You don’t need to go to a desert island and find the x on a map to discover hidden treasure these days. As it happens, hundreds of homeowners and businesses are routinely discovering things hidden in their walls. Sometimes they’re treasures, and sometimes they are decidedly not. 

10. The First Appearance of Superman

In the history of comic books, few of them are as coveted as Action Comics issue one. This is the legendary first appearance of Superman, and it dates back to 1938. At the time, no one could have imagined what a pop culture force the book and the character would become. The cover price was 10 cents.

Fast forward to 2013 when contractor David Gonzalez was renovating an old house he had bought for just over $10,000. The walls had been filled with old newspapers and, in among them, was a copy of Action Comics #1. The book was in rough shape, and the back cover had been torn off, but it was still the real deal. Gonzalez had it appraised based on its condition and it was rated a 1.5 out of 10, which means it was in close to the worst condition it could be in.

Despite the shoddy condition, the book sold at auction for a staggering $175,000. That’s a huge return on investment. If the book had been in good condition, Gonzalez could have expected a much more lucrative deal as another copy in good condition sold two years earlier for over $2 million. In 2014, a copy in excellent condition became the most expensive comic book ever sold when it took in $3.2 million at auction.

9. $500,000

Who among us hasn’t entertained the fleeting fantasy of one day running across a secret fortune in buried treasure or just a sack of money on the side of the road somewhere? That was the reality waiting for a couple in Arizona who bought a rundown house “as is” intending to perform some renovations to improve it. 

The story has more twists and turns than you might expect. While doing renovations, a contractor’s employee found ammunition cans hidden in the walls. Inside the cans was $500,000 in cash.

The worker told his boss, but the boss neglected to mention the find to the homeowners, opting to keep the cash for himself. Luckily, the honest employee informed the homeowners and the police came to take possession of the money. Now you’d think it would go to the homeowners at this point, but that was not the case.

Several lawsuits were filed. The contractor sued the homeowners, and they sued the contractor. But the daughter of the previous owner sued as well, claiming the money was rightfully hers as part of her father’s estate. The courts agreed, saying that when they sold the house as is, they did not know what they were giving up as it related to the cash, and it was still rightfully theirs. 

8. Surveillance Equipment

When it comes to creepy things in your walls, there are not many things that will set you on edge quite like discovering evidence that someone has been secretly watching you. That was the weirdness one couple in Arizona had to deal with upon buying a new home and giving it a thorough search.

The new owners had noticed that there was a mirror in the bathroom that seemed out of place, so they decided to take it off the wall. Unfortunately, someone had permanently affixed it there. So they cut the wall. What they discovered was that the mirror was actually a 2-way mirror and behind it, in the wall, wires were set up for video equipment. There was also plumbing for a sink set up and cabinetry.

Some people speculated that this was not an insidious set up for filming people in a bathroom and maybe even was a setup for something as innocent as a wall aquarium. But if that was the case, why had someone installed a two-way mirror at some point?

7. Prohibition-Era Booze

Every so often people find some unusual or exotic treasure in their walls but when it comes to the real, practical goods if you can’t find gold or money, maybe the next best thing is what a New York couple discovered hidden in the walls of their upstate home: 60 or more bottles of prohibition-era whisky.

Neighbors had told the couple that their new home had once been owned by bootleggers about 100 years ago, but it seemed like nothing more than a charming story. That was until they started renovating and discovered the illicit stash. Dozens of bottles in the walls and under the floor, many of them still unopened. 

They dated the bottles of Old Smuggler whisky to the 1920s, so the bootlegger stories seem to have been real. Experts said the full bottles could be worth between $500 and $1000 a piece at auction.

6. Bones

Imagine buying a new home and as you go through the process of moving your things in and going over the house, you discover something inside the attic wall. Something that looks suspiciously like human bones. That’s what one couple had to deal with in their new Houston area home back in 2017.

Bones had been stashed in the wall, along with a pair of glasses resembling those worn by the home’s previous owner. The same owner who had been missing for two years. She had been a quiet, pleasant woman as far as the neighbors knew. But one day she vanished and her mail began to pile up. A missing person report was filed, and eventually, firefighters came to clear the home out. At the time they noted the place smelled terrible, but it was also full of cats that hadn’t been taken care of since the owner disappeared.

Within two years, the bank foreclosed on the property and it was sold. The new owners were the first to discover the remains despite firefighters, police, animal control, and even roofers being through the house before they got to it.

The medical examiner later confirmed the remains as belonging to the previous owner, Mary Cerruti. But as to the mystery of how she died and ended up in the wall, that remains unsolved.

5. Missing Boy

Your mind can go to some dark places when you think about what could be hidden in the walls of a home. The idea of finding a body is, as we’ve seen, not impossible at all. But what you’re less likely to find is not a dead body, but a living one. 

Ricky Chekevdia was believed to have been abducted in 2007. His father had just been awarded custody and the boy’s mother disappeared with her son. For two years the father had no idea if his son was even alive or dead. And then, in a baffling twist, authorities discovered the boy had been living in a secret room behind the wall of his grandmother’s house the entire time.

The mother had claimed that the father was abusing the boy before she disappeared with him, but officials say there was no evidence to support those claims. What they did have evidence of was the boy being kept in a windowless room for two years, during which time he never even saw the sun and was not allowed out for any reason, even medical treatment.

The mother and grandmother both faced charges for their involvement, and Ricky was returned to his father’s custody.

4. 100,000 Bees

If you were to compile a ranked list of all the things you hope are never in your walls, probably somewhere near the top would be a massive population of stinging insects. And that’s why this particular story is so disturbing since it involves one Canadian homeowner discovering that their walls were home to a nest of about 100,000 bees.

After buying an old Victorian-style home in a historic part of town, homeowner Chantelle Ryan noticed a curious affectation – her walls buzzed. After realizing what the problem was, Ryan called a local beekeeper who came to help with the issue, but no one at the time appreciated the scale. A colony of bees up to 100,000 strong that was likely growing in the walls for the better part of a decade.

Along with the bees, 250 pounds of honeycomb was removed from the walls as well. And Ryan took the time to sample the honey and share it with her new neighbors as well.

3. Stolen Painting

The last thing any art gallery wants is to lose its exhibits. Whether it’s to a disaster like a fire or thieves, if a priceless painting gets destroyed or taken, that’s a piece of history lost forever. That’s exactly what one gallery in Italy thought happened to an important piece of their collection.

Known as “Portrait of a Lady,” the painting by Gustav Klimt dates back to 1917. The painting had been a part of the collection at Galleria Ricci-Oddi in Piacenza since 1925, but in 1997 the painting was stolen. They found the frame near a skylight that was too small for the actual painting to have passed through. 

In 2019, gardeners found a hidden, recessed portion of the wall outside in which a bag was stashed. Inside the bag was the missing painting. It’s not known if the painting was there the entire 23 years it was gone, or if someone returned it later, but either way, the museum is returning it to the collection for viewing.

2. Chuck Palahniuk Time Capsule

Although he’s written over a dozen fiction novels as well as non-fiction and short stories, Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel Fight Club sealed his legacy as a quirky, visceral author whose creativity was only matched by his weirdness. So maybe it makes sense that he takes care of houses like he writes books.

A homeowner in Portland, Oregon moved into a house that the author had previously owned and, while doing renovations, discovered a gift. Palahniuk had sealed up a time capsule in the wall of his old home, complete with a signed copy of Fight Club, some old family photos, and a house history.

The time capsule had been added to the walls in 2002, while Palahniuk and his family were also doing renovations. At that time he’d published 4 novels and Fight Club had already been made into a movie, but he still signed off his time capsule letter saying he assumed whoever found it would have no idea who he was.

1. Message in a Bottle

Typically, when you hear about a message in a bottle, it’s a story that takes place at sea. And every so often a tale shows up in the news about a very old bottle coming to shore with a message inside. Maybe that was the intention of the person in this story, they just couldn’t get to the ocean in time so instead they sealed their bottle in a wall.

A Boston homeowner discovered an old whisky bottle sealed between the chimney flue and an interior wall of their home. There was a rolled-up note inside that was dated September 23, 1894. And as for the note itself, it simply said, “Tom Ford 6 on Shea.”

The note was shared on social media with people speculating on what it might have meant. Popular theories include a betting slip indicating someone had bet 6 on a horse named Shea, or something to do with 6 games at Shea Stadium. Others guessed Tom Ford lived on Shea Street at number 6. But without further evidence, it’s going to have to remain a mystery.

The natural world is full of reminders of how inferior we are as a species. Not only do we lack (or rely on technology for) superpowers like night-vision, flight, or any meaningful level of strength, we also fail miserably at the most basic of tasks—like feeding ourselves, raising our young, and disposing of waste. 

Most of us can’t even house ourselves. And those who build “for us” are incapable of doing so cleanly. So hang your economy-enslaved, ecocide-enabling head in shame as we run through ten of the most stunning feats of architectural engineering from elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

10. Bagworm log cabins

Unlike most butterflies and moths, which spin their cocoons out of silk, bagworm moth larvae make use of the resources around them—plant matter, mostly. There are bagworm species all over the world, and many more styles of “bag”, the cocoon for which they are named. Some are more interesting than others, like the feathery nests made of stork’s bill seeds. But for the most part, they all hang like bags.

More interesting are the miniature log (or twig) cabins that gracefully spiral to a tip. A study of 42 such structures in India, built by the bagworm Clania crameri, showed the design was anything but random. The larvae have a style in mind and look for the right sticks to build it—the various lengths required to assemble their spiraling tower. 

It takes them pretty much their whole lives to finish the job, but it’s worth it. The males emerge as fuzzy black moths with transparent wings, while the females “decay into a pile of eggs” to spawn the next generation.

9. Caddisfly submarines

Caddisflies, or sedge flies, are widely distributed around the world. They look like moths with hairy wings, but as larvae they live underwater. It’s at this stage of life that caddisflies are at their most artful, spinning together their submarine cases with silk from the glands around their mouths, along with sand, stones, and plant matter. 

Depending on the species, these homes may be stationary or mobile. Styles are so characteristic of the species that builds them that while adult caddisflies are hard to tell apart, larvae can be identified by their cases. Some are smooth, some are lumpy, and so on.

Only one larvae lives on land, in the leaf litter of the English West Midlands: Enoicyla pusilla, the ‘land caddis’. All others inhabit submarines.

8. Ovenbird adobe abodes

Native to North America, the ovenbird gets its name from the resemblance of its adobe mud nest to a Dutch oven… at least if you squint really hard. Construction takes roughly two weeks, building the walls out from a bowl shape, up, then back in at the top while carefully avoiding collapse. By the end, the ovenbird will have worked 2,000 pellets—ten pounds of mud—into the sphere of its home. They also use plant matter and dung for the structure and line it with grass for comfort.

A circular side opening allows the family in and out while cleverly repelling attackers. Not only is the entrance offset from the branch, but it also has a curving wall inside, three-quarters of the way to the roof, posing a “severe obstacle for predators” (in addition to the concrete-like adobe itself).  

There are actually three types of ovenbird nest, the other two being cavities and domes; but they’re all enclosed, like little houses—unlike the vast majority of other bird homes. Cavity nests are typically established in woodpecker holes, natural cavities, or burrows up to one meter deep (which they may dig themselves, we’re not sure). And dome nests are built with sticks, grass, feathers, and bone, with protection from thorns and barbed wire. Notably, they also use snakeskin.

7. Bowerbird theme parks

Native to Australia and New Guinea, bowerbirds have the surprising distinction of being second only to humans in the adornment of their structures. In fact, their bowers (walls of sticks bent inwards to form arched shelters with cleared ground in front) have even drawn comparisons to Disney World. Just as the upper bricks of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and the buildings of Main Street are smaller than at ground level to make everything look taller, male bowerbirds use forced perspective to make their bowers look smaller (and themselves bigger, according to one theory) to prospective female mates in the air. 

The similarity to Disneyworld doesn’t end there. To attract mates, bowerbirds also fill their yards with plastic tat and mass-produced garbage: marbles, ring pulls, duct tape, bra straps, ribbons, pegs, glass, wrappers, and even syringes (always with the largest items toward the back). One bower was found to have bottle caps arranged in an arc around a plastic doll splayed in the center, “eyes wide and mouth open in a plastic scream.”

They also include plenty of natural materials—feathers, stones, shells, leaves, flowers, beetles’ body parts, and so on. But, interestingly, bowerbirds living close to humans show a preference for our trash because they know its color lasts longer. This is important. The objects selected for display are meticulously color-coordinated. Blue is the favorite of the satin bowerbird, while the great bowerbird likes purple, red, and green. 

6. Sociable weaver apartments

Few birds are so descriptively named as the sociable weaver. These sparrow-sized birds, native to the Kalahari, weave sprawling communal nests “like avian apartment complexes” for a hundred or so families to live in. Each block resembles a haystack in the tree and follows a typical blueprint. Large twigs are used for the roof, while grasses are woven into the four-to-six-inch chambers, or “apartments”, which are then lined with soft furnishings like fluff, cotton, and fur. Entrance tunnels can be as long as 10 inches and lined with spikes of straw to keep predators at bay. Further protection from tree snakes and honey badgers comes from the choice of tree; smooth, tall trunks or even telephone poles are best. But cheetahs, vultures, owls, and eagles often find their way up to the roof of the complex just to enjoy the view. Giraffes and antelopes love them too; the birds’ droppings enrich the soil, resulting in more leaves—for food and shade—on the trees.

The sociable weavers’ sociability even extends to other birds. Building more chambers than they’ll ever use themselves, they welcome other species to the block. The South African pygmy falcon, for example, depends on their hospitality. Other visitors include the pied barbet, ashy tit, familiar chat, red-headed finch, and rosy-faced lovebird. This benefits the colony as a whole; not only do the weavers learn new sources of food from these other birds, but they also get more look-outs for danger.

When the extra rooms are empty, sociable weavers move between them. In the summer, they’ll favor the cooler outer rooms, and in the winter they’ll migrate to the center. Fledglings—reared and nourished by the whole family, including older siblings—often stay in the nest, relocating to different chambers when it’s time to leave their parents. Some weaver nests have been occupied for more than a century. Of course, the building and upkeep of such a complex requires constant coordination, and the birds’ chatter can be heard all around. If it gets too heavy (several tons sometimes), it can break its supporting tree.

5. Agglutinated foraminifera tests

If you’ve heard of agglutinated foraminifera before, give yourself a pat on the back. These single-celled microorganisms live more than six miles (10 kilometers) under the sea. Specifically, they inhabit the Mariana Trench, on what’s known as the Challenger Deep—which, though it sounds like the name of a submarine, is the deepest surveyed part of the seabed. In fact, it lies in the hadal zone (named for the Greek underworld), far beyond the previously thought deepest part of the ocean, the abyssal zone. You get the point, it’s a deeply inhospitable environment. And there’s not a whole lot to build with. Everything down there breaks down into clay, the smallest soil particle—which isn’t much use underwater, let alone 12,400 tons per square meter of it. It’s no good whatsoever for agglutinated foraminifera, which build their shells out of minerals like calcite, silica, and quartz.

In 2010, however, researchers were surprised to find specimens from the Challenger Deep with beautifully formed shells—or tests, as they’re called—of various minerals, including quartz and calcite. These tests are presumed to be formed (or agglutinated) from the sunken, decomposed remains of coccoliths (calcium carbonate-plated algae) and phytoplankton from the sea’s sunny surface. In other words, they build their homes from what’s called ‘marine snow’, the matter that sinks down from above, “rather like manna from heaven.”

As for the shells themselves, they come in different designs. Some are spirals, like tiny snails, while others are tubular with chambers in a row.

4. Prairie dog gigacities

Prairie dogs are squirrels that live on the ground. Instead of burying nuts, they bury themselves. Black-tailed prairie dogs in particular live in sprawling burrows that humans call towns because of their town-like organization and population (many hundreds or more). They also tend to expand into cities, megacities (tens of millions of residents), and even gigacities (hundreds of millions). The largest recorded town, which covered 25,000 square miles (65,000 square kilometers), roughly one-tenth of Texas, had an estimated 400 million residents. Not only is that millions more than the 20 biggest (human) cities combined, but it’s not far short of the same total area. That’s the population (and actual 1:1 area) of Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, Mumbai, Beijing, New York, and upwards of fourteen other world cities living under Texas as prairie dogs. 

Once upon a time, anyway. In the 20th century, humans exterminated 98 percent of all prairie dogs as pests. They’ve recovered slightly since, and their towns are still impressive organizationally. Each has clearly defined entrances (with earth markers), listening posts, toilets, sleeping quarters, and nurseries (located deepest within). Families live together and greet each other with a nuzzle, while young pups play together near their burrows. Like the ideal human city, prairie dog towns are even “multicultural”, with snake, owl, and ferret “immigrants” settling down in surplus tunnels.

3. Termite mega-skyscrapers

In Australia’s Northwest Territory, much of the dry plain landscape is dominated by the mounds of two termites. One is the compass termite, whose nests can reach heights of more than 10 feet and are built narrower along the north-south axis to avoid too much exposure to the sun.

The other is the cathedral termite, whose nests tower above the ground (and any passing mammals) at heights of 15 feet or more. These are the biggest skyscrapers in the world. By far. If the millions of termites inhabiting them were our size, the mounds themselves, scaled up proportionally, would be taller than three Burj Khalifas—and in some cases more than five! 

Both the compass and cathedral termites’ mounds can last for a century, which, remarkably, could also be the lifespan of their queens. Again, scaling up for humans, this means that both queen and tower might last seven millennia—despite being formed from just saliva, sand, and dung.

Inside, everyone has a purpose. Deep inside are the reproductives, the so-called queen and her successors, as well as the king that fertilizes them. Then there are the soldiers, the defenders of the mound. In the case of cathedral termites, these are ‘nasute soldiers’, meaning they have a long nose-tube specially adapted for squirting sticky saliva at invaders. After them, and most numerous of all, are the workers—whose job is to build and maintain the nest, as well as to feed and tend the young and reproductives. They rarely leave the darkness of the city.

2. Ant empires

Sadly, the only way for humans to view the beauty of an ants’ nest is to fill it with plaster, hot wax, or molten metal, killing every last one of its occupants. The resulting cast, though it’ll cost you your soul, can be excavated and studied in detail. In this way, scientists have found a remarkable degree of planning and consistency in ant nest construction—which is all the more remarkable given they build in the dark without a leader or plan, and ants working on one side have no means of communicating with ants on the other (no means obvious to us relatively unevolved apes, that is). 

Really, ants work much like cells in an organism—and these organisms, the colonies, can get pretty big. Nests belonging to the same species in any given area tend to merge together in “vast territorial systems” sometimes numbering hundreds of interacting colonies.

Nest features typically include food storage chambers, brood chambers (for eggs and the young), the queen’s chamber (at the heart), and waste disposal chambers (on the outer edge) for the deposit of dead ants and exoskeletons. These are joined by angled, vertical, or even spiraling shafts, which also provide ventilation. The variable depths and sizes of chambers provide the range of microclimates ant colonies need, particularly specialist species like those that farm fungi. They navigate their nests by chemical “signage”, similar to how they get around outside.

1. Bee 3D printing

Honeybees are more efficient than we could ever be. Like termites and ants, every bee in the hive has a purpose. But it’s for their building work, not their social organization, that they get a place on this list (although the two are related).

Darwin thought it the “most wonderful of all known instincts”, the way bees build their honeycombs with wax from their abdomens. Each consists of geometrically flawless hexagonal cells that fit perfectly into the grid—even while they vary in size to suit either drones or workers. What makes this even more remarkable is that honeycomb is built from different directions simultaneously; bees starting from different sides of the grid-in-progress somehow join up with mathematical precision.

This isn’t robotic behavior, though. Studies have shown a high degree of adaptability during construction, with each bee cleverly adjusting its work to attain that geometrical perfection. They might, for example, use heptagons and pentagons where necessary, or alter the orientation of cells. “A simple robot does not have such a level of adaptability and rate of error recovery,” said entomologist Raghavendra Gadagkar. It is, according to the authors of one landmark study, “a true architectural skill.”

Would you like to read the good news or bad news first? The bad news is that millennia of warfare, death, and obsolescence have left behind a world full of abandoned and dilapidated buildings and other structures. The good news is that the enterprising among us get to make some wild new homes if we want to.

Thanks to time and the ever-present march of progress, many old buildings currently sit vacant, just waiting to be cleaned out, cozied up, and converted into that far-out house that everyone talks about. Guaranteed to surprise you, this list brings together ten of those abandoned buildings that a creative and resourceful person turned into awesome new homes.

Related: Top 10 Repurposed Nazi-Era Buildings

10 A Public Bathroom

Looking at the photos of architect Laura Clark’s sleek, modern one-bedroom apartment in London, anyone would assume it is a lovely, ordinary home. Until, that is, they find out that it spent most of its days as a public bathroom off of a main street in a crowded city.

Clark has said, “For me, that’s about saving sites with an interesting history, but which have been abandoned and forgotten,” and her dedication is apparent. It took six years for Clark to convince housing authorities to let her redesign the space. And redesign it she did, converting the old stalls and sinks into a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom (probably the easiest part of the process). It even has its own terrace/patio.

They say don’t s–t where you eat. I guess the loophole here is that you need to convert the john into a home first.

9 A British Castle

The Astley Castle in Warwickshire, England, has stood since the 1100s. Over the past millennium, the property went from manor house to castle, crumbled and was rebuilt, acted as a troop garrison in the English Civil War, and crumbled again. Luckily, in 2012, the remains of the castle’s walls were incorporated into a new, modern home.

Nowadays, the house is rentable, and anyone staying the night is treated to a gorgeous blend of ancient stone and modern brick. Instead of leveling the eroded stone or repairing it outright, the renovators kept it where it lay, filling in empty sections with new brick. The result is entirely unique and a whole new level of cozy. I’m sure it’s structurally sound, too, right? Even though the walls are made in part with crumbling stones…

8 A Water Tower

There are dozens of water tower homes across the globe, each with its own personal take on home renovation. But perhaps the coolest of them all, if only for its location and view, is the Sunset Beach water tower in Sunset Beach, California.

The 87-foot-tall tower was built in the 1890s, and it wasn’t until the 1980s that the tower became a home. All four stories of the house take advantage of its circular frame with wraparound windows and even a wraparound porch. Located just a block from the Pacific Ocean and the titular Sunset Beach, its view is stunning.

7 A World War II Railcar

In Fort Collins, Colorado, one couple built their own tiny home from the most unexpected shell: a salvaged railcar from World War II. They decided to keep the railcar’s exterior the same, and it still boasts every scratch, ding, and dent it accrued throughout its long life. That only serves to highlight by contrast the exquisite new interior.

The space inside looks like Bob Ross would call it home. The furniture is vintage, the hardwood is exposed in many spots, and the remaining walls are hand-painted and muraled. Flowers and blankets abound throughout the space and, combined with the surplus of light brought in by the vaulted roof, make it hard to imagine a home more deserving of the word “charming.”

6 A Bridge

The river that used to run beneath the covered bridge just outside Nevada City, California, has long since run dry, rendering the bridge useless. Useless, that is, until the building was converted into a chic loft-style home and hotel.

The interior is decorated with contemporary European taste and comes together nicely. Perhaps the best part of the interior is that the entire 100-foot-plus length is visible from any spot inside. The whole house is long and narrow (it was a covered bridge, after all), and it creates the unique and surreal impression of an average house’s room all separated and arranged in a row, all walls between them removed. Though the building operated as a hotel for years, they have removed their website, and it seems likely only one family now enjoys the Historic Covered Bridge House.

5 An Elementary School

A Canton, Ohio, resident named Kynsey Wilson purchased a 45,000-square-foot home for only $35,000. Her secret? She bought an abandoned elementary school.

Wilson is currently working to make the old building into a home, but only a piece of the second floor. The rest, she is converting into “a public space, co-work environment, some conference rooms, my home office…(and) as many as 15 guest rooms for visiting family and friends.” Wilson has so much space beyond what she needs. I mean, it is a full-sized elementary school. In fact, she is open to suggestions from anyone on how to use it. In her own words, “If somebody has a really great idea and is motivated and wants to come partner up with me, I’m open to it. I’ve got a lot of square footage.”

4 A Half-Abandoned Mall

Built way back in 1828, the Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island, is the oldest indoor mall in the United States. Like so many malls across the globe, the Arcade was powerless to prevent the loss of much of its business in the latter half of the 20th century. It closed during the ’70s and was reopened, only to close again in 2008. When it reopened again in 2013, it made a seemingly wise decision: while its first floor is still a mall, developers converted its second and third floors into apartments.

There are 48 apartments within the mall’s bounds, all of which are small studios. Though small, the units are well-lit and open into a massive interior courtyard. A little sunshine and some green can go a long way. These features open up the apartment and don’t feel as cramped as they otherwise might seem. And given that the Arcade is located right in the heart of downtown Providence, the units are popular enough to require a waiting list to rent one.

3 A Jail

In 2020, a house was put up for sale in Fayette, Missouri, that could easily be mistaken for a completely average home. The outside is as ordinary as can be: one door, two stories, old red brick, a lawn, and a fence. The inside is ordinary, too, until you reach the end of a hallway that leads to your own personal jail.

That is because the building, built in 1875, spent decades as the Howard County Sheriff’s Office. When they renovated the house, nearly all of it was updated and made modern. Only the jailhouse was left as it was, and all nine cells still sit as they used to, complete with locks and bars on the doors and windows. It’s probably worth asking why someone would want that particular house. And yes, we are implying that they use the jail cell as a Fifty Shades of Grey playroom.

2 A Lunatic Asylum

Though several mental health facilities have been abandoned and converted into housing, perhaps none have transformed more than the notoriously cruel New York City Lunatic Asylum. It is now the luxury apartment complex known as The Octagon.

The former lunatic asylum was one of the most infamous in existence for its mistreatment of patients, mainly due to journalist Nellie Bly’s landmark 1887 exposé, “Ten Days in a Mad-House.” Bly had faked mental illness enough to be admitted to the facility, and during her ten days there, she witnessed beatings, torture, and an appalling lack of hygiene. When the facility finally closed in 1955, it sat vacant until 2006. Then it was renovated and made into the swanky living spaces it now is, complete with a private gym, rec room, and pool.

1 A Private Island Fortress

Spitbank Fort was built in 1878 on a private island just south of Portsmouth, England. It served as an active naval base for England until 1956, a whopping 78 years. Since then, it has been closed, renovated, re-closed, and re-renovated, and currently, Spitbank acts as one of the coolest hotels imaginable.

The island retains its strategic location and fortified construction and now boasts a casino, spa, pool, gym, and wine cellar. In addition, it takes advantage of its panoramic views of the English Channel with multiple observation decks and even a lighthouse-like crow’s nest. It’s been said repeatedly, but only because it’s so true: the combination of security and luxury brings to mind the lair of a James Bond villain. Luckily, the hotel is open for booking and also open for outright purchase, with a listing price of $5.2 million.

In the world of comic book collecting, there are a few holy grails—the first appearances of Superman (Action Comics #1, 1938) and Batman (Detective Comics #27, 1939) and the birth of the Marvel universe (Marvel Comics #1, 1939) chief among them. Their value comes not only from being the origins of the superhero genre but also from their extreme rarity.

That makes it all the more incredible that some lucky people have found these valuable books stashed away in their homes. You’d probably be more likely to win the lottery than to have these sitting around your house, but check your attic anyway. Let’s take a look at ten times that extremely rare and valuable comic books were found in an unsuspecting home.

Related: Video: 10 Comic Book Heroes Who Could Theoretically Exist

10 Superman Saves the House from Foreclosure

In 2010, a married couple in the American South was in a financial crunch. They had taken out a second mortgage on their home to start a new business, which had failed in the economic turmoil we now know as the Great Recession. Behind on their payments, the bank was ready to foreclose. With their hearts breaking, they started packing up in preparation for losing their home and having to move. While looking for good packing boxes in their basement, they stumbled across a handful of comic books. Most were unexceptional, but one was a find that would change their lives.

It was a copy of Action Comics #1, the 1938 comic that introduced Superman to the world. The couple, who chose to remain anonymous due to expected windfall from their stroke of luck, contacted comics auction house ComicConnect, who helped them get the book sold. Graded a 5.0 (Very Fine/Good) by the experts at Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), the lucky couple’s Action #1 ended up selling for $436,000. Superman was able to add saving a home from foreclosure to his already impressive resume.^[1]

9 Priceless Treasures Saved from the Trash

In early 1977 in Boulder, Colorado, Chuck Rozanski took a phone call at this Mile High Comics store that would change his life—and the field of comic book collecting. A realtor called to say he was trying to sell a house, but a large collection of comics needed to be disposed of immediately. Once Rozanski made his way to the home, he was shown a basement completely filled with stacks of comics—and he had to take all of them if he wanted to make a deal.

The collection had been assembled by Edgar Church, a commercial illustrator who bought nearly every American comic book published between 1937 and 1957 in an effort to help him keep up with the trends in his field. Church’s family wanted the comics gone as soon as possible so that they could sell the home. It seems most of the comics were looked at once, had a date penciled on them, and were then stored away. The result is what CGC calls “the most remarkable collection of vintage comic books ever discovered.” Featuring all the key issues of the era in some of the best conditions that have ever surfaced, the Edgar Church/Mile High Collection set the modern standards for grading and pricing rare comic books.^[2]

8 The Action Comics #1 Used as Insulation

In 2013, contractor David Gonzalez and his wife Deanna purchased a fixer-upper home in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, for $10,100. While knocking down a wall, he found that newspapers had been used as makeshift insulation. Amid the newspapers was an unbelievable find—a copy of Action Comics #1. The home had been built in 1938, the same year that the first Superman comic hit newsstands.

While not in mint condition, it’s still such a rare, valuable, and iconic book that it was bound to fetch a handsome sum. Unfortunately, an argument over the book’s value between Gonzalez and a relative led to the back cover being ripped off. That took the condition down from an estimated CGC rating of 3.0 to a 1.5. “That was a $75,000 tear,” said Stephen Fisher of ComicConnect after the comic sold for $175,000.^[3]

7 The Previously Unknown Comic Book

The massively successful comic book and movie studio we know today as Marvel has its roots in a company known as Timely Comics, founded in 1939. In the fall of that year, Timely published Marvel Comics #1, featuring Marvel characters still in print today, such as the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Timely eventually evolved into Marvel Comics, and it was accepted that their legacy had started with Timely’s Marvel Comics #1. That was until a previously unknown comic was discovered in the home of an art studio head in 1974.

Lloyd Jacquet was the head of Funnies, Inc., the studio that provided the artwork for Timely’s comics in 1939. Upon his passing in 1974, his heirs prepared an estate sale, and they found among his possessions six copies of the previously unknown Motion Pictures Funnies Weekly #1. Once it was discovered that this comic had the same Sub-Mariner story that ran in Marvel Comics #1, it threw into question the history of Marvel. What was this book, and where did it come from? It turns out it was to be a giveaway at movie theaters. Once that idea went nowhere, the included stories were eventually sold to Timely for use in their early comics. Probably the rarest comic book ever found in a home closet, it’s also an important document of early Marvel history.^[4]

6 Nicolas Cage’s Comic in the Storage Unit

Despite it being the most valuable comic book in the world and extremely rare, with only about 100 copies known to exist still, Action Comics #1 keeps showing up in the strangest places. This copy was technically not found in a home, but where you keep things that don’t fit in your house.

In 2011, a beautiful copy showed up in an abandoned California storage unit. The person who bought the unit’s contents at auction immediately knew there was something up with this lucky find. After some investigation, it was determined to be the copy stolen from actor Nicolas Cage in January 2000.

Cage is an avowed fan of Superman and comics in general. At one point, he had two holy grails in his collection—pristine copies of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27, the first appearances of Superman and Batman, respectively. Both were stolen from his house on January 21, 2000. Although he had sold the rest of his comics collection in the interim, he wanted his copy back when it resurfaced in 2011. Since his insurance company had covered the theft, it’s unclear if he was ever reunited with it. The “storage unit” Action Comics #1 went up for auction in 2011. However, it’s unknown if the seller was Cage, his insurance company, or the winner of the storage unit auction.^[5]

5 The Allentown Pedigree

CGC recognizes outstanding collections of vintage comics that were originally purchased at newsstands and preserved by the original owner as “Pedigree Collections.” As of this writing, CGC has only granted the title to 61 collections. One of the most prized pedigrees was literally found in a closet, having sat there, forgotten for decades. Everyone has heard a story about a great comic book collection that Mom threw away, but what if Mom had actually boxed them up and saved them?

That’s the story behind the Allentown Pedigree, named for the Pennsylvania town where they came from. The original owner, who remains anonymous, had purchased a mere 135 comics in his youth. In that relatively small collection were several key issues such as Detective Comics #27, Marvel Comics #1, Captain America #1, and Batman #1. This places the collection’s origins from 1939 to 1941, when the original owner’s mother boxed them up and put them in the closet, where they remained undiscovered until 1987. At that time, two comics dealers purchased them. Even though the collection has been broken up and sold to many different owners over the years, the Allentown Pedigree is still recognized today as one of the highest-graded collections of Golden Age comics.^[6]

4 Treasure in the Hoarder House

We’ve all seen the houses of hoarders on TV, and it’s safe to say most of us would not want to go in to find out what’s in there for ourselves. In 2017, Rene Nezhoda, owner of a thrift store in the San Diego area, decided it was worth entering a Los Angeles-area hoarder house because of the collectibles purported to be inside. His efforts paid off, as the house was indeed filled with rarities of all kinds, including some very desirable 1960s comic books.

The treasures among the trash included a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man and one of the most valuable Silver Age comic books. There is a video of Nezhoda in a hazmat suit, working his way through many comic books and other valuable collectibles—and some other artifacts of a hoarder house. “There were also rats and rat poop,” Rene said. “I’ve bought a lot of collections and houses in my life, and I have never been overwhelmed, but this house makes me overwhelmed.”^[7]

3 The $3.5 Million Closet Find

In 2011, Heritage Auctions put up for sale an incredible collection of 345 vintage comic books that ended up selling for $3.5 million. Amazingly, they had only been recently unearthed from a closet, where they had sat for decades. After the death of his great-aunt, Michael Rorrer of Oxnard, California, traveled to her Virginia home to help settle her affairs. It was there, in a basement closet, that he found the long-forgotten comics.

Among the collection were several key issues, including Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, and Batman #1. They had originally belonged to his great-uncle, Billy Wright, who originally bought them over a nine-year period. So impressive was this batch of comics that CGC made it one of the newest additions to its distinguished Pedigree Collection list. The Billy Wright Pedigree is a potent reminder to always check basements and closets for any treasures that may be hiding in your family’s homes.^[8]

2 Batman in the Attic

For most homeowners, the prospect of bats in the attic would be a big problem. But when the bat in question is the iconic Batman, in his rare and extremely valuable first appearance, it’s a reason for celebration. In 2007, a Pennsylvania man was cleaning out his attic when he stumbled upon a near-mint copy of Detective Comics #27, the comic that introduced the Caped Crusader to the world. He then sold the book to Todd McDevitt, the owner of New Dimension Comics.

McDevitt said he had been saving up since 1986 for when a really rare and valuable comic came through his shop. Reports following the 2007 sale said McDevitt was keeping his enviable find in a bank vault. It’s unknown if he has since sold it, but with copies of Detective #27 now going for as much as $1.5 million, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had put it up for auction since then.^[9]

1 The Promise Collection

The newest CGC Pedigree Collection is one of the largest, with over 5,000 Golden Age comics. It also has one of the most touching origin stories. It concerns a pair of anonymous brothers, known only as Robert and Junie. In the early 1950s, Robert was drafted into the Army to fight in Korea. Junie, his younger brother, soon followed and enlisted in the Army as well. Junie asked his brother for one thing—that if he didn’t make it home, he wanted Robert to take care of his comic book collections. Robert promised that he would. Sadly, Junie was killed in combat at age 21. Robert kept his promise, boxing up all the comics and storing them in the attic of their family home. And there they were forgotten about.

Nearly seven decades later, the comics were rediscovered in the attic. Realizing the enormity of Junie’s collection, the family transferred them to protective plastic bags while creating a catalog of its contents in a spreadsheet. In honor of Robert’s vow to his brother, CGC gave the pedigree the Promise Collection name. In 2021, some of the collection started to make it to the auction market, with the phenomenal condition of nearly all the books attracting major attention from collectors.^[10]