Ohio Couple’s Home Renovation Leads to a Chilling Discovery and an FBI Investigation

A couple from Ohio got the surprise of a lifetime during a renovation of their vintage home. While working on the basement, they started finding clues that their new residence was more than just a place to live happily ever after. In fact, they found an amazing discovery after hacking away the homes old plywood.

The suburban house the couple bought was a fairly large. The house had two main floors and a large basement. With a house this size the couple knew the entire renovation process would be a pretty long one.

Once the renovation process began it had gone off  pretty much without a hitch. Of course the couple faced a few setbacks along the way, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

They decided to scope out the room and see what they would be dealing with. The couple had no idea what they were in store for.

After pulling back the wallpaper, the homeowners noticed drawings and writings all over the place, which were incredibly unusual. 

After removing a portion of the ceiling, the husband found something unusual lodged up high. The object was lodged snugly between the rafters and caught him totally by surprise. Eventually, his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to go for it.

As he kept working, he started to find other clues. After pulling down parts of the walls and the rest of the ceiling, he noticed an incredible secret: a giant object. 

The homeowner assumed someone stored the green-and-grey suitcase up there to ensure nobody else could find it. As he took it down, he was amazed at just how heavy it was. He wondered how long that suitcase had been stashed away in the ceiling. What could possibly be inside a container like this and why was it hidden? 

Before opening the suitcase, he decided to call his wife. He didn’t want her to miss out on this exciting discovery, so he waited for her to come home before going forward.

​​Of course, being alone with a mystery suitcase started to get his mind going. He realized it had to be something important or valuable for someone to want to hide it away in the basement ceiling.

It was possible that it was really nothing. Like bricks or papers. Or some family photos that everyone forgot about. Perhaps the suitcase wasn’t purposefully hidden, but rather pushed into the ceiling for storage and simply forgot about.

There’s a good chance that the homeowner’s were downright giddy when they finally got to open the suitcase together. They discussed what the possibilities could be before they started the process of finding out what was inside.

After opening the old suitcase, the couple found a bunch of odd bundles wrapped in wax paper. Neither the husband nor the wife could figure out what it could possibly be.

Their hearts and minds raced as they started to figure out what all of the strange bundles were inside of the suitcase. Picking each of them up, they still tried to determine what they had found and why it was so important that all of it stayed hidden.

Peeling away the waxy material, the husband realized what they were dealing with was money. In fact, what he held in his hands was actually a giant stack of twenty-dollar bills!

After inspecting the cash more closely, they realized that these were not new bills. Even more baffling was the sheer amount of cash that was inside the suitcase.

The homeowners must have felt like someone was playing a prank on them. After their discovery, they told journalists that they were freaking out by that point.

Of course, if one stack was a ton of money, what would the others be? They began eagerly unwrapping the rest of the wax paper stacks. Would it be more money?

As you might expect, they were hoping to find more twenty-dollar bills. These stacks were adding up fast and they were curious about how much the total suitcase was worth. After removing the wax paper, they were in for another surprise.

The whole thing seemed impossible. The second package had bigger bills and the third even more money. What was happening?

After finding a suitcase full of stacks in their own home, the husband and wife initially thought it was a funny joke. But then the realization of it all hit.

By looking at the state and age of the bills, they could tell the money had been there a long time. Perhaps even since the 1920s and 1930s.

They realized that everything, from the suitcase itself to the money, was old. This meant that whoever put it there did so a long time ago.

As they started to take the bundles out of the suitcase, they discovered another surprise. This time, it offered a few more clues as to why this was hidden in their home.

The newspaper came from decades ago and was from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It was certainly older than they thought, but it gave insight into when the suitcase was put in the ceiling of their basement.

Discovering an old newspaper and stacks of money from a long time ago was certainly curious. Did it warrant contacting the police? What would you do if you were in this situation?

The couple started to look at the bills more carefully. Some were marked as star note bills. Star notes are rare bills that are denoted by a printed star next to the bill’s serial number. This is to note that the special bill was printed to replace a faulty set of banknotes. Furthermore, because of their rarity, they’re typically worth more than their face value.

It was an amazing find, and they weren’t exactly sure what to do with their discovery. They decided to call a lawyer to help with the next steps in the process.

After a week of fun surprises, the fun was over. The couple returned back to their normal lives and their basement renovation project.

As the husband got back to pulling out sheetrock and renovating the basement, he made another shocking discovery. There was another suitcase hidden away!

Unfortunately, the homeowner was alone again when he found the second suitcase. And this one was heavier than the first! He decided it would be a good idea to wait for his wife to come home.

The husband posted the couple’s adventure on Reddit. “This was a wild ride for us and we hope you enjoyed it, too!” he said.

With this new suitcase, the husband knew this was another big find, so he made sure to document everything with his camera. After all, there was no telling if this suitcase would contain more money or something even more exciting.

It was an easy choice to keep the renovation project going. However, they didn’t realize that their home’s secrets were even bigger than they could have ever imagined.

After his wife finally returned home, they were able to take a look at what was in the second suitcase.

After the first suitcase had been loaded with money, they assumed this second one might be very similar. Sadly, they did not find a windfall of money wrapped up in wax paper this time.

This other case they found was full of money and neatly arranged. It may not have come neatly packaged in wax paper, but it was money all the same. In fact, this time the amount totaled more than ever before.

As we mentioned, the second case had more money that the first suitcase. So, how much did they find? It was worth over forty-five thousand dollars!

As the couple continued their basement renovation project, they wondered how many other secrets their house had kept hidden from them.

About the same time they found suitcases of money in their basement ceiling, the family noticed a strange door on the second floor of the home.

The couple was even more determined to uncover all of the secrets of their home. They began looking deeper and deeper into this mystery.

As they kept working, they were curious about the findings they kept stumbling upon in their home. Were they dealing with matters a bit out of their league and over their heads?

The determined couple kept looking for more possible clues. They were shocked again when they figured out the next place they needed to look.

Their realtor had told them that the secret door upstairs housed their hot water heater. But, that wasn’t true at all. In fact, it housed something super small and super valuable.

Opening the door, the couple discovered something astonishing and exciting. Not only was the real estate agent completely wrong, but it wasn’t anything close to being a hot water heater closet.

The first thing the couple found in this mysterious hidden room was an old, worn-out brown leather briefcase. The couple expected to find more cash inside, but this time, the contents were more than just money.

The couple was confused by the contents of the old briefcase. Nevertheless, they went further into their newly discovered hidden room to see what else was there. They had no idea what was ahead for them to find.

Inside of the safe was a white piece of paper with black ink bleeding through the paper with the words, “SAVE YOURSELF.” The husband and wife suddenly felt the chill of the room in their bones as they pondered what this could mean. Who needed saving? And what was this room used for?

Inside the lid of the safe, the words “DO NOT” were written in white ink. What did that mean? The couple wondered if this message was meant for them, or if it was meant for someone who was in this room in the past. They felt nervous as they kept looking into the contents of the safe. Lying under the creepy “Save Yourself” warning were multiple video tapes.

Some of the tapes were labeled with numbers and letters that didn’t seem to make any sense. Were they the dates the tapes were made? A secret code for whoever once owned them? The couple had no idea how old these tapes were or how long that safe had been in the room. Unlike the contents of the suitcases they found earlier, these tapes seemed newer than 1951.

The couple decided to just forget about the tapes and go on with their home renovations. They didn’t want to get involved in something that was above their heads, and possibly dangerous. As the days passed, they began to wonder more and more…what was on those six video tapes?

The couple was not prepared for what they saw on the tapes. They knew one thing for certain now: their house in Cleveland, Ohio was full of dark secrets. The secrets on the tapes are not public knowledge, so we don’t know what was on them. But we do know one thing.

The local authorities immediately decided that this was a matter for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI showed up to their house and declared it a crime scene. Agents showed up, confiscated the tapes, and started a full-fledged investigation.

Once the couple got down to the police station, the FBI questioned them about how they found the hidden room. They also questioned them about their earlier finds: the suitcases full of money.

Their Ohio home became the scene of a crime – and the FBI combed over every detail. However, we still don’t know exactly what crime was actually committed.

During the time that the couple was questioned, the police noticed the following that the husband had gained on Reddit. He had been posting updates and photos of the entire discovery on a Reddit thread, and the story was gaining popularity. 

Now, we can only speculate what was on those tapes that were found in the hidden room. It seems definite that whatever it was, it was a very dark and sinister secret, especially because the FBI responded immediately and quickly confiscated the tapes.

The Ohio couple’s discovery was shocking and quite a unique situation, however they were not the only ones to find something old and unusual in their homes.

A woman named Jennifer Little was cleaning and moving furniture in her Central California coast home when she uncovered something strange under the carpet in her room. 

It is hard to understand the initial shock of finding an entire room below your home. One’s mind might go to some pretty disturbed places.

Jennifer’s husband took it upon himself to investigate what Jennifer had found. They opened the manhole and were met with an abandoned area.

The curious couple also uncovered the shelter was stocked with items meant for survival in case of emergency. Inside there were two bunk beds, urinals, metal cans, trash, posture rest, glass jars, and some very large spiders.

Jennifer also commented on the ‘storage room’ that was apart of the bomb shelter. According to Jennifer, it was outside of it, which was odd.

The couple was so excited by what they had discovered that they decided to go public with it on the app, TikTok. In one of her videos, Jennifer explained that that these types of bomb shelters were actually normal for homes that were built in the 1950’s.

The Cold War was during March of 1947 through December 26th, 1991. It was an intense period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Booklets detailing how to create shelters were common during the madness and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Jennifer’s TikTok videos were incredibly well-received, garnering more than 1.5M views. People from all around the globe found the bomb shelter intriguing.