#10 Scary!!
Sadly it was a school lease, I took the place but had to sublet it to a friend for the summer cause I was going home. So I literally "took possession" and then handed the keys over to him.
So I finally move in months later and I ask him about the door, and he says, "oh me and the girlfriend call it the bathroom door, the guy was right you don't want to open it." So WTF, of course I open it. Almost immediately after he's gone. Turns out they called it the "Bat Room" not the "Bathroom" door.
Door couldn't be open for more than 10 seconds when bats come flying out of the door. Only 3 or 4 but even one bat is [nuts]. Turns out he had opened it and had way more than that when he did, and had to get professionals to remove them and clean up the damage and didn't want to tell me (or me tell the landlord). So at least he had the number of the guys who did the removal handy. They asked me "if we will ever learn."
#9 Woahh..
My high school had a vast network of tunnels starting under the stage. Found a sex couch, 2 bongs, 40 years worth of set pieces and the original plans for a highway [that] cuts through my town.
#8 Sounds Fun
I was a maintenance guy/custodian for a highschool, and my shift started about an hour before school let out and ended around 11:30 at night. I couldn't clean anything while students were in my areas, so I would go to the storage closet, and climb up the ladder to ventilation room. It was the area you needed to go to replace air filters. The room itself used to be for team meetings for basketball games before renovations, so it was huge. Also near the IT room, so it had wifi.
Best part was that someone had pulled up a chair from the auditorium and put it in a space around the corner, so I would go up there for an hour if I had nothing to do, chill in a comfy chair and browse reddit. Got even better when I found a good tennis ball, would play wall ball in this giant cement room.
#7 Oh!!
My grandparents had a built in bookshelf that could be pulled out of the wall to reveal a small space (about enough to fit 3 skinny people in). I never knew about it until a game of adult hide and seek and my uncle hid there, and my grandfather scolded him for revealing it.
Keep going for more interesting stuff...
#6 Man you're a poop
The closest thing I've ever had to a "secret room" was the tornado shelter in my last house.
When my wife and I moved in, we went into the garage and discovered a trap door on the floor. The door lead down to an underground tornado shelter. There were no lights. The stairs creaked horribly, the air was thick with dust, and the echoes sounded like something was walking towards you. To make things even worse, you had to go down the stars backward, so you couldn't see whatever evil monster was waiting for you in the dark.
I told my wife "That tornado shelter is scarier than a tornado. I'm never going down there."
But later, we actually had a tornado warning. We grabbed flashlights and sleeping bags and rushed down there. It turned out, once you walked around the corner, the super creepy tornado shelter was bright pink and covered in lady bug stickers. Apparently the last owner's little girl used it as a play room.
#5 You need some serious exercise
There was a tile in our kitchen that you could lift up and there was a hole down to the laundry room in the basement. We usually just used it to talk to anyone that was down there, or a laundry chute if we were too lazy to go downstairs.
#4 Ok!!
I used to live in suburban Detroit where people had immense fear of breaking and enterings. So, when we moved into our new house, the landlord showed us the 'special cabinet.' One of the cabinets in the office room off the living room was actually a passage-way tiny to a small room with some water bottles, gas masks, other important survival things. It had room for about 2 or 3 people.
Needless to say, we never used it.
#3 Lucky Fella!!
My first apartment was a crummy 100-year-old five bedroom above a bar and a bowling alley in the downtown. Very loud & Sunday morning hangovers were awful because of league day. Bowling balls nonstop. RolllllllCRASH. Not fun.
Anyhow, in the corner of my bedroom was a little 2'x2' padlocked shut. Landlord wouldn't tell me what was in there, just that I shouldn't be opening it. Was a little creeped out by it if I'm honest but that landlord was the type to fix a roof leak with duct tape and a garbage bag so I knew I wouldn't be getting anything more out of him.
So I'm hypnotised by this door. I try hiding it behind my computer desk but it won't stop calling to me and the padlock made the desk sit funny so I wound up moving it back.
I was going to get in there.
Came up one poker night that my roommate Tim had a set of bolt cutters in his room, lord knows why. We were just tipsy enough to try it. So the five of us pile into my room, drinks & cigarettes in hand, and Tim chops off the lock. The moment of truth.
We try to open it, but it won't budge. It's locked from both sides. What the hell is back there? My roommate Jacob decided he was going to channel his grandfather and pry the door open with his bare hands. And he did. Took him five minutes, bracing himself against the wall, but the door flew open and the bolt, wood block, screws and all fell down into the crawlspace.
And that's what it was, a crawlspace. A deep dark one into the first floor attic. By now it's about 2am. I grabbed a flashlight (in the days before smartphones, people actually owned them) and ventured in. It was about a two foot drop down to the floor and the ceiling was maybe 5' high. First thing we noticed was the vintage 1960s bowling alley chairs sitting off to the side, covered in dust and grime. Tim wound up salvaging & restoring two of them, I think he wound up selling them when he moved to Toronto.
The crawlspace extended into the dark and got very narrow, we had to walk single file. Cobwebs and dust everywhere, and I'm 6'3" so a very uncomfortable trek. We hit a wall after about 8m but it widened again and there were little crevices to the left and right. I came across a plywood trapdoor, so of course I opened it and slid down.
So I'm climbing down over this big greasy heavy machinery but it hasn't clicked yet where I am. I get down to the ground, which is a pretty immaculate hardwood. Really weird contrast between these huge dirty machines and the perfect floor. Then I noticed the bowling pins.
We were in the bowling alley. I called my roommates down, only two of them came. We found our way out into one of the lanes. Nothing was locked up. We pilfered chips and candy bars, making sure no one was passing by. Snagged a couple of pins on the way back up, I still have one somewhere.
It became a semi regular hangout for us and our friends, late at night after the bars closed. Eventually someone figured out how to get everything switched on and we even bowled a few frames here and there. Didn't steal too many snacks, didn't want things getting too suspicious. We got people coming over just to see the crawlspace and the alley. It was a time.
The landlord never said a word.
Last but not the least!
#2 Creepy :(
My house had a secret room in the attic. It's a really old house and the former owner was a pretty wealthy banker. The room was used as an opium den, and when the stock market crashed he hung himself in there.
#1 Childhood
It wasn't really that secret, but as a child it felt like it was. In my friend's house, what looked like a bunk bed actually had a door where the bottom bunk was, which lead to a secret toy room. I loved it in there.
