Do you know where Mom and Dad kept their stash?
If you inherit a house, here’s where to look.
We buy houses and we find all kinds of things in houses that get left behind.
There was the little entry table in Lee’s Summit that had a bag of weed tucked up behind the drawer that fell out when we picked it up.
There have been multiple guns tucked up above rafters and behind beams in basements and attics.
We have heard of a friend who bought a hoarder house in Kansas City and when they cleared out the 2nd floor, they found a door that went to a whole other floor with 2 more bedrooms and a bathroom that no one knew about. And in that same house as they went through all the stuff with a fine-tooth comb they found a piece of jewelry worth more than the little house.
We bought a house in Blue Springs once where the kids were afraid to sell the house with all the contents because mom and dad had tucked away all kinds of things in books, bags, boxes, drawers, pockets, and more – money, bonds, account records where more investments were stashed.
This past week we were reading the AARP magazine and it had a great article about where Grandma Hid Her Cash and we wanted to share it, just in case you have inherited a house. You never know you might find a fortune hidden away.
So here’s the list from AARP
- Inside Toilet Tanks
- Frozen in Ice in the Freezer
- In a food box in the pantry / cabinet
- Tucked in Books on the Book Shelf
- Under the Floor Boards
- In Old Trunks
- Pockets or Boxes in Closets
- Hidden Drawers in Furniture
We have a few other suggestions:
- Under Cushions on the Couch
- Mason Jars in the Root Celler / Basement
- Taped to the Bottom of Drawers
- Cigar Tubes in the Junk Drawer
- Old Desk Cubbies
- In Shoes
- The Cookie Jar
- Pots and Pans
And don’t limit yourself to just cash. Who knows if there is an heirloom piece of jewelry or some antique that you didn’t know was worth a fortune? Usually, it’s not worth anything, but you might google it to make sure. When cleaning out Grandpa’s house last fall, there were spice cans from the 1950s. He just thought they were spices, but we googled it, the cans themselves were worth about $20 bucks, and all those cookie cans with pictures on top – we sold them for 25 cents each and now we see them in antique malls for $20 to $40.
If you have inherited a house and go through it to make sure you have found everything of value.
