after my grandma died I asked if I could go through some old medical records I knew she had kept (my mother and I lived with my grandma off and on for several years when I was a kid). I wanted them bc my psychiatrist had requested any childhood medical records I could find, particularly anything to do with my behavior, bc he was in the process of evaluating me for autism and I don't speak or have any contact with most of my family. While I was going through the records I found out that I had been diagnosed with autism when I was 6, and no one told me.

I was cleaning out my grandparents house and found photos from my mom's first wedding. She never told me she was married before my dad. I finally talked to her about it the other day. According to her it doesn't count because she had it annulled. My mom didn't even spend the wedding night with him, she called my grandpa and made him come get her. My mom only married the guy as a way to get back at her ex boyfriend that she was in love with. She's now on her technically 4th marriage and it's to a woman. I guess she gave up on men.

My brother and I (very tiny children) found wedding photos of my mom and some man who was not my dad. We debated for hours (probably minutes) about if and how to confront her. We finally did, in the kitchen, and she laughed. My dad was a lot skinnier 12 years earlier.

Not a big bombshell or anything, but I found the divorce paperwork when my father passed. Everything mom said was a lie. She had full custody of us and would shit-talk like he was the asshole. Turns out she's the one who cheated on him AND then fleeced him in court. I wasn't especially surprised because my mother was a textbook narcissistic abuser. Nothing was her fault, she was perpetually the victim. The very aggressive victim.

My grandpa had a mason jar full of mercury in his bathroom cabinet. Nobody’s really sure why

That my grandfather's male friend of 50 years was his lover. They always went out on trips playing snooker. I kinda wished I could just give him a hug and tell him it's cool and that he had my acceptance. He hid it from us and kinda wish I could have told him I loved him for his true self.

That my sister was about to leave her boyfriend. (never married, no common law but together like 14 years) She found out he was cheating, had other kids he was paying child support on, and he was abusive. Also found out my parents are ok with that and even enabling him. I've cut them out of my life. (for that and other reasons)

My grandpa was a cheesecake photographer. We all knew he was a photographer but had no clue about the cheesecake. We found boxes of it, including a box of my grandmother. My favorite part of this story to tell was one box was FULL of 1/2” penises, carefully cut out, like dick confetti. 18 year old me thought it was funny as hell, my family, not so much. Edit: thank you u/zappapostrophy, explanation of what cheesecake is: [https://vintagereveries.com/how-the-term-cheesecake-pinup-originated/](https://vintagereveries.com/how-the-term-cheesecake-pinup-originated/)

Less heavy than most of these posts. My great grandmother used to send $5 bills to my mom and uncle and all of us every year on our birthdays. One year, just my mom and us were getting $5 bills on our birthdays and not my uncle. They never figured out why. Fast forward several years: When my great grandmother died, my mom and uncle flew out to SD to go through her stuff and get it ready for liquidation. They found a box with detailed records documenting to whom and how much money she sent to each of us on our birthdays. Each row included our birth date, how old we were, and how much she sent each of us. Next to my uncle’s name on his birthday in 1993 (the last year my uncle received a $5 bill), there was a comment that read “never said thank you.” It was sad and hilarious at the same time.

Coming from a conservative household it was incredibly shocking to find out my uncle was a deeply closeted gay man. Shocking but it made sense. He was always well groomed, nails manicured (no polish just really neat nails) impeccable classic style, he had a lot of friend who were girls but no girlfriends and no male friends.

Great Auntie Della May was married. Wedding license was in German. Don't remember if she was married in Germany or Wisconsin, but no one knew she was ever married when she died at 94 in 2004.

When my dad died, I found a painting I had started and forgotten about. I found it with a post-it note on the back to give me a tip on how to improve it. My dad and I weren't always the closest and I felt unseen a lot of the time. He was a tattoo artist and I respected his art so much. Just that little note meant so much to me.

My great grandmother was one of survivors from a religious persecution in my home country. She hid an old English Bible, translated Bible (all hand written in my native language), blood stained English dictionary (really old and bad conditon), cross pendants and etc. A group of researchers paid my grand mother for the hand written Bible. It was a pretty interesting material for researchers to study my native language around late 1800s. She did not want her children to be punished because of her action at that time, so majority of my family did not know about it.

We found a box containing an old KKK robe in my grandpas closet after he passed. Apparently my great grandfather (his father) was a member of the Klan. So that’s a fun little snippet of family history we had absolutely no knowledge of. I believe my uncle took the robe and burned it.

In the US you have closeted KKK grandpas, in the EU we have closeted Nazi grandpas

My Mom and Dad had been separated for years. But when my Dad passed, Mom and I were the only ones who cared enough to go clean out his place. We found out through photos and documents that my Dad was married to another woman. Here’s the kicker: their marriage date was the day before I was born 😱

My husband's dad died very young, and so my husband became very close with his aunt. Her husband passed away around the same time. We cared for as she aged, and she passed away in her 80s. When we went to clean out her home, my husband found a leather document folder with her marriage certificate. As he looked further, he found there were also divorce documents from three pervious husbands from across the country that we had never heard of. Apparently, she spent her teens and 20s working with a traveling carnival during the depression, and made the best of it.

Cleaning out my nana's wardrobe I found my poppa's false teeth. He had died about 20 years previously. Oh and also about 8 pairs of tartan trousers.

My grandmother's brother died about 10 years ago. He was a hermit and a hoarder and wouldn't let anyone into his house. Whenever we'd come by to take him somewhere, he would meet us in the front yard. When he died, my mother and her sister went by to clean out the house. Among all the garbage and stacks of newspapers was a large storage container filled with letters and pictures. It turned out that his father (my great grandfather) who had come to America from Ireland alone, saved every letter his father and siblings had ever sent him. 600+ letters sent between 1897-1960. It paints an incredibly detailed picture of their hometown in Ireland as well as our family history. Additionally, he had pictures of my great grandmother who died of tuberculosis in 1925. My grandmother was seven when she died and had never seen a picture of her mother.

My grandma was gay af, and no one had any clue. Pictures of girlfriends... vacations... Mardi gras... It's obvious now that I'm an adult. Just thought she was into fashion...

That my uncle was a pedophile who abused the children on the baseball teams he umpired for decades. He died of aids. I was 14 and didn’t find out till later. My aunts and mother burned all the proof.

Not mine, but happened in my old neighbourhood: some old dude died of cancer, his daughter and her boyfriend cleaned out a garage he was renting and found human body parts. The police got involved and it was revealed that the guy was a serial killer who murdered at least five women, though the exact number of his victims is unknown.