When you move into a new house, you may expect to find a few surprises. And while some of them tend to skew a little more negative—like discovering the upgrades the previous owners made to the house were done without the proper permits—some of them can actually be quite rewarding.
And for one couple in the UK, it would appear that those rewards came in the form of stacks of hidden cash. That’s because this pair found a financial windfall hidden in the cellar of their new home, which ended up being quite the win for the new homeowners.
They shared their find on their @scruffyandsorted TikTok account this year, which quickly went viral, and the New York Post even covered the story. Then Newsweek interviewed the duo, learning a bit more about how they made the discovery and what they did once they found the cash.
While this is an older story from 2020, with everyone feeling the pinch for bills this summer, we can all dream of finding some money hiding in our walls. Keep reading to learn more.
@scruffyandsorted When we found buried treasure in the cellar #cleantok #fyp #oldhouse #treasure ♬ original sound – 🌺🍍
UK Couple Found a Hidden Room in Their Home
Luisa and Dan live in the UK in a place called Sheffield. They told Newsweek that they had been investigating the basement of their pre-1900 home in 2020, which is when they discovered a bricked-up portion of their cellar. This was during quarantine, and like everyone else, the duo had a lot of extra time on their hands to investigate what was behind the wall.
According to the publication, they found “tons of coal” when they finally broke down the bricks and got inside the hidden room. But the real discovery came when they bagged up the coal and found “an unusual paint tin” buried at the bottom of the pile.
“He put it to one side for months, and we were nervous about opening it as it smelled like ammonia,” Luisa recalled. After a while, they decided to open the tin. With their children by their side, the couple filmed the moment they opened everything up to discover two wrapped packages inside of an old bag.
In the video, you can see them opening the packages with a pair of metal tools, as they were afraid of what could be hidden inside. “None of us were expecting money inside,” she continued. “It was such a fantastic memory for the kids, they will remember it forever.”
The Family Used the Cash to Get Caught Up
According to her interview, the family later used the money—which worked up to be roughly $1,336 worth of £5 notes from 1970—in a game of Monopoly before they took it to the bank. As for what they did with the money, the family used it to get caught up after Luisa was out of work due to the pandemic. “It was nice to treat the kids a bit and catch up on any bills,” she said. “It took some stress off us for a few weeks.”
While this couple’s discovery is obviously an exciting one, it’s also a bit rare. That being said, MoneyTalks News says there are a few places you can look around your house if you’re hoping to find a financial windfall within the walls of your home. The publication suggests looking in places like your air returns, drop ceilings, or taped behind the backs of large items like paintings, pictures, or clocks that may have been left behind by previous owners.
If you’re willing to dig a little deeper, the publication also suggests checking inside walls, in crawl spaces, and under your carpets.