People often mistake our house for the house that inspired Nightmare on Elm Street. In truth, they tore down that house and it is located a few houses down from us. It was never proven that was the case too. But when we went into the basement it was more of the Crypt Keeper! Cobwebs from wall to wall. There was only a path going to the boiler that was like a tunnel through the cobwebs. We spent two days cleaning them out with a broom.
Then entrance
When we moved in the only way into the basement was from a little shack looking off shoot on the house. You had to unpadlock the door and make your way down a short set of steps that was covered with leaves and debris.
The door at the bottom of the steps has seen better days. We ended up using some long drywall screws to seal this door shut. It just can’t be saved, and an outside door needs to be in place here. That and it was leaking so much cold air it wasn’t funny.
The first small room.
There is a little room here that is higher than the rest of the basement. This room is under the kitchen and is always cold. We think it’s because the sandstone foundation needs to be repointed in the back of the house and letting in cold air under the wood. This room isn’t this clean anymore, I have a lot of junk sitting in it. Trying to keep winter out so when summer rolls around I can fix it right.
You can see in the corner a hole for a sump pump that had been removed. I put a new one there and ran a garden hose to a sump pump that had piping to get the water out of the basement. I’m standing in the doorway that leads to the main part of the basement looking into this room here.
The main basement.
Welcome to the main part of the basement. Still have a lot of junk down here from when we moved in that needs to be cleaned up. It’s hard to tell how large this place is from the photo. This is where we were told the bar was. Doesn’t look like much right now. Once I get the house stabilized, we will start working on cleaning this place up. Could be a real nice space and lots of head room too.
The boiler for this house is this really small tan nasty dinky thing. It has to be the smallest boiler I have ever seen. It does a good job producing heat to keep the house warm. Just there are so many air leaks in the house I don’t think any size boiler would help.
The hot water heater is HUGE. I am 6 foot and I bet you I could stand inside of it with no issues. At one time, someone reported that 30 people lived in this house. I’m thinking that is why it’s so big.
The small rooms in the basement.
There are a bunch of small rooms that are off the huge basement.
At one time this was setup like a men’s restroom. Someone removed all the stuff in here. After a lot of cleaning, we are thinking about setting it up for a project room. With our 3D printer, 2 vinyl cutters, air brush station, etc.
Then we have this strange U-shaped room. Not sure why or how it was used. It’s where our fuse box is. For now, we have put our deepfreeze there. We aren’t using it right now, so it’s unplugged with the lid open. Haven’t been able to stock up on that much food yet.
Then we have the tool room. I ended up putting my power tools in this room. We were later informed that this is where they stored all the tools for when they built ice sculptures.
Then you have the stairs going to the main house. You can see crepe paper ribbon ends stapled on all the rafters. We think that when the basement was used for a bar, they used crepe paper ribbons for a ceiling.
A lot of reminders around the basement still indicate that a fraternity used this house.
We plan on keeping them as is. A reminder to what once was.
The one big thing that is missing is that there are no windows. Someone removed and replaced all the basement windows with plywood and foamboard. One more thing we will need to buy for this house. Unless you want to help us! get them by donating.