What's in YOUR Wall?

Okay, that title is a play on that Capitol One commercial, "What's in YOUR Wallet?"  Get it?

Well, *I* thought it was clever.

Anyway.

We've been tearing out walls and pulling up flooring and my, haven't we found some interesting things.  We discovered a bird's nest built around the plumbing pipes of the washing machine.  

When we removed the subfloor, we discovered another nest.  A large nest. Only this wasn't a bird's nest and I know this because the occupant, deceased I might add and Thank GOD for that, was still in the nest.  And I took one look at that dead rat and ran screaming like a girl.  And no, I did NOT take a picture.

That piece of subfloor was tossed into the backyard and has kept Gracie absolutely enthralled because she can SMELL the rat but she can't SEE the rat.  So she will sit and stare at the piece of subfloor, then she'll sniff it, then she'll bark at it.  Then she'll come running in the house to tell us to come check it out with her and then she'll go running back out and sit, stare, sniff and bark.  This continues for hours on end.

TheManTheMyth put in the new subfloor and then we were able to move the old washer and dryer back in the room temporarily so I could do some desperately needed laundry.

We move the washer back in, hook it up and I prepare to start my first load of laundry.  Something sparkling caught me eye and I look down and sitting on top of the washer was this:

An hour earlier, this had not been present and I asked TMTM where he found it and his reply?  "Never seen it before."

Huh.

My Grandma collected rosaries.  And we're remodeling the kitchen of what used to be her house.  Hmmmm.

Hi Grandma!

But wait.  It gets better.

I'm cleaning out the pots and pans cabinet.  There's 2 drawers in that cabinet and after removing the stuff, I go to push the drawers back in and something was preventing me from pushing the drawers in all the way. 

So I get down on my hands and knees and look in and there's some papers stuffed at the back of the cabinet.  I drag them out and find a user's manual for a microwave I don't remember ever having, a user's manual for a ceiling fan, a receipt from a long-gone video rental store, an old Boy Scout patch and one newspaper clipping.  A very old newspaper clipping.

If you click on it and read all the way to the end, the last victim is my dad.  I wasn't even BORN when this happened!

How weird is this?  I wonder how long that clipping had been stuffed back there.  Oh, and what's even more strange?  Every other piece of paper had been nibbled on by bugs (or something else I don't want to think about) Except this clipping!

I KNOW!!

Hi Dad!  Hi Grandma!