Andromeda Yelton
Yvonne PerkinsNew owners of a home in Melbourne discover an extensive model train set-up under the floor when they move in.
MyView
Jesse@perkinsy I'm kind of surprised that someone would buy a house without having a look under it first.
@jessta 100% - clearly didn't get a building inspection before buying
@perkinsy I suspect David did know about the train set and brought the house specifically for it but didn't tell his wife....
Anna Spanner 👩🏫🇪🇺🇬🇧
F4GRX Sébastien
CatSalad🐈🥗 (D.Burch) 
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK@catsalad @f4grx @Annaspanner @jessta @perkinsy there's a comment on FB supposedly from the son of the previous house owner who built the layout, but passed away in 2020 (possibly unexpected due to Covid?) stating Daniel Xu genuinely didn't know about the model railway layout.
To be fair as he's worked on the railways for years and appears to be in early middle age, I suspect his wife knows he likes trains - he's also mentioned already owning a few model trains and she wouldn't be bothered about the layout
its even better that its now in the hands of someone who will appreciate it and get it running again..
Heather Evans
Laberpferd@perkinsy i was in a past life a TV and HiFi service guy, and i am not surprised about that story, know the concept of "taboo rooms"
It happens when old people die andor when family forces that someone has to end his passion
Often then such personal rooms are cleared out and the collection just trashed, sometimes instead the door gets forever locked up, frowned to talk about, walls built over doors to make the room invisible and out of existence
ShouldBeGaminButDoomscrollin@Laberpferd @perkinsy that sounds oddly like Edith Finch house, even if not entirely the case
cobalt@perkinsy @spiegelmama Incredible! My grandfather built a large train set in the basement of a home in Paletine Illinois maybe around 1957 or so. It was one that was a scale model but I forget what it was. The local hobby club came to visit and a newspaper did a story on it. But an odd thing is I never saw it or heard about it again. My grandfolks lived there maybe 16 years until my grandmother died. After that my grandfather quickly sold the home and moved. There is no one left in the family who was old enough to remember it. Spooky memory?
spiegelmama@cobalt123
I wonder if a similar situation resulted? I hope so. That's a lovely surprise.
Olivier Mengué@cobalt123 @perkinsy @spiegelmama You now have to ask about to the location and ask the current owners if the setting is still there. 😉
rdm
Sam Wilson@perkinsy "Coincidentally, Xu is a train enthusiast." 😃
anja
Whiskers 🇦🇺
Malcolm Herbert@perkinsy as per another thread - I was saddened the article didn't mention the creator of the layout
Steveg58
Fraser
[
] Fanged Menace 
vxo
Alfred Chow - Maker of Things@perkinsy
This sets a precedent for me to leave a whole 1990s electrical wholesale shop set up in our basement when we sell!
This sets a precedent for me to leave a whole 1990s electrical wholesale shop set up in our basement when we sell!
lolcat
Bruce Elrick@perkinsy
Wait, do houses in Australia not normally have a basement?
"Under the floor"?
@virtuous_sloth It is incredibly rare for houses in Australia to have basements. Department stores have basements, not houses. Generally older houses have the pillars of wood or bricks stuck into the ground under the house to form the foundations. These are called 'stumps' and many houses need the stumps to be replaced when someone buys the house because they are old. This is expensive.
The stumps are set in the dirt of the ground in which the house is built. You may find building rubble from when the house was first built under the house but definitely nothing valuable.
My father built a dark room to develop photographs under the floor of a house we lived in. The house was on the hill so you could stand up under the house. The floor was dirt. Australia has lots of spiders and furry, large ones called huntsmen. They like dark areas such as under houses, so I was a bit worried about spiders when I was developing photos.
@perkinsy
In Canada there are older houses without a basement, just what we'd call a crawlspace, but since you typically need to dig the foundation below the frost line (max depth for freezing to occur, depends on location in country, typically 3-6 feet) it's not much more expensive to make it a basement.
Under the floor sounds odd since it implies, to my ears, that it was in a crawlspace, not another level of the house, which it isn't based on the photos.
@virtuous_sloth It is a house that is probably built on a hill. So there is more space under the floor on one side of the house than the other. If the house is built on flat ground then the space under the floor is incredibly tight.
AN/CRM-114@perkinsy “The Tracks of Amontillado”
Feral Aunt Nessie 
@perkinsy What is he complaining about??
Sylvhem
Dave Spector@perkinsy this story needs some many more pictures.. and the whole back story of the builder. What a wonderful thing to have received.
Galbinus Caeli(moving, see bio@perkinsy our house just came with piles of horseshoes in the cellar. And no, there are no horse stables for many kilometers
(Repost after noticing that autocorrect had changed "horseshoes" to "horses")
(Repost after noticing that autocorrect had changed "horseshoes" to "horses")
Piiieps & Brummm@perkinsy Damn. I only found asbestos.