Buried Treasure

So it turns out that the previous owner of the new house was a bit of a hoarder. Well, more than a bit. We didn't notice how bad it was during the home inspections because the house is so big that it looked like "some piles of stuff all over the place."

However, as we cleaned out the rooms, we filled three dumpsters with garbage. And to help you really get the scale of the mess, let me tell you that these aren't trash cans, or even the kind of dumpsters you'd see behind a restaurant or school. These are full-on semi trailer sized dumpsters.

And we filled three. So far.

But before you get to feeling too sorry for us, in all of the trash we found a bit of treasure. Here are just some of our big scores:

• Life Magazine in mint condition that describes the Andrea Doria crash for the first time
• 1930's porn (eeew)
• 1 full bottle of DDT
• 1 full bottle of something that smelled even scarier than the DDT
• Harper's Bazaar describing the Titanic disaster for the first time
• Several stock/bond certificates from the early 1900s that we could perhaps try to cash in, but they look so cool we may save them as art
• Confederate money -- several $1, $5 and even $100 bills
• An old quackery medical device from Raytheon that actually microwaves your skin
• Blueprints from the 1980 restoration of the Statue of Liberty
• Contestant photo from the 1954 Miss America Pageant
• A handwritten letter describing a suspected murder
• Divorce papers from the 1950s
• Land deeds and titles from 1850 - 1918

 So all in all, a pretty cool treasure hunt.

In other news, the poison ivy has now spread to all family members -- including the dog. And we found out that hemorrhoid cream is the  most effective treatment for the itchy bumps. It's all good.