Three Years After This Woman Moved Into Her House, She Looked In A Closet And Found A Secret Room

That’s the scenario that one shocked American family faced in 2020. The Cristels had been living in their home for three years when the mom of the house asked her boyfriend to move in with them. She subsequently tasked him with breaking down her bedroom closet wall. Though little did anyone know that he would inadvertently open up a previously hidden portal!

Daughter Abriana revealed her discovery to the entire world with a series of videos on the phenomenon that is TikTok. The clips soon racked up more than half a million likes and hundreds of comments. And the response from social media users ranged from jealousy to spooky conspiracy theories.

For example, one follower commented, “I wish I could find another whole part of my house. I’m never lucky.” Another joked, “The walk-in closet that every mom always wanted.” Then there was the quip, “[The] room was sealed off so that the country would only tax them for a three bedroom and not for a four.”

Some followers remarked that they’d dreamt about finding a previously hidden area in their home that looked remarkably similar to the Cristels’. Though for some it was more of a nightmare. One spooked viewer admitted, “… One of my worst fears is discovering something like this in my house and then realizing someone has been living in it.”

Others were more intrigued as to why the room had been boarded up in the first place. One TikTok user remarked, “Anyone else thinking the old homeowners trapped a spirit in the room and built the wall to hide it in there... or is it just me?” Another compared the discovery to the creepy one made in Netflix horror The Haunting of Hill House.

Yet Abriana was more than happy to respond to some of the queries about her family’s discovery. When asked how no one had ever noticed two windows which didn’t appear to lead anywhere, she replied, “Lol we gave up on trying to find where the windows led. And eventually and randomly we found this.”

Judging by Abriana’s TikTok, the Cristels’ household appears to be a lively place on an everyday basis. Her profile is filled with clips of several cute kids playing games, eating donuts and posing for selfies. And there’s also an adorable dog named Stax who’s now learned how to shake a paw.

Abriana and her family’s viral fame began when she uploaded a TikTok video captioned, “My mom broke her closet wall down and it turned out to be a whole new room that the people never finished. We’ve been at this house for three years.” Abriana can also be heard saying in the clip, “This is so weird.”

The first video begins with a family member crouching down to enter the new space. Abriana then gives TikTok viewers a quick glimpse of the hidden area, which appears to consist of not just one but two separate rooms. As previously mentioned, both also have windows and both are entirely empty.

Abriana later uploaded another video which showed that the family had started work on their surprise new rooms. Firstly, she highlights some of the existing drywall that had been taken down. Then, Abriana reveals some of the writing and measurements that had been left on the wooden framework by the previous owners.

TikTok viewers are then taken into the space which Abriana confirms was intended to be a bathroom. She points out the extractor fan positioned in the ceiling, as well as several plug points and a light. Abriana’s camera also picks up several bits of loose wiring and all the exposed floorboards.

The third video Abriana uploaded to TikTok begins in the place where all the drama started: her mom’s bedroom. She reminds viewers how the discovery was made before opening that now famous closet door. Abriana remarks, “It turned out to be a whole new other side of the house, bro.”

Abriana goes on to explain, “There was a wall right here: drywall.” She then moves directly into the newly discovered space. For the first time, TikTok users can see that alongside a bedroom and bathroom, the previously hidden area also boasts another feature. Abriana’s mother now has a walk-in closet to replace the one her boyfriend tore down.

The Cristel family still have their work cut out making the space habitable, of course. But the previous owners had at least done some of the legwork. Before abandoning the space for reasons that we will perhaps never know, the former occupants had apparently installed some lights and sheetrock panels.

Though there’s another feature of the area that also remains a mystery. Why was its hidden entrance so small? According to Fox News, the doorway stands no more than 5-feet-tall. It’s why you see one of the Cristels crouching down in the first clip to avoid banging their head.

So, how far along have the Cristel family got with the renovation project that none of them could have foreseen? Well, the third clip that Abriana uploaded was captioned, “Stay tuned while we make it a whole different area.” But sadly for all us intrigued viewers on TikTok, there hasn’t been an update since.

The Cristels aren’t the only people who have gone viral after discovering an unusual property feature, though. London-based actor Jamie Wilkes left his Twitter followers open-mouthed after posting a video from a flat viewing with a magical kitchen. Yes, one of its countertops also doubled up as a doorway to a hidden staircase once opened up.

Then there’s YouTuber John Reynolds, who discovered that the backyard dump he’d acquired after purchasing a $20,000 house was hiding a swimming pool. The new homeowner initially believed there was nothing but junk and dirt at the rear of his property. It was only when heavy rainfall washed most of it away that he noticed its surprise additional feature.

An even more surprising house find, though, was discovered by Khandu Patel and his wife. The pair had resided at the same property for four decades in Wolverhampton, England. And one day they finally decided to investigate its backyard manhole cover. After opening it up, the shocked couple found that they’d been living all this time above a secret air raid shelter!

But they weren’t the only ones to have ignored a route to an underground hidey-hole. Although this one had some decidedly creepier secrets inside. The owner of this woodland cabin had never had the courage to open the trap door beneath his dining table. After all, people go wild in the woods. People go crazy in the woods. And sometimes, inexplicably, people go missing in the woods. But when a handyman finally did prize it open, what lay inside was dark and strange.

Above ground the cabin offers a peaceful scene, with sunlight streaming through the windows. But was it a coincidence that the owner had positioned a heavy table on top of the trapdoor? Or on the other hand, had he somehow sensed, darkly, that whatever was down there needed to stay down there, ignored and forgotten?

Had the idea of opening it gnawed at his curiosity, like an insistent animal scratching to get in? Had he in fact lain awake in the early hours, sleepless, listening to the nocturnal sounds of the forest, his mind churning over the grim possibilities? Indeed, did he wonder if he would ever muster the courage to do what needed to be done?

The cabin owner went by the name SirBumpsALot on image-sharing website imgur. Posting photos of his dark experience in 2015, he wrote, “Never had the guts to open it… Handyman came by and was all too eager to have a look.” And so began his unforgiving journey into the underworld.

In fact, it soon became clear that SirBumpsALot had been right to be cautious about opening the trapdoor. The wood, he soon discovered, was rotten and crawling with venomous funnel-weaver spiders. Bites from these arachnids can rot human flesh, so finding a nest of them here wasn’t ideal.

Of course, killing spiders – no matter how venomous or skin-crawling – isn’t just unnecessary and cruel; it’s bad luck. So one by one, SirBumpsALot and the handyman collected every hobo and wolf spider and released them elsewhere. Critters safely removed, it was then time to shine a light on the world below.

Was it wise to go looking in hidden places? Yawning beneath them, a hole receded into darkness. Down there were unfathomable shapes, shadows and, as they would soon discover, grizzly sights not easily explained.

But first they shone a flashlight to and fro, casting its beam over the cellar. There were walls, gray and concrete, forming stark outlines and tomb-like enclosures. The air, meanwhile, was damp and malodorous and tinged with the scent of iron… like rust, or, perhaps, blood? There was a ladder. And down it went into the blackness…

“Yeah, creepy…” wrote SirBumpsALot. “There seems to be a faucet. And ventilation. A bomb shelter maybe? Or a cistern?” In fact, as he would soon discover, the basement may even have served more sinister purposes. Casting the flashlight back and forth, peering closer, he suddenly saw it… A sight so gross and grotesque that it was almost sick-making.

“Unidentified gnarliness” was actually how SirBumpsALot described it. Because in the corner of the room, there appeared a concrete trough filled with gelatinous slime. In fact, the hideous trough was just large enough to hold a human body…

Still, unfazed by the gruesome possibility that a tub of liquefied human remains had been rotting under his cabin, SirBumpsALot then lowered a stick inside the trough. He began prodding, sensing some resistance as he did so. “Broke up the unidentified gooey mass,” he wrote on imgur.

In fact, whatever had been inside the trough, festering there for weeks or months or years, was clearly an organic substance. The walls of the trough were crusted with scum and mold. And what appeared to be roots, black and tentacle-like, had burgeoned in the soup despite the absence of light.

Had any hapless hikers recently vanished in the area? Was there any reason to suspect the worst? As SirBumpsALot stood over the open hole, perhaps pondering his next move, did he recall any missing-person stories that he may have skimmed over in the local newspapers? What did he do next?

He went down there, of course, to find out more. Gripping the rusted metal ladder, he descended step by step into the crypt-like vault. Swallowed by darkness, he cast his flashlight over the walls, the floor and, finally, the trough. In fact, nothing was as it had first seemed.

“Turns out it was just a tangle of roots soaking in the rusty water,” he later wrote on imgur. Phew. “But we also seem to have some of the Super Mario movie fungus. Looked pretty sinister, dotted with gooey drops of who-knows-what sort of nope-erry.” Indeed, a face mask and a machete are essential kit in these circumstances.

However, he would soon discover that there was yet more to his basement than mere roots, fungus and stagnant water. “Built as a cellar for cleaning game maybe?” he speculated. “Cold storage? A bunker?” And then, casting his light on a back wall, he saw something peculiar.

“The back wall had a little opening,” wrote SirBumpsALot. Strange indeed. So what was this ominous hole? Where did it lead, and what was its function? And would he yet come to regret venturing into his cellar?

Shining a light inside, he discovered a pile of charred remains. But without any furnace or any boiler or apparatus there, it was not quite clear why anyone would have lit a fire in the basement. Neither was it clear exactly what had been burned down there.

Sensibly, SirBumpsALot decided to close the door and reinforce it “so no one falls through into the underworld.” He added, bravely, “Looks like we’re just going to leave that closed for now and brainstorm possible uses for when the time is right…”

That sounds like a job for the handyman… Meanwhile, until SirBumpsALot summons the courage to disturb whatever unclean spiritual forces might be lurking down there, he has his dog to comfort him. Hug tight, SirBumpsALot, and fear not the dark places.