A Guy Crawled Into His Attic For The First Time – And Discovered This Doorway To A Creepy Hideout

Clearly, this isn’t what Mr. Griff was expecting to find in the attic of his new home. The building was originally built as a shop, although you wouldn’t know that to see it now. These days, it looks like any other one-story family house – at least when seen from the outside. So it must have come as quite a shock for Mr. Griff when he first uncovered the structure’s sinister secret.

Yes, there’s definitely more to Mr. Griff’s home than first meets the eye. It had once been used as a church, in fact. And when it was converted from a store, the builders extended the building out some. They’d sealed in the attic with insulation batts, and it’s not likely that anyone ever went up there. So what Mr. Griff discovered lurking above the rafters may well have been in place since the church had rung out with hymns. Creepy.

Mr. Griff did not share where his home was – although it was somewhere in America. And some who saw his post on Reddit felt the attic could have come straight out of a horror movie. It definitely put the chills up Mr. Griff’s spine when he saw what was hidden in the upper part of his home. That’s for sure.

In some respects, what Mr. Griff discovered was very much what you’d expect in an attic. “Lots of dirt,” he told fellow Redditors. Plus there was plenty of rubbish, including an old tire and a hat. But there were things you just wouldn’t expect to find in an attic. And we don’t just mean the spiders!

What made the excursion into the attic particularly frightening was how hard it was to access – and escape. As Mr. Griff explained, “The only way out of the attic is through a small square hole, so extra scary.” But what can he have found that was so haunting? After all, attics are renowned for hiding bizarre things, and sometimes people.

One of the most famous attics in the world of literature, for example, is that created by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre. Here Mr. Rochester hid away his wife, who was unfortunately insane. Yet Mrs. Rochester was not just a figment of Brontë’s imagination. No, she was inspired by a real-life woman.

It turns out that Brontë based Thornfield, Mr. Rochester’s property, on stately home Norton Conyers, which she had visited in 1839. And while she was on the visit, she was regaled with the story of an insane lady who had been locked away in the attic. Even today you can see the steps that lead to the original room.

Apparently it wasn’t at all uncommon to lock a relative suffering with a mental illness away during these times. The motive of the families who hid them weren’t all bad: after all, they were looking after them. They just didn’t want them on view. They felt that that would reflect badly on them.

And the idea of hiding away a family member still turns up in various, contemporary art forms. In 2016 Kate Beckinsale and Mel Raido starred in The Disappointments Room. The scary story involves a house whose secret room starts to unravel a new homeowner’s mind. Bad omens for Mr. Griff?

The film is based on a true story, although not too closely. The filmmakers created a sense of menace by dressing up a North Carolina mansion. But that property does not include a hidden room. The house that did – the real life one – is a littler residence in Rhode Island. It had been the home of a locally renowned judge.

This judge had had a daughter, although there had been no announcement of her birth in the local papers. They had only noted her passing a few years later. And in between, nothing, even though the judge and his family were regularly in the press. Was she the inhabitant of a “disappointments room”?

It seems that she may have been. It was common for people who had special needs to disappear from view. Although perhaps the judge’s daughter fared better than some: many would be locked away in institutions. There they’d sometimes fall prey to abusers, both physical and emotional, locked far from their families.

And it’s a sad truth that in some parts of the world kids with disabilities can still be hidden away by parents who fear public ridicule. Even in the States stories crop up from time to time: one Louisiana woman was caged next to a trailer in 2016, and a family was found to have hidden a Texas woman in a squalid back room in 2013.

Was this the secret that was hidden in Mr. Griff’s attic? After all, the room had been hidden by insulation foam, so thick that it covered even the hatchway to the upper space. Would he push through to spy some unimaginable horror? Well, maybe, but he might also have found treasure.

Because attics can sometimes be the resting places of heirlooms, too. When one couple, for instance, were cleaning out their attic, they found something amazing. It was a comic book! But not just any comic book: this was Action Comics No.1, from 1938, which is worth a cool $1.5 million. Why was it even more important in this context? Well, the couple had faced losing their house thanks to a loan that went bad.

Another couple from the United Kingdom bought a chair for a few bucks at auction, then stashed it in their own attic, intending to renovate it at some point. Years later Angela Milner-Brown got a surprise from husband Angus. The chair, which had been moldering in the attic for several years, turned out to be concealing several pieces of diamond jewelry worth thousands of dollars.

An attic in a Milwaukee home hid a stashed secret that was also worth quite a few dollars. It turned out that it was the hiding place used by a couple of thieves who had snatched a valuable Stradivarius violin. Miscreant Salah Salahaydn considered thieving the violin to be his dream crime, but he probably didn’t dream that it would snare him seven years in jail.

But these finds pale next to what was discovered in the attic of one New York home. In 2013 a Russian figurine, made in 1912 for Tsar Nicholas II, turned up after being hidden away for seven decades. This wasn’t just any old Russian doll, though. It was created by Faberge – famed for the million-dollar eggs. And it went at auction for more than $5 million.

Even if Mr. Griff didn’t find a Faberge piece, who knows what might have been there waiting? Anyway, another imgur user, bellaluna, shared their discovery in 2013. They found a bunch of boxes. Not too inspiring, as it turned out, since most were full of junk, but this one box was different. It was a puzzle, with no visible means of opening it.

Once bellaluna had figured out how to open the box, a surprise awaited them. It was filled with what they described as “somebody’s diamond stash.” There were two rings studded with sparklers and a set of cufflinks and tails buttons also featuring diamonds. Not bad for a box of junk!

Something with more sinister overtones sat on the other side of a wall in Redditor mYNDIG’s attic. There they found a hidden area with a bed and a place where the occupant could sit. A sign above the bed suggested not approaching “if you have a bad stomach.” So even those in fear of discovery by the Nazis had not lost their sense of humor. Yes, it was a secret chamber enabling someone to hide from the Nazis.

But when Mr. Griff entered his attic, what did he find? Jewelry? No, there was nothing of any great value. A million-dollar comic book? Nope. Nothing of the sort. A hideaway for disabled relatives or Jews needing sanctuary where Nazis could not find them? No, he found something entirely different.

Because Mr. Griff discovered – to his amazement – that there was a whole other house up there! Yes, somehow, his unassuming residence hid a complete home in an upper storey that he had had no idea of. Flowery wallpaper, albeit grimy with age, still hung on the walls.

And the attic held different rooms, each with their own windows which no longer opened out but still had intact glass in them. There was even a bathroom, complete with toilet and a sink. Plus where attics often have joists with insulation filling the gaps, this one had a real floor.

The spooky house within a house did not contain any secret treasures, at least not that Mr. Griff could see. When asked what was in the residence, he wrote, “Junk, old cabinet, a tire, a hat, a toilet and sink. Dirt. Lots of dirt. And spiders.” But was the room the hiding place for someone disabled?

No, it seems it was not. Mr. Griff shared with visitors to imgur the story of the home. He wrote, “Coz people keep asking, it was a store where the owners lived upstairs.” And he even had a name for the store, continuing, “I believe someone told me it was Carl’s market.”

But what had happened to the building? Why was the upstairs apartment hidden away for the plucky explorer to find? Mr. Griff explained, “It was turned into a church. I’m guessing the church owners didn’t want to bother with knocking it [the second story] down, so they just built around it.”

Mr. Griff had more to say about the process. He posted, “When it was converted into a church the second floor was sealed off and a c-shaped addition was added to the ground floor, with a large attic built around the second floor.” Amazingly, none of this can be seen from the outside, with the house looking like it has only one story.

Yet it turns out that the insulation foam which was left at the property was actually used to hide away the second storey. It’s insulation that the workers converting the store into a church used to seal off the unused upper floor. So the attic sat for years untouched, gradually falling into ruin.

Mr. Griff’s fellow Redditors couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. One asked, “Does a clown live there by the name of Pennywise [the villain in horror film It]?” Mr. Griff quips, “No, I’d guess Satan lives there cause it was over 100 °F up there.” Another Redditor – going by ItsMeSatan – joins the fun, claiming it’s his “summer home.”

On imgur meanwhile, posters’ minds turn to whimsy, with one suggesting, “Harry Potter started out under the stairs, moved to the second floor, maybe this is where he got his first house.” And the pop culture references came thick and fast, with another user asking, “How did you not notice your house was a TARDIS?”

The majority of users were taken aback by how spooky Mr. Griff’s second home looked. One told him, “Your attic house looks like a beginning to a horror movie.” Another felt that something rather more magical awaited him though, posting, “You’re going to Narnia!” – perhaps inspired by the cabinet that still furnished the apartment.

Another Redditor was taken aback on discovering it was a proper house. They wrote, “I thought it was a dollhouse. How huge is your attic? Have you checked if there’s another house inside your attic-house’s attic?” The idea seemed to intrigue Mr. Griff, but he said despite interest, he hadn’t yet checked.

One Redditor had a more practical view of the find. They wondered whether it might be a fixer-upper, writing, “Is it fixable? Does the plumbing work? I’m SO curious about this. I just think this is the coolest thing. I would totally fix it up and make it my own personal speakeasy or something.”

Mr. Griff confirmed, though, that the wiring and the plumbing would need professional attention, so fixing it up wouldn’t be straightforward. He wasn’t sure, anyway, whether that’s what he wanted to do with the attic. And some of the more practical Redditors had a word of caution for him.

Another user suggested that the “house looks like it could have asbestos and lead paint,” to which Mr. Griff assured them, “Good point. I wore gloves and a respirator so I think I’m safe.” But even the personal protective equipment is no barrier to a problem another user identified in response, “And ghosts just out the wazoo.”

A different internet denizen, this time on imgur, seemed to agree that ghosts were a possibility. They wrote, “That’s neat and all, but this screams horror movie plot. Either that or you may have additional occupants that came with the house.” And they were by no means alone, with others rushing to suggest the same.

One imgur user suggested escaping from a horror flick in the making, writing, “Bruh. Run. The attic is haunted.” Another prescribed drastic medicine for the home, posting, “You’re gonna burn the house down, right?” But joking aside, Mr. Griff does not seem to have any intention of being scared off by the spooky attic.

And even if Mr. Griff hadn’t found anything valuable in the attic, it had some benefits. One imgur poster pointed out, “Dude, how the hell tall is your roof? You’ve got room to double your living space, it looks like.” Maybe something for the Redditor to consider, so long as the ghosts don’t mind sharing!