After A Californian Couple Moved Some Furniture, The Wife Found A Hole To A Strange Chamber

Jennifer Little is stunned after finding a manhole under the carpet of a Californian home she is clearing. The woman then decides to peer inside, but the uncertainty of what lies below leaves her frightened. So, she sends in husband Doug instead. And as the latter ventures into the dark hole, he hopes nothing will come out to meet him...

An unlikely occurrence

A huge audience of viewers tuned in to see what Little and her significant other had discovered in the gloomy depths. But they couldn’t have imagined what lay underneath the home. After all, the central coast of California is synonymous with sunshine and good times – not with creepy horror that waits in the dark!

Something unusual

Little does this kind of thing all the time, but she’s never experienced anything like this before. The California resident helps manage estates – diving into homes that have been left behind and scanning the properties for any interesting items. Occasionally, she’ll turn up a nice antique, but in March 2021 Little found something much weirder than treasure in a hole.

Antiques and relics

When Little finds comes across something worthwhile, she doesn’t keep it for herself. No, the primo stuff goes for auction online. And she does often discover nice things. But this time, what she finds cannot be sold. No, it’s the kind of thing that would send a shiver down your spine!

Sharing with social media

Little certainly doesn’t keep these discoveries quiet, either. She shares her adventures with thousands of followers on TikTok. And this particular find created a bit of a bombshell when she posted a short video about it in March 2021.

TikTok influencer

Little’s used to gaining some interest with her TikTok posts. At the time of writing, she’s actually drawn more than 35,000 followers on the platform. But this particular video grabbed her a slightly larger audience. Yep, it went viral, and more than eight million people have joined her and Doug on their voyage into the unknown.

Making a name for herself

The prolific Tik Toker’s followers have learned a lot about Little. For starters, she doesn’t live up to her name! The Californian is apparently over six feet tall. And she isn’t the only person that fans have met on her feed: Little’s whole family – including Doug and son – have featured. Plus, they’ve learned that she enjoys video games: one TikTok post shows a Pac-Man arcade cabinet being delivered to her office!

Tourism manager

That establishment sits on Main Street in Morro Bay. It’s a delightful seaside town on the central coast of California – just off of Highway 1. And Little knows a thing or two about her hometown. She has served as the city’s tourism manager for just shy of five years at the time of writing.

Not a bad find

But it’s Little’s other gig that led her to confront the eerie secret hidden under one of the area’s homes. She was in the house searching for goodies to put online at SLOCAL Estate Auctions. For instance, Little has found a bunch of stuff in a home at Cambria, CA, which includes nice furnishings, tools and even some gold!

A little bit of everything

Previous houses at Morro Bay and nearby Arroyo Grande have also provided plenty of treasure. According to the SLOCAL Estate Auctions website, one was a “guys’ guy” deal, and Little had plenty of military stuff on sale, as well as tools and knives. Another one of them was all about downsizing, so there were some quality items on offer.

Sharing her finds

Little often covers her treasure hunts on TikTok. For instance, in one clip she tells us, “Hey, I’m working on a jewelry estate, which is always a fun thing to do.” And you can feel the excitement ooze out of her as she shares a find with her viewers. It’s a silver peso from 1950s Cuba.

Knife collection

In other clips, Little shows off discoveries from another estate. She shares with us that her son popped open a box and to his surprise found a whole bunch of impressive knives. In fact, Little reveals that her husband has his eye on a Bowie knife and might well cough up the cash for it himself!

A remarkable secret

So, Little may have hoped to turn up some treasure when she was shifting furniture in the 1950s house we mentioned earlier. The California resident was in the home’s master bedroom when she came across something completely unexpected. And it wouldn’t be long before Little found the remarkable secret that the house had been hiding.

Something told her to do it

Little didn’t share why exactly she chose to lift up the carpet in the bedroom. But she’s used to having a good rummage, and her instincts have been honed by going through so many houses. So, maybe her spidey sense had twitched? Either way, she discovered something remarkable underneath!

Below the carpet

It hadn’t been an easy job even to get to the carpet. That’s because a 400-pound piece of furniture had been sitting on top of it, according to the website Love Property. And Little had needed to ask her husband to come and move it. Once he’d done so, and the carpet had been pulled up, a manhole was then revealed.

What lies inside?

Now, it’s a good thing Doug Little is a trim kind of guy. Because it would have made a tight fit if he’d have been a bit more chunky! Clearly, the manhole was going to be a squeeze. Was he going in, though? In the first TikTok, we can see Doug wiping away cobwebs. But what horror might lie inside?

Not exactly inviting

The hole really doesn’t look very appealing! All you can really see when the cover’s taken off is a gloomy, dank pit. And what could possibly be at the bottom of it? Looking at the TikTok clip, one thing is for sure. There is something in there, lurking, perhaps waiting to get tangled up in the hair of the unsuspecting.

Residents of the hole

Yes, whatever else lies in the hole, it shares the space with creepy crawlies. As Little notes in the clip, there are “huge spiders everywhere.” Well, that’s enough to convince her that no way is she descending into the hole! Doug would have to go in her place. And you’d have to say he’s a brave man…

Into the blackness

Certainly some of the commenters on TikTok agreed that Little’s husband had nerves of steel. One user joked, “All fun and games until you hear ‘he he he’ at 2:00 a.m.” Well, that definitely makes it sound enticing! Another contributor thought something more benign might be down the hole – imagining Mr. Little plunging into water.

What was inside?

But did Doug find himself up to his neck in it? What was down there? A secret room? Was it the lair of a monstrous murderer awaiting his next victim? Or perhaps it was something a bit nicer – a safe full of goods that had been hidden away and forgotten? Nope: it was none of those things!

Hidden furniture

The clip reveals the truth, as we hear a disembodied voice coming from down below. And it doesn’t reveal treasure. Rather, something much weirder lies down there. The voice is saying that it has discovered “bunk beds, a cabinet. This is a legit bomb shelter.” But is anyone hiding within?

Coated in years of dust

In fact, no one has sheltered in this underground bunker for many a year. That’s obvious when a further TikTok clip shows us around the place. It’s chockfull of rubbish, broken bits and pieces and deserted trash. Also, it’s so dusty! Everything is coated in years of the stuff. You definitely wouldn’t want to live in it.

Not weather-tight, still preserved

And the shelter can’t even keep out the rain! Other clips reveal that the foundation of the bunker – made out of stone – has sprung a leak. Little explains, “After 50 years, it was clearly not weather tight, but we still found some treasures.” Though these aren’t silver pesos or nice Bowie knives.

What the flashlight sees

As the flashlight moves around the space, we can see that it had some Spartan furnishings. There are a couple of bunk beds to allow its occupants to stay the night. And if nature calls, well there’s a urinal, too. Plus, one wall is festooned with hooks to hang clothes on. That’s not all, though.

A bizarre device

Weirdly, in pride of place is a “Posture-Rest” machine made by Stauffer. This invention from the 1950s used vibrations to help its user lose weight. So, at least anyone sheltering in the bunker would not have had to worry about putting on the pounds from lack of exercise! Though you don’t see this device too much these days.

Air-raid shelter

This chair perhaps helped Little revise her guess about what the shelter had been for. At first, the Californian resident believed that she had stumbled on a World War II air-raid shelter. But the building’s age gives her a clue to what its purpose had really been.

Original intentions

In fact, the home itself reportedly dates to 1951, so the bunker was probably there from day one. It was likely intended as a Cold War shelter against nuclear attack. And it may have actually been used! According to Love Property, the house’s owners had abandoned some bottles in the room.

Strange bottles everywhere

The bottles may have come from the neighboring dry storage – still replete with supplies after all this time. Although, weirdly, it’s separated from the shelter. In her clip, Little expresses her confusion about that. She says, “I’m not sure why they built it this way. You’d have to leave the shelter to go into the dry storage room.”

Actually not that uncommon

In the clip, Little doesn’t appear to be at all surprised to have found such a shelter in the area. She says, “People were so afraid of a nuclear bomb happening on the California coast – especially in central California because it’s so exposed.” In fact, she considered it quite a normal addition to a home of the 1950s.

Just not as comfortable

Some of Little’s followers thought that perhaps the shelter hadn’t gone out of fashion. In fact, they opined that it could be put to use in the modern day. One wrote, “Normal for back then? Like… I think we need them now more than ever.” Mind you, this one wouldn’t be too comfortable as it is now.

Preserved, just dusty

But some of Little’s followers thought that all it needed was a bit of renovation. One wrote, “This is so cool. Everything is preserved; it’s just dusty. You guys should remodel it.” Someone’s going to need to deal with the spiders first, though! Still, maybe it would make a slightly weird extra bedroom?

Renovations?

One TikTok habitué certainly thought so. They wrote, “Y’all should clean it up and make it a dream bunker.” Another recognized that it would be a big job for the couple, but the room could come in useful. They asked, “Why don’t you guys get some people to help and restore it just in case?”

Claustrophobia instincts

One user had some unusual circumstances that it might be good for. They wrote, “Well if there is a zombie apocalypse at least y’all be safe.” But obviously the experience wouldn’t be suitable for everyone. One user explained, “My claustrophobia just went through the roof!” And it’s no wonder when you look at how narrow the manhole is.

Emergency services on hand

Another saw a downside of hiding from nuclear attack in the shelter. They wrote, “Okay, but if debris fell on it from the bomb how would anyone know you were there?” Well, thankfully Little has some emergency services help on hand!

Rob's expedition

Assistance comes in the form of someone going by the name of Rob. He apparently works for the fire department – if his jacket is anything to go by. In a TikTok post, we see him wandering around the shelter before scrambling out and laughing about the experience. Someone calls out, “Not every day you get to do that, right Rob?”

Dating the shelter

As it turns out, 1951 is a bit early for a fallout shelter. Ten years after the house was built, a program started with the goal of setting up community shelters. But that’s not to say people didn’t make private shelters anyway. The community places were not much use against bomb blasts in any event. Instead, they were to protect shelterers from nuclear fallout.

Swiss shelters

And that’s nothing compared to Switzerland. That country made it compulsory to include a shelter that would withstand a blast in every new building from the 1960s. Even today, the nation insists that everyone should have somewhere to go if the bombs start falling, although it’s not clear who the Swiss think will be dropping them!

Behind the walls...

Little’s not the first person to share a hidden space discovery on TikTok, though. Earlier in 2021 New Yorker Samantha Hartsoe did exactly that. Users enjoy the mystery of what lies behind the mirror in her bathroom. Normally, the answer would be “the wall,” but for Hartsoe, it was something a bit more unusual.

An entirely different apartment

In the clip, Hartsoe finds a complete apartment after she climbs through the hole that sits behind her mirror. And it’s not a small, cramped fallout shelter, either. It’s as big as the place that she herself lives in! Although the housing unit is not in use, it has signs of life in the form of a water bottle…

Second complete residence

Elsewhere, a Reddit user by the name of “Mr. Griff” discovered something in his attic that seemed a bit out of place. Yes, it was a whole other house! When he climbed up into the attic, he found out that there was a complete residence. It was even hung with wallpaper, although it was not the freshest. So if you come across a hole, a hatchway or a manhole in your home, who knows what you’ll find?