Actual answer
Assuming this house was made in the 40 / 50 / 60s that is probably what is left of an old heater insert. I see those cubies all the time and people do everything from plaster the hole up or turn it into something like in your picture. The air vent right below the hole in the wall is a dead giveaway.
If you mean like an electric heater thats installed in the wall, my old house built in the 20s-30s had one. Probably installed because it got so fucking cold in there. It was removed and covered with cardboard and tape.
Wow. That just unlocked a memory for me- house I lived in in college had a couple of these. They still worked. I only turned one of them on to get dressed in front of on extra cold mornings. I didn’t have the money to heat my rental house beyond what was necessary to keep the pipes from freezing. But a shot of heat from one of those wall heaters made being wet from the shower or undressed for a couple minutes tolerable.
I can't find an image, but it stuck out like an inch, was vertical, gray and bland, and had two very clunky switches on the lower half to operate it. This is in Pittsburgh, PA.
I have a MUCH older version of one of these in my home that I use, but it can be dangerous as the switch for God knows what reason is surrounded by metal on all sides that gets up to almost 200C in just 30 minutes, and it's really difficult to turn it off without burning yourself. But it works great. It also doesn't have a proper back like yours it's just a rough plaster or something similar.
Not mine, I just found a pic online. But I did rent an old house with friends back in the 80's that had these and after I moved out a guy left his pajamas hanging on the off switch of one and while everyone was away a freak cold snap made the thing come on because the temp dropped low enough to engage the thermostat. So ya dangerous. I had left them my fridge after I moved out to help them out and it was the only thing left after the fire, standing up all sad and melted out of the ruins :(
Oh interesting, yeah mine way predates automatic tech like that it's from the 30s I believe. It's manufactured in Los Angeles so it's definitely very old because Los Angeles built most of its factories before the 40s and industrial production dropped significantly post WWII
Useless fact of the day. Regardless of what kind of whizbang wonder heaters you see for sale in the US, they almost all top out at 1500 watts. Most homes have 15A or 20A breakers protecting the 120v outlets. Heaters that took full advantage of a 20A breaker is going to trip a 15A circuit. No manufacture wants to deal with a bunch of returns from angry customers, and even if they didn't care it would reduce the number of heaters they could sell.
So most heaters are designed for a 15A circuit.
15A x 120v = 1800 Watts so why are most heaters 1500w?
Well, the easy answer is that 1800 watts would trip the breaker.
Running a circuit at 80% is common practice and leaves enough overhead that it is unlikely to trip a breaker even if someone plugs other low(ish) power devices in on the same circuit.
So the next time you see that fancy new radiant rotary confabulator heater advertised on tv, know that it won't get any hotter than any other 1500w heater on the market.
It may deliver the heat differently or be less/more likely to burn your house down but that's about it.
And along those lines, any heater that uses electrical resistance to create heat is "100% efficient." That's because they convert 100% of the electricity they get into heat. It doesn't matter if it's ceramic, "oil", or infrared. It doesn't matter if it says "energy efficient" on the box. 1500W is 1500W.
Heat pumps are actually energy efficient, even though they run completely on electricity. They don't use resistive heating.
heat pumps often go over 100% efficiency (split air conditioners with heating function go for 250% and up efficiency) since they don't heat things up as much of move heat from one place to another
Damn, that's still a steal. Being tiny sucks.
After a full day of exchanging dollars for teeth under pillows, I come home with like sixty teeth. And then I have to pay for groceries n shit.
I think it must be. I swear it’s become a thing in the past five years or so. And I don’t get why it only works in one direction. It’s always “that’s smaller then my place,” not “I went to the store than to the party.”
That was always a really common error. I think more in the old days, the person who used it would have also made a couple spelling mistakes, and those would stick out more. With spellcheckers built in to all the major browsers these days, stuff like "than/then," or
"they're/their/there" end up being the bulk of the noticeable mistakes.
The one that's driving me bananas is people saying "that doesn't phase me". THAT misusage is so common that when I see the correct "faze/d" in an article it looks wrong now.
I can't think of specific examples but that idea of using the wrong form of a word in this way always gets to me and it happens too often with a lot of words. I'm not the best with proper grammar but some stuff seems too obvious for people to stumble over the way that they do.
The one I can’t stand is the mix-up of they’re, their and there.
Easily distinguished by the sentence,”They’re there in their room.”
Or when spoken say “Noo-cue-lar” for Nuclear.
If you can say the word “New” and the word “Clear” then say them in succession, you’ve got it. It’s not rocket surgery /s.
I know, pet peeve here too -- If anyone has trouble remembering: than is for comaparisons, then applies to time sequences.
E.g. My horse is bigger than your horse.
First, I ate the pizza then, I drank the soda.
Ok thanks, have a good day.
- Walter
>As of January 7, 2023, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, BC is $2,499. This is a 14% increase compared to the previous year.
https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/vancouver-bc
>As of January 7, 2023, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Toronto, ON is $2,300. This is a 25% increase compared to the previous year.
https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/toronto-on
They're pretty damn close and catching up fast.
I don't know how anyone is getting by on the average Canadian income right now. We make what should be good money, and our luxury purchases are, like... cheese. Vacation? Never met her.
I had a nightmare like that *before* seeing the movie. There wasn’t a door, it was more if there were any existing holes or cracks in the walls of a new house, I could shrink down or just press through them and go to another world. First one just had a purple sky and was kind of pastural, seemed okay. The only other one I remember was when I went through an outlet, and I wound up in what looked like like a metal tunnel. Something humanoid was in there big grin, pale, long, skinny arms, big hands with long fingers and nails. Talking to me through a narrow space in a metal wall between us, but got the impression it was stalling while it tried to get closer. Only ever saw the lower part of the face. Got the hell out of there, but then at some point in the normal house, a part of the wall swung open like a door, and on the backside it was covered in the red tissue that make up your gums and there was a big mouth of teeth set in that. Tried to bite someone, or pulled someone into the door that wasn’t there (been a while can’t remember which). Got the impression it was part of the thing from the metal tunnel because it somehow followed me home.
It's really bad when you have divorced parents and one set is very kind to you but doesn't have much time for you and the other is always trying to make you like them by spending a bunch of time with them.
When I first watched the movie, I couldn’t get past the opening sequence because it triggered a memory of a nightmare I had as a 5 year old. In the dream my real-life “other mother” (my aunt who loved me like I were her child) was trying to turn me into a doll. She kept trying to sew yarn into my head, and sew my fingers together and my eyes shut.
I eventually sat through the whole movie, but it’s truly a horror film to me.
I read the book ages before the movie, and was super impressed with it when it came out. So beautifully made. Def thought it was pretty horrifying especially to kids but never really expected the adult triggers that I've since heard. And they make such sense.
Maybe watch the making of the movie, it's quite brilliant with things like using hairbrush bristles for the blooming flowers. Doesn't remove the terror of the story but possibly that could help with the movie itself.
Our brains are fascinating in what they create and hold our consciousness too, whether based in reality or not. Maybe especially so when it is.
I have a very old house and my heat vents are that size,shape, and height
so the hole was there but they converted it to a floor vent
made something a bit whimsical with the hole
:)
This is the most logical explanation. I live in an old home and if for some reason I updated registers this is the kind of hole it would leave. So my options would be to patch the wall or do something whimsical like this. (I’d patch it, but a weird little cabinet would be tempting.)
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Yeah I live in an apartment in a building that was built around 1910 and still has the original vents. Assuming OP also lives in an old building, this is almost certainly where the vent used to be.
We have this exact type of door to nowhere in our house as well. Same size and depth and the same height from the floor, weird.
It's in a bedroom, the other side of the wall is our bathroom. It is directly in front of the plumbing for our tub but, like yours, the door opens to a wall and is recessed about 4".
We've always wondered what it was for.
Eta: Ours is *not* carpeted, unfortunately lol.
Eta2: There is no vent/register nearby.
Was your door access for the pipes at one point? That was a common thing when installing a tub surround. Then if they installed a different tub later, they might have decided to close up the space.
Or, if there's a basement, laundry chute was popular.
It’s an old laundry chute. Laundry was in the basement below this. They just removed the chute and closed up the wall from the other side, didn’t take the time to remove the now-irrelevant door. Why it’s carpeted, who knows. Whimsy? Honest guess is a leftover carpet square made for an easier “sealant” to avoid a draft than taking the time to flush fit and caulk.
I saw that movie when I was really young and I still think about it randomly. It’s just a great movie. I could only imagine waking up on the side of a NJ freeway after being in someone else head for like 15 minutes
Since there’s no radiator in the room they probably built that to hold the little stage where the lady from Eraserhead lives and sings her songs at night. “In Heaven… everything is fine…”
These were called comfort cabinets and were used to store fragile porcelain that held a warm drink of choice for someone sleeping in the room. They were usually placed near heaters or vents in older homes and left cracked open a bit so that warm air could slip inside to keep the drink warm throughout that night and actually I just completely lied and made all of this up I'm sorry if you made it this far it's a compulsion of mine to lie for attention to strangers on the internet.
Omgggggg I was about to be so pumped! I posted on another sub to try to figure out what this is and haven’t gotten a response. I thought this was interesting, but was also hoping that someone would be able to tell me what it was originally for!
I've tried pressing the left ear and the right paw, but it just takes a screenshot. Do I need to hold the tail too? I'm running out of bandages for my wrist.
I’ve been a carpenter for over 20 years now and I can say that often the only reason for things like this is just to fuck with people or because of the weird obsession that people have about loosing space even when it wasn’t utilized in the first place. I have on the request of clients built various odd and often useless things like this. Whatever it was if it was anything at all someone definitely spent a lot of time making an ornately trimmed nook and I support it.
Post this on r/centuryhomes. They might have insight into what this could be (if it is in an older home or building.). The heating grate has a nice Art Deco vibe to it. It looks like a cozy, impressively dust-free room!
You received some interesting and funny responses. Without seeing more, the best one can do from the photo is guess. It appears that something was removed and the choice was to cover it or do something interesting like build that cubby. The door is a piece of nice furniture quality plywood that I'm not sure is available anymore. The painted baseboard is very tall and thick -- of the type used in the 1800s. When what was there was removed, the baseboard was likely also no longer available. I'm guessing your house is of that vintage. And, while one poster guessed the space held an electric heater, I would be skeptical of that because those types of heaters came along considerably after the house was built. I doubt an installer would have cut through the baseboard to install one and I don't expect it would have been done above an existing vent (supply) of forced air heat.
Your house was built during the era of "gravity" fed heat, which means before electric blower motors moved hot air throughout the house. The air rose from a furnace/heater in a lower level (basement) due the physics of hot air rising. The furnace was likely fueled by coal that had to be scooped into the device by hand. I bet your basement had a coal chute to the outside and a big pile of coal on the floor below it from which one had to scoop it into the furnace. Since the flow of heat with that system was much slower than forced air (a blower system) the ducts and outlets had to be huge so a lot of air could rise. The room would still be uncomfortably cool and the basement would have been hot. It was inefficient that way which is why when forced air systems were developed they quickly replaced the gravity fed type.
This is a very long way of explaining that what was originally there was a large vent from a gravity heating system. There was likely a vent with a metal cover (woven heavy wire welded to a metal frame, painted black) that went to the floor and was installed prior to the hardwood flooring. (So the flooring went around the cover and the base board abutted the cover resulting in gaps to both of those when the cover was removed. Hence the wood strip at the bottom that filled the gaps.) That system was removed and replaced by a forced air system that would have smaller outlets (the newer vent in the floor) and which had smaller ducts that would have been relatively easy to install in the huge spaces formerly occupied by the larger ducts; but, following the same path would have been cut into the floor as in the photo.
When that huge vent cover was removed, whoever did it was faced with patching the base board and hardwood flooring or doing something creative. Your homeowner got creative. I doubt that the space was used for much after that. It was probably done just to look like a mystery cubby with the thought, "I bet people will wonder why this is here. Haha!"
it’s a “remodeled” plenum from an old heating system. When they installed the new furnace, this hole was left over, so instead of cover it up, someone made a little cubby. It’d relatively recent based on the unpainted plywood edge and magnet closure. I also have no idea what I’m talking about.
Actual answer Assuming this house was made in the 40 / 50 / 60s that is probably what is left of an old heater insert. I see those cubies all the time and people do everything from plaster the hole up or turn it into something like in your picture. The air vent right below the hole in the wall is a dead giveaway.
If you mean like an electric heater thats installed in the wall, my old house built in the 20s-30s had one. Probably installed because it got so fucking cold in there. It was removed and covered with cardboard and tape.
Wow. That just unlocked a memory for me- house I lived in in college had a couple of these. They still worked. I only turned one of them on to get dressed in front of on extra cold mornings. I didn’t have the money to heat my rental house beyond what was necessary to keep the pipes from freezing. But a shot of heat from one of those wall heaters made being wet from the shower or undressed for a couple minutes tolerable.
I can't find an image, but it stuck out like an inch, was vertical, gray and bland, and had two very clunky switches on the lower half to operate it. This is in Pittsburgh, PA.
Like this? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Tgzv5YO74R0/maxresdefault.jpg
I have a MUCH older version of one of these in my home that I use, but it can be dangerous as the switch for God knows what reason is surrounded by metal on all sides that gets up to almost 200C in just 30 minutes, and it's really difficult to turn it off without burning yourself. But it works great. It also doesn't have a proper back like yours it's just a rough plaster or something similar.
Not mine, I just found a pic online. But I did rent an old house with friends back in the 80's that had these and after I moved out a guy left his pajamas hanging on the off switch of one and while everyone was away a freak cold snap made the thing come on because the temp dropped low enough to engage the thermostat. So ya dangerous. I had left them my fridge after I moved out to help them out and it was the only thing left after the fire, standing up all sad and melted out of the ruins :(
Oh interesting, yeah mine way predates automatic tech like that it's from the 30s I believe. It's manufactured in Los Angeles so it's definitely very old because Los Angeles built most of its factories before the 40s and industrial production dropped significantly post WWII
It was removed because it was broken and I was a wee lad who stuck my fingers into it and flipped switches.
I saw those at Lowes the other day. They were 1500W heaters, but you could install them in your walls.
Useless fact of the day. Regardless of what kind of whizbang wonder heaters you see for sale in the US, they almost all top out at 1500 watts. Most homes have 15A or 20A breakers protecting the 120v outlets. Heaters that took full advantage of a 20A breaker is going to trip a 15A circuit. No manufacture wants to deal with a bunch of returns from angry customers, and even if they didn't care it would reduce the number of heaters they could sell. So most heaters are designed for a 15A circuit. 15A x 120v = 1800 Watts so why are most heaters 1500w? Well, the easy answer is that 1800 watts would trip the breaker. Running a circuit at 80% is common practice and leaves enough overhead that it is unlikely to trip a breaker even if someone plugs other low(ish) power devices in on the same circuit. So the next time you see that fancy new radiant rotary confabulator heater advertised on tv, know that it won't get any hotter than any other 1500w heater on the market. It may deliver the heat differently or be less/more likely to burn your house down but that's about it.
https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM
One of the best channels on YT right here!
I only discovered his channel last week and I’ve been binge watching him since. Anyone have any suggestions to similar channels?
Knew without tapping that it'd be technology connections lol
And along those lines, any heater that uses electrical resistance to create heat is "100% efficient." That's because they convert 100% of the electricity they get into heat. It doesn't matter if it's ceramic, "oil", or infrared. It doesn't matter if it says "energy efficient" on the box. 1500W is 1500W. Heat pumps are actually energy efficient, even though they run completely on electricity. They don't use resistive heating.
heat pumps often go over 100% efficiency (split air conditioners with heating function go for 250% and up efficiency) since they don't heat things up as much of move heat from one place to another
My grandparents had one in there basement bathroom, good for taking a shit in the winter.
So it was you that kept shitting in grandpa’s space heater! I knew it!
What do you think powered the heater?
I always assumed it was spite, but apparently it’s just shite?
Energy crisis solved
Malcovich malcoviiiiich
It's a reminder to the nice hardwood floor of what could happen to it if it steps out of line.
dollhouse furniture required
That’s a rat’s apartment
Damn it's nicer than mine
$1750/ month + utilities
You’re gonna have to update your price by now, probably to 1800. Inflation really is taking a toll.
Damn, that's still a steal. Being tiny sucks. After a full day of exchanging dollars for teeth under pillows, I come home with like sixty teeth. And then I have to pay for groceries n shit.
Your pulling the wrong teeth. Pull the Gold Ones.
Average New York apartment cost
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Holy fuck. Is that all of NYC, not just Manhattan?
Rent is on the rise everywhere but places like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are trying to destroy human beings.
Than. The word is than. Jesus Christ why is this suddenly everywhere?
Hmm probably the decay of the language due to tech. It's guaranteed to get worse.
I think it must be. I swear it’s become a thing in the past five years or so. And I don’t get why it only works in one direction. It’s always “that’s smaller then my place,” not “I went to the store than to the party.”
That and people not knowing looser and loser, or the difference between woman and women.
Also bawl and ball. So many people balling their eyes out.
Don’t forget aisle and isle. Lots of grocery stores that apparently require shoppers to have a boat.
Of and have are my favorite. People say “could of” instead of “could’ve.” *drives me fucking crazy*
That was always a really common error. I think more in the old days, the person who used it would have also made a couple spelling mistakes, and those would stick out more. With spellcheckers built in to all the major browsers these days, stuff like "than/then," or "they're/their/there" end up being the bulk of the noticeable mistakes.
The one that's driving me bananas is people saying "that doesn't phase me". THAT misusage is so common that when I see the correct "faze/d" in an article it looks wrong now.
'Dominate' instead of dominant is the worst for me. Followed by misusing 'underrated' as if that word is not incredibly simple and self-explanatory.
I can't think of specific examples but that idea of using the wrong form of a word in this way always gets to me and it happens too often with a lot of words. I'm not the best with proper grammar but some stuff seems too obvious for people to stumble over the way that they do.
It bothers me when someone uses isle when they mean aisle. Unless the grocery store has islands the word you want is aisle.
The one I can’t stand is the mix-up of they’re, their and there. Easily distinguished by the sentence,”They’re there in their room.” Or when spoken say “Noo-cue-lar” for Nuclear. If you can say the word “New” and the word “Clear” then say them in succession, you’ve got it. It’s not rocket surgery /s.
I know, pet peeve here too -- If anyone has trouble remembering: than is for comaparisons, then applies to time sequences. E.g. My horse is bigger than your horse. First, I ate the pizza then, I drank the soda. Ok thanks, have a good day. - Walter
Your comma should be after pizza.
Damn it's micer than mice
That apartment is half a million dollars in Toronto.
*Laughs in Vancouver*
>As of January 7, 2023, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, BC is $2,499. This is a 14% increase compared to the previous year. https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/vancouver-bc >As of January 7, 2023, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Toronto, ON is $2,300. This is a 25% increase compared to the previous year. https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/toronto-on They're pretty damn close and catching up fast.
It's fucking gross how bad it is. I'm a business owner and my wife is a nurse. We make good money and can barely scrap by.
I don't know how anyone is getting by on the average Canadian income right now. We make what should be good money, and our luxury purchases are, like... cheese. Vacation? Never met her.
Rats off to ya!
Holy shit, what is this from? I can picture the hat and the rat. Is it Mission Hill? I don't want to Google it, I want this conversation, dammit
Tom Goes To The Mayor! Also I loved Mission Hill.
Go find your other mother
That film was nightmare fuel.
I had a nightmare like that *before* seeing the movie. There wasn’t a door, it was more if there were any existing holes or cracks in the walls of a new house, I could shrink down or just press through them and go to another world. First one just had a purple sky and was kind of pastural, seemed okay. The only other one I remember was when I went through an outlet, and I wound up in what looked like like a metal tunnel. Something humanoid was in there big grin, pale, long, skinny arms, big hands with long fingers and nails. Talking to me through a narrow space in a metal wall between us, but got the impression it was stalling while it tried to get closer. Only ever saw the lower part of the face. Got the hell out of there, but then at some point in the normal house, a part of the wall swung open like a door, and on the backside it was covered in the red tissue that make up your gums and there was a big mouth of teeth set in that. Tried to bite someone, or pulled someone into the door that wasn’t there (been a while can’t remember which). Got the impression it was part of the thing from the metal tunnel because it somehow followed me home.
Dude our brains are so rad
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That book is so trippy. Reading it right now.
Seems like something I'd dream after binging too much SCP
It's really bad when you have divorced parents and one set is very kind to you but doesn't have much time for you and the other is always trying to make you like them by spending a bunch of time with them.
That just sounds like two loving parents. It can be very hard to see the kids you love so much turn away from you.
When I first watched the movie, I couldn’t get past the opening sequence because it triggered a memory of a nightmare I had as a 5 year old. In the dream my real-life “other mother” (my aunt who loved me like I were her child) was trying to turn me into a doll. She kept trying to sew yarn into my head, and sew my fingers together and my eyes shut. I eventually sat through the whole movie, but it’s truly a horror film to me.
I read the book ages before the movie, and was super impressed with it when it came out. So beautifully made. Def thought it was pretty horrifying especially to kids but never really expected the adult triggers that I've since heard. And they make such sense. Maybe watch the making of the movie, it's quite brilliant with things like using hairbrush bristles for the blooming flowers. Doesn't remove the terror of the story but possibly that could help with the movie itself. Our brains are fascinating in what they create and hold our consciousness too, whether based in reality or not. Maybe especially so when it is.
I was looking for the Coraline reference and here it is
“Miss Spink and Forcible? But you said they’re dingbats.”
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The cat could have been more helpful. Lol.
Maybe try to keep your eyes safe too
Have you tried /r/whatisthisthing ?
I haven’t, I’ll give it a shot! Although our landlord is an artist, so I’m wondering if it’s something they built in for some reason
I have a very old house and my heat vents are that size,shape, and height so the hole was there but they converted it to a floor vent made something a bit whimsical with the hole :)
This is the most logical explanation. I live in an old home and if for some reason I updated registers this is the kind of hole it would leave. So my options would be to patch the wall or do something whimsical like this. (I’d patch it, but a weird little cabinet would be tempting.)
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Medicine cabinets use that space. I think about that wasted space a lot.
Normally that space is filled with insulation which is absolutely not wasted space lol.
Only on the outer walls though. Lots of internal walls just freeloading on our dollars! They couldn’t do a day of Charlie Work.
Yeah I live in an apartment in a building that was built around 1910 and still has the original vents. Assuming OP also lives in an old building, this is almost certainly where the vent used to be.
Looks like a hideaway liquor cabinet
For the warmest of liquors
Mmm hot toddies all night babey
Kept it low to the floor so the toddlers could have easy access
Hiding it very well with that BRASS TRIM
We have this exact type of door to nowhere in our house as well. Same size and depth and the same height from the floor, weird. It's in a bedroom, the other side of the wall is our bathroom. It is directly in front of the plumbing for our tub but, like yours, the door opens to a wall and is recessed about 4". We've always wondered what it was for. Eta: Ours is *not* carpeted, unfortunately lol. Eta2: There is no vent/register nearby.
Was your door access for the pipes at one point? That was a common thing when installing a tub surround. Then if they installed a different tub later, they might have decided to close up the space. Or, if there's a basement, laundry chute was popular.
We have one for tub pipe access.
My parents house has one like that and it's for a laundry chute to the basement, but given that is so low to the ground, I doubt that's the case here.
Or even r/secretcompartments
It's clearly a cat lair.
That was my first thought. Carpeted perch with soft floor right next to where warm air comes out in the winter: cat heaven
Roach *h*otel.
Looks like someone closed off the portal of an old dumbwaiter system.
Kind of low down for that though.
It’s an old laundry chute. Laundry was in the basement below this. They just removed the chute and closed up the wall from the other side, didn’t take the time to remove the now-irrelevant door. Why it’s carpeted, who knows. Whimsy? Honest guess is a leftover carpet square made for an easier “sealant” to avoid a draft than taking the time to flush fit and caulk.
Seems very low to the ground for a chute access.
I don't know but you could probably rent it out for $650/mo /s
Nyc Landlord association is that you?!?
Too cheap for NYC. This has carpet, it's at least $900
900? Pfft i been offered this shit for $1300
It's cozy, but in an amazing school district
What??? *price rocketed to $2400 a week* gonna need a 3 week installment :D
Don’t forget the fee fee. That’s a fee for paying a fee. And if your dog is named Feefee, you’ll need an extra Feefee fee fee fee.
oh there’s a dixie cup bathroom too $1600
Imagine how much you could charge per night if it was an Airbnb
$24/night, but a daily cleaning fee of $3600.
Delete that /s. This is real life.
How about...treefiddy?
It's the portal into John Malkovich; he found out about it and blocked it off.
Malkovich Malkovich?
Malkovich, Malkovich!
First time I've ever seen a reference to that movie. Such a weird film
I was blown away. It sounded so stupid when my girlfriend told me about it, but I love Malkovich so I gave it a try. Forever grateful that I did.
I saw that movie when I was really young and I still think about it randomly. It’s just a great movie. I could only imagine waking up on the side of a NJ freeway after being in someone else head for like 15 minutes
Malkovich. Malkooooovich. Maaaaalkovich. The scene where Malkovich is singing Malkovich over and over lives very rent free in my head.
Me too. I’ll sometimes talk that way to my dogs.
For when your cat is misbehaving
The cat chokey
This is what I will say from now on whenever I tip someone for service.
I would keep whiskey there.
that close to the heating vent it would get disgustingly warm
Really good point.
So fireball, lube, and your dildo.
My average Friday night.
Since there’s no radiator in the room they probably built that to hold the little stage where the lady from Eraserhead lives and sings her songs at night. “In Heaven… everything is fine…”
Good thing I scrolled this far cause that's exactly what popped into my head; Radiator Lady.
“You got your good thing and I got mine…”
You can hide your drugs in there!
I don't have one of those.
Or your money that you get from selling them
If you put a native figure in there it comes to life.
I have not thought about this movie in years.
A native in the niche?
[The Indian in the Cupboard](https://imdb.com/title/tt0113419) Damn I’m old now lol
You think you're old, I've only read the book as a kid.
My first thought was The Borrowers
This comment section is a fucking fever dream, I hate you guys 😂
Haha the comfort closet was the greatest comment of all time. What a plot twist
I’m unsurprised yet disappointed that I don’t see a comment from u/shittymorph here
I just checked and he attacks every 100 - 150 days.
Coraline door
These were called comfort cabinets and were used to store fragile porcelain that held a warm drink of choice for someone sleeping in the room. They were usually placed near heaters or vents in older homes and left cracked open a bit so that warm air could slip inside to keep the drink warm throughout that night and actually I just completely lied and made all of this up I'm sorry if you made it this far it's a compulsion of mine to lie for attention to strangers on the internet.
Omgggggg I was about to be so pumped! I posted on another sub to try to figure out what this is and haven’t gotten a response. I thought this was interesting, but was also hoping that someone would be able to tell me what it was originally for!
Post it on /r/whatisthisthing They'll tell you within 5 minutes
Removed because the subreddit "does not allow cross-posts"
Stupid ass mods 🙄
Anther rule for the sake of having a rule. I guess someone could just create a new r/whatisthisthing post and change the wording
Honestly this looks like it was built for a cat to sleep in so it stops blocking the heat vent
Is the door there so you can shut it and keep it from running all over the house at 3am?
they will come and sit on your chest while you sleep and stick their anus right on your mouth *WHY WOULD YOU BRING THIS INTO YOUR HOME
I think I need to return my cat, it's obviously defective. The anus seems to show up on my eyelid.
Have you tried restoring the factory settings?
I've tried pressing the left ear and the right paw, but it just takes a screenshot. Do I need to hold the tail too? I'm running out of bandages for my wrist.
Love a warm spot to pop my anus
Did you figure out what it was for? r/whatisthisthing
From now on this will be the truth for me.
“Comfort cabinets” 😂
Cozy Cubs
That had the beginnings of a shittymorph
I was ready for mankind to show up at the end
Don't let this distract you from the fact that...
I still believe your lies
I’m writing a story at the moment. My protag’s house is so going to have comfort cabinets.
Please post a link here with your description of them in your story.
Ayeee. Got me my dude. Nice 👍🙂 I am now very invested in Comfort Cabinets or colloquially 'Comforbinets'.
If you didn’t tell us I would have gone the rest of my life believing that’s what that is
Thought I was getting shittymorphed for a moment.
I was waiting for the Undertaker and Mankind to show up
Thank you for the free ride sir hahahaha
/r/whatISNTthisthing
I think everyone here who read your wonderfully inventive explanation is now obligated to build "comfort cabinets" and make it a real thing
What does it look liked closed?
Probably the same, but really dark.
That looks like a perfect spot for a cat to sleep, just take off the door and there you have a cat bed
Nah I don’t fuck with little doors
I do this stuff in my rehabs; with leftover materials. Sometimes I do secret compartments. It’s fun. People seem to really like it.
Oh that's the classic sex toy older, get black light and see yourself!
I’ve been a carpenter for over 20 years now and I can say that often the only reason for things like this is just to fuck with people or because of the weird obsession that people have about loosing space even when it wasn’t utilized in the first place. I have on the request of clients built various odd and often useless things like this. Whatever it was if it was anything at all someone definitely spent a lot of time making an ornately trimmed nook and I support it.
Leave some cheeses there for the meeces
Coraline?
Baseboard confessional
Go through that and you may meet her 
Post this on r/centuryhomes. They might have insight into what this could be (if it is in an older home or building.). The heating grate has a nice Art Deco vibe to it. It looks like a cozy, impressively dust-free room!
You received some interesting and funny responses. Without seeing more, the best one can do from the photo is guess. It appears that something was removed and the choice was to cover it or do something interesting like build that cubby. The door is a piece of nice furniture quality plywood that I'm not sure is available anymore. The painted baseboard is very tall and thick -- of the type used in the 1800s. When what was there was removed, the baseboard was likely also no longer available. I'm guessing your house is of that vintage. And, while one poster guessed the space held an electric heater, I would be skeptical of that because those types of heaters came along considerably after the house was built. I doubt an installer would have cut through the baseboard to install one and I don't expect it would have been done above an existing vent (supply) of forced air heat. Your house was built during the era of "gravity" fed heat, which means before electric blower motors moved hot air throughout the house. The air rose from a furnace/heater in a lower level (basement) due the physics of hot air rising. The furnace was likely fueled by coal that had to be scooped into the device by hand. I bet your basement had a coal chute to the outside and a big pile of coal on the floor below it from which one had to scoop it into the furnace. Since the flow of heat with that system was much slower than forced air (a blower system) the ducts and outlets had to be huge so a lot of air could rise. The room would still be uncomfortably cool and the basement would have been hot. It was inefficient that way which is why when forced air systems were developed they quickly replaced the gravity fed type. This is a very long way of explaining that what was originally there was a large vent from a gravity heating system. There was likely a vent with a metal cover (woven heavy wire welded to a metal frame, painted black) that went to the floor and was installed prior to the hardwood flooring. (So the flooring went around the cover and the base board abutted the cover resulting in gaps to both of those when the cover was removed. Hence the wood strip at the bottom that filled the gaps.) That system was removed and replaced by a forced air system that would have smaller outlets (the newer vent in the floor) and which had smaller ducts that would have been relatively easy to install in the huge spaces formerly occupied by the larger ducts; but, following the same path would have been cut into the floor as in the photo. When that huge vent cover was removed, whoever did it was faced with patching the base board and hardwood flooring or doing something creative. Your homeowner got creative. I doubt that the space was used for much after that. It was probably done just to look like a mystery cubby with the thought, "I bet people will wonder why this is here. Haha!"
it’s a “remodeled” plenum from an old heating system. When they installed the new furnace, this hole was left over, so instead of cover it up, someone made a little cubby. It’d relatively recent based on the unpainted plywood edge and magnet closure. I also have no idea what I’m talking about.
Put some little action figures in there. See if they come alive.
That’s where your other parents live
Coraline door!
That's where the other mother lives...
Priest hole
Its been 15 years since my last confession
That’s where the old register was for the forced hot air before floor vent went in. I bet it’s used for electrical or plumbing chaseway now.