Behind This Door

Showing St. Paul houses is full of door opening.  The first hurdle is the front door which requires opening the lock box and finding the key.  Behind the front door can be irate tenants, "friendly" ferocious dogs, wild children, smells, or an immaculate but unoccupied house.  It matters not what price range one is showing.  The dangers or joys behind the front door run the gamut.

Beyond the front door exist other doors.  Usually clients wait for me to open those doors just to make sure someone is not sleeping in their bed or that we don't disturb an owner.  Knocking at a closed bathroom door is ALWAYS a good idea for obvious reasons.

Occasionally St. Paul houses have nooks and crannies hiding behind a door.  Those rooms remind me of the "secret" rooms of my childhood stories.  One basement even had a truly secret room as we couldn't find the door to the missing space that was partitioned off.  The joke was "That's where they hid the dead bodies".  The entire wall lifted to reveal the hidden space.

Although my joking comment has been that these spaces are where the bodies are hidden, I've never  actually encountered something that serious.  It's the fear of many real estate agents.  It would truly be a shock.  I would probably do what the agent did in this story and react later in private!

I can imagine the evening meal now.  "Hi, Hon.  How did your showings go today?"  "Oh, just fine. They really liked one of the houses.  And, oh, by the way,  I found a dead body in one of the houses."  "You what!!!!!!!?" . . . .

Comments

[Bonnie Erickson]

I don't know which would be worse, Carole, finding a dead body or walking in on someone in the shower or some other equally embarrassing situation! I've come close a couple time to embarrassing situations but thankfully have LOUDLY announced my presence first.

[Carole Cohen]

Finding a body would be awful, no doubt. But I do love the hidden passages. I have one client now who craves them because it reminds him of his childhood. I've only found one hidden room, and it wasn't my listing, but saw it on tour. An old brownstone with four floors and a hidden room behind one staircase. You describe it well, I like those kind of surprises.