Old soda bottles in bathroom walls - Why?

[Tafkah]

When remodeling a bathroom in my 1956 house, I found empty soda bottles inside 3 of the walls. There were a total of 7 bottles, each with nails driven around them so they couldn't fall over. It seems like an intentional act, not just carelessly forgetting them. I can understand construction guys setting their bottles there as they were building the bathroom, but why would they leave them instead of returning them for the deposit? And why would they drive nails around them?

 

[RobbieB]

Maybe they filled with water to top or bottom of label and used as level?

 

[braumeister]

Clearly it was to make people like me feel jealous. Hires was my favorite brand of root beer as a kid, but it hasn't been available here for many years.

 

[OldShooter]

Deposit not worth the effort. Nails to keep a partially full bottle from getting bounced off its shelf as people are pounding other places on the wall/in the bathroom.

 

[JoeWras]

I think the biggest reason for this is as a conversation piece in the future. I little time capsule, if you will.

Or it could be the wall finishers were lazy, saw it, and didn't bother removing it when it was time to sew up the wall.

I've been surfing a lot of construction forums these days and sadly, the current prank is to do exactly this, except that the bottle is full of urine. I thought they were joking, but then you find stories and lawsuits: https://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/bottles-filled-with-urine-found-in-walls-of-luxury-condo

 

[street]

Interesting time capsule. My guess the carpenters at the time sitting around for break and left them. Nailed to keep them upright through the years till someone found them.

When I built my home, I left some writings on an inside hidden wall. I'm still in the home same home and maybe someday someone might find it.

When I built my home, I mistakenly left a tape measure on the floor and a base cabinet got pushed into place and fastened down. After I got the countertop on and mounted, I need the tape. Well, I remember that the tape was on the floor and cabinet and countertop was installed so I left it. Wasn't going to tear it all out for a tape measure. Someday someone might find that tape if they tear out that cabinet.

 

[ls99]

I think the biggest reason for this is as a conversation piece in the future. I little time capsule, if you will.

Or it could be the wall finishers were lazy, saw it, and didn't bother removing it when it was time to sew up the wall.

I've been surfing a lot of construction forums these days and sadly, the current prank is to do exactly this, except that the bottle is full of urine. I thought they were joking, but then you find stories and lawsuits: https://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/bottles-filled-with-urine-found-in-walls-of-luxury-condo

Can also find them on the road side, called trucker's bombs. (heh, is the USSS trolling for the word?)

 

[JoeWras]

When I built my home, I mistakenly left a tape measure on the floor and a base cabinet got pushed into place and fastened down. After I got the countertop on and mounted, I need the tape. Well, I remember that the tape was on the floor and cabinet and countertop was installed so I left it. Wasn't going to tear it all out for a tape measure. Someday someone might find that tape if they tear out that cabinet.

I accidentally left my flashlight in the ceiling when working on a recessed light. I figured it out a few months later and decided to release the can and get it because I worried about batteries leaking.

In the few walls I've dismantled in my home, I've found quite a few Lance Captain's Wafer wrappers. No bottles ... yet.

 

[homestead]

An old plumber friend of mine and his brother were rebuilding a house during the depression and they found a jar full of cash in the wall. He said the money helped them get through the depression.

 

[COcheesehead]

My Dad used to stash cash in our house growing up. He was raised during the depression and had somewhat of a mild hoarder sense about him. To this day I wonder if the people that bought my childhood home ever found his secret cash stashes.

 

[marko]

Lived in 150+ year old houses most of my life. It's not uncommon to find "this wall put up by John Smith on Sept 3, 1892" notes. Wallpaperers write stuff on walls too before covering them! Old locks, tools etc. too. Sort of "someday someone will find this" among tradesmen.

 

[acronymous]

Some of the Earthship homes near Taos, NM use recycled bottles as a design element. Quite beautiful!

 

[Qs Laptop]

When we redid our kitchen about 10 years ago we found an empty pint bottle of cheap whiskey in between studs. Did not inspire confidence.

 

[easysurfer]

I wonder if the bottle is worth any money?

Probably whoever worked on the place drank while working and forgot to remove.

 

[CRLLS]

Back in the 70's my buddy had bought his 1st house. There was a plywood panel wainscoting in the living room whose top edge wandered up and down. It really annoyed both him and his DW. We decided to pull it down, straighten it out and reinstall it. When we pulled it off the wall, written on the back was a statement to the effect of" installed sober" with the date and the guy's name. We reinstalled the same paneling but not before we wrote next to it "re-installed drunk as skunks" the date and our names. Hey, what can I say? It was the 70's.

 

[OldShooter]

My Dad used to stash cash in our house growing up. He was raised during the depression and had somewhat of a mild hoarder sense about him. To this day I wonder if the people that bought my childhood home ever found his secret cash stashes.

DW retired as a megabank SVP in Investments and Trust. She and her staff had a standard cash search pattern when going into the home of a deceased client (always two people). I don't remember much about the list but some places were the freezer, curtain hems, and taped to the back of pictures. It was very unusual for them to have a depression-era client who did not have some cash stashed.

 

[Dream Weaver]

When we redid my parent's bathroom years back we got greeted by a bunch of safety razor blades falling out of wall when it was pried back. The old medicine cabinets had an open slot in the back adjacent to a hole in the paneling for the worn blades to be deposited in the wall between the studs so no one would get cut by them going in the trash.

Also found a few nice buffalo nickels and Indian head pennies that must have slid under the kitchen paneling where they were lost or couldn't be retrieved.

 

[COcheesehead]

DW retired as a megabank SVP in Investments and Trust. She and her staff had a standard cash search pattern when going into the home of a deceased client (always two people). I don't remember much about the list but some places were the freezer, curtain hems, and taped to the back of pictures. It was very unusual for them to have a depression-era client who did not have some cash stashed.

My Dad was a plumber. He used to take pipes threaded at each end, fill it with cash, screw on pipe end caps and stash in the crawl space or ? Some may not be found until the house comes down

 

[Qs Laptop]

I wonder if the bottle is worth any money?

Probably not. House was built in 1979.

Probably whoever worked on the place drank while working and forgot to remove.

Maybe. But I thought the guy left it in the wall as a way to mark his territory.

 

[Sunset]

I opened a wall one time, thinking it might be a good hiding spot, and found a shotgun and some boxes of shells. The shotgun seemed to be from about 1910.

Guess it is a good hiding spot

 

[Winemaker]

While in college I helped a friend remodel an old, old home. When we pulled off the layers and layers of wallpaper, there were signatures/names and various dates in pencil all over, some from the 1920's, 1900's and 1857. Very cool. It inspired me to do the same when Mom and Dad remodeled their bathrooms in 1979. When Mom passed last year, we stripped the wall paper to get the house ready for sale, my siblings enjoyed a hearty laugh reading our snarky comments.

 

[Midpack]

Construction workers, or DIY homeowners, who knew one day someone would find them and ask…like you have.

 

[nobody]

My dad was a mason, in most of the block walls they built, they tossed trash down the cores, it was just easier.

 

[Teacher Terry]

My son works in IT and had a month job in Kansas that involved going into the ceiling to do wiring work in 3 nursing homes. He said the amount of garbage left in the ceiling from the construction crew was incredible. He said people are too lazy to throw their garbage away.

 

[COcheesehead]

My son works in IT and had a month job in Kansas that involved going into the ceiling to do wiring work in 3 nursing homes. He said the amount of garbage left in the ceiling from the construction crew was incredible. He said people are too lazy to throw their garbage away.

I couple new homes back, we were digging up the backyard for a patio and landscaping. We turned up old phone lines, cinder blocks, 2x4’s. Our backyard was a dump for the builder - and that was the stuff we could see. Who knows what else was buried.