Mysteries from the Deep

As with many weekends in early spring, I found myself in a standard dilemma. The weather was relatively decent and I contemplated going for a bike ride, but I wasn’t feeling very spry. Instead, I decided I would attempt to finish a house project I started over a year ago. It wasn’t a monumental task but definitely required some time and involved a lot of dust.

So my house has a full basement. It’s all relatively finished space but some is definitely more livable than others. It’s split into three separate rooms and every room has the same stupid Homasote panels firmly nailed or screwed to the ceiling. As far as I can tell they serve no purpose and hinder any kind of access to the wiring, plumbing, and other home infrastructure. I’m quite certain they were installed when the house was built so there is a solid fifty plus years of dust and cobwebs safely stashed away behind the panels. I’ve slowly been taking these panels down as necessary to gain access to the space above and decided it was time to remove the last of them.

One thing I’ve learned with these home projects is that often times you’ll get more than you’ve bargained for and could wind up with more work to do. Fortunately I didn’t come across anything like that, but I did find a few oddities that still have me baffled. For example, behind one section of ceiling, there was an extension cord. That’s right, an extension cord. The male end was visible, but the cord went into a hole that should be in my living room, however there is no evidence of a cord on the upstairs. I thought it was best to leave this alone and most certainly not plug it in.

Another delightful find involved a coil of Romex that was probably about twenty feet long. It appeared to have been disconnected from something because one end was nicely wrapped in electrical tape. As I followed the other end of this wire across the basement, I found it went through a different hole into the living room. I’m not at all sure what’s on the other end of this wire but I should probably figure that one out. With any luck, it will unlock a magical land of rainbows and unicorns. Either way though, it seems like there’s a lot more going on in my living room then I am aware of.