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How to Find the History of Your House · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Chuck, Charles W. Bryant.
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Speaker 1: Happy leaf ericson Day, Happy leaf ericson Day? And that
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Speaker 1: is today is leaf ericson Day. And if you remember, Josh,
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Speaker 1: in our recent podcast on the first Americans May, we
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Speaker 1: had a little joke. Do you want to hear it?
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Speaker 1: Let's go back. Okay, I'm gonna go back music. Columbus
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Speaker 1: was beaten by a good five years by the Norse
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Speaker 1: who found who were in Newfoundland. That's not what we
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Speaker 1: were taught in history. And definitely there's no Norse day. No, No,
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Speaker 1: that'd be awesome. No leaf ericson Day. I don't think
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Speaker 1: there is not in the US. So there you have it,
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Speaker 1: and there is a leaf eric today and we both
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Speaker 1: have a little egg on our faces because we didn't
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Speaker 1: know that, and it is today, and it's very ironic. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: But people that wrote in said, I'm assuming it was
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Speaker 1: a joke that you were I know, that's how we
1:10
Speaker 1: get away with or I'm going to write the mall
1:12
Speaker 1: back and say you got it, got the joke. Yeah,
1:15
Speaker 1: there was actually one guy, if you love delicious Irony,
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Speaker 1: who said he was making his leaf ericson day Viking
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Speaker 1: hat while he was listening to that podcast. Yea, where
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Speaker 1: the Clothes the first American? So yeah, as you said,
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Speaker 1: happy leaf ericcs and day to utes. So now for
1:31
Speaker 1: your intro, which I'm sure you had planned before I
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Speaker 1: eviscerated you know you pretty much you eviscerated me. Really,
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Speaker 1: maybe it's okay? Well, Chuck, how old your house? Man?
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Speaker 1: My house was built in nineteen thirty two, I think
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Speaker 1: thirty two. Very nice old house. Yeah, the one I
1:49
Speaker 1: live in from nineteen twenty. I believe you always got
1:53
Speaker 1: to show me up. I know. I'm sorry, buddy, Okay,
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Speaker 1: it wasn't intentional, you own I rant. How about that?
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Speaker 1: All right? Well that's the ultimate show up exact. Thank
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Speaker 1: you for that, Chuck Um. And I've often wondered, like,
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Speaker 1: what has gone on with this house? There's this mysterious
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Speaker 1: um tarp that goes across the entire property. A tarp
2:13
Speaker 1: like a plastic tarp. It's not plastic, it's woven. It
2:15
Speaker 1: looks like you know what they use for silt fence.
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Speaker 1: It's just like that, except it's not standing up, and
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Speaker 1: it's clearly it was purposefully laid down. And my house
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Speaker 1: is on a hill, so I've often wondered like, did
2:26
Speaker 1: they build this over an old dump? But did they
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Speaker 1: even have dumps like that? In this is under your
2:33
Speaker 1: found the foundation of your house. It doesn't go into
2:35
Speaker 1: the foundation, but it goes all throughout the yard. And
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Speaker 1: like I said, it's on a hill, so it could
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Speaker 1: be just to prevent erosion or something like I'm too
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Speaker 1: lazy to ask the landlord what the deal is because
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Speaker 1: they won't have erosion in n No, they didn't. That
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Speaker 1: was that started in the great Erosion Fire of Yeah. Um,
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Speaker 1: someone will believe that, probably Happy leaf erricks in day
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Speaker 1: Chuck YouTube. But my point is is I have no
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Speaker 1: idea what's going on with my house or what went
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Speaker 1: in went on in my house. I know it got
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Speaker 1: a roof like a couple of months ago, and that's
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Speaker 1: all I know about the house. So the history of
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Speaker 1: your home is I got a roof a couple of
3:12
Speaker 1: months ago, exactly as far as I can tell. But
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Speaker 1: I know some really interesting stuff has gone on there.
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Speaker 1: Something can't stand for what almost ninety years um and
3:23
Speaker 1: not have something interesting happening. Agreeing it, you would, you would, hope, right.
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Speaker 1: And I imagine the same is true for your house,
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Speaker 1: like I'm sure there's been squatting that had happened there before. Um,
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Speaker 1: And I know somebody who could go talk to about this,
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Speaker 1: and that somebody is your wife. Yes, she wrote this article.
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Speaker 1: I apologize for that intro. That's all right. Emily wrote
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Speaker 1: this article. And she's a freelance writer for how Stuff Works,
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Speaker 1: proving it's who you know, Josh agreed in order to
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Speaker 1: get jobs to some extent, Yes, especially if who you
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Speaker 1: know is hands down the finest writer at how stuff
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Speaker 1: Works dot and also has the finest hair. She knows
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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. So, Chuck, let's talk about this. Why did
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Speaker 1: I just mention your wife, baket Chuck, I'm trying to
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Speaker 1: keep it on you. I thought we just said because
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Speaker 1: she wrote this article. Okay, I wasn't listening how to
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Speaker 1: find the history of your house on house to porks
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Speaker 1: dot com? Would you come up with? Well? Should I
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Speaker 1: just get Emily in here? Yeah? We probably should actually
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Speaker 1: teach you how to make soap and how to find
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Speaker 1: the history of your house all at once. Uh. Well,
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Speaker 1: you know, there are certain steps you can take, and
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Speaker 1: we're going to go through those right now, starting with
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Speaker 1: talk to your neighbors. This new neighborhood, the neighbors, I
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Speaker 1: don't know anybody. I don't talk to anybody, you mean,
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Speaker 1: I just moved in a couple of months ago. But
4:41
Speaker 1: a classic neighborhood though that you live in it is
4:43
Speaker 1: very much so. And I assume that there the neighborhood
4:46
Speaker 1: would be much more community oriented. Everybody's kind of doing
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Speaker 1: their own thing, you know, everybody like kind of says
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Speaker 1: hi when you're passing by. But it's also a thoroughfare
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Speaker 1: um for people to get from one place another, So
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Speaker 1: I think that kind of lends this trans the nature
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Speaker 1: to it to get people speeding through your neighborhood right exactly,
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Speaker 1: and everybody's a stranger because of that. Um At the
5:06
Speaker 1: last neighborhood was it was off of a major thoroughfare
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Speaker 1: and it was kind of isolated and everybody knew each other.
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Speaker 1: It was. It was really cool. It reminds me of
5:15
Speaker 1: a neighborhood that you'd live in as a kid um
5:17
Speaker 1: because you'd go out and play except playing involved like
5:21
Speaker 1: heavy drinking that kind of thing. But like, you had
5:24
Speaker 1: friends in the neighborhood, right, it was cool like that. Um.
5:27
Speaker 1: But there were some neighbors that had lived there since
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Speaker 1: the seventies that I knew of, um and had spoken to.
5:33
Speaker 1: They weren't old timers, but they were I guess they
5:36
Speaker 1: had grown up there a little bit. They were like, yeah,
5:39
Speaker 1: this place used to be a hotbed for meth. There's
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Speaker 1: like a I found out that there had been a
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Speaker 1: thriving meth lab just a couple of doors down from
5:47
Speaker 1: my house, in my old house. Yeah, the one in
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Speaker 1: East Atlanta. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So you can learn some
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Speaker 1: interesting stuff about your neighborhood just by talking to your
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Speaker 1: neighbors exactly. So that's step one. Yeah, that's the easiest
5:59
Speaker 1: way to kind of get you get the ball rolling. Right.
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Speaker 1: Let's say your neighbors, Um, if you try to go
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Speaker 1: up to their house and and even if you're greasing
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Speaker 1: their palms with some cookies, they're they're like, get off
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Speaker 1: my property. Where do you go from there? Chuck? Well,
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Speaker 1: if you want to start your investigation in earnest with records,
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Speaker 1: you should go find the records, which is at the
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Speaker 1: County Recorder's Office. And Emily makes a good point. She's
6:21
Speaker 1: she says that although there's a lot of people who
6:23
Speaker 1: are into digging up the history of their home, I
6:26
Speaker 1: gat the impression this is a lot like genealogy to
6:28
Speaker 1: some people, UM, that there's not that many resources for
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Speaker 1: old timey information online. Now you can't find, um, a
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Speaker 1: lot of these court records. You know, they're housed on
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Speaker 1: paper in you know, the depths of city hall usually,
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Speaker 1: and no one has said, hey, maybe we should take
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Speaker 1: the time to scan these and put them online. Right,
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Speaker 1: So what are we going to find at the County
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Speaker 1: Recorder's office. Well, what you want to find is the
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Speaker 1: deed history of your house. Okay, you're going to find
6:56
Speaker 1: a guy in birkenstocks stocks like playing a recorder. You'll
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Speaker 1: probably find that. Sure, you might smell some incense. And
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Speaker 1: you want to get the deeds and trace back the
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Speaker 1: deeds to the original owner. If that's what your ultimate
7:07
Speaker 1: goal is, to find out who originally built our own
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Speaker 1: your home. You're also going to find on file. Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: and what you would take I guess is your plot
7:15
Speaker 1: number or your address, which it can change, which is
7:19
Speaker 1: why it's a good idea. To know your plot number.
7:21
Speaker 1: That doesn't change, right, I would say, Actually, if you
7:24
Speaker 1: have a house that's sent years old, chances are your
7:26
Speaker 1: address did change over the years, especially if they doled
7:30
Speaker 1: it out kind of haphazardly out the h the when
7:36
Speaker 1: somebody builds a new house or something like that. Nobody
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Speaker 1: likes to be you know, seven thirty five and a half.
7:44
Speaker 1: I was a quarter in the l A. My apartment was. Yeah,
7:47
Speaker 1: it was seven something in a quarter. Because I was
7:52
Speaker 1: in a four plex apartment building. I thought below half
7:56
Speaker 1: they just started assigning letters. Do this is l A
8:00
Speaker 1: because I think they have eights and sixteen people, just
8:03
Speaker 1: like Crampton and Linen closets. Right. Another thing you can
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Speaker 1: look for, Josh, is have you ever heard of a
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Speaker 1: Sandborn map? I hadn't until I read this, and I
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Speaker 1: went and did a little research on Sandborn, and god,
8:15
Speaker 1: they were interesting. The Sandborn map company was out of Michigan,
8:20
Speaker 1: I believe, and they serviced and not in any kind
8:24
Speaker 1: of dirty way. The fire insurance industry. Apparently insurance maps
8:29
Speaker 1: were big as a whole back then. Yeah, if you were,
8:32
Speaker 1: you know, located in Delaware, if your insurance company was
8:35
Speaker 1: located in Delaware, and you had somebody in Taos, New
8:38
Speaker 1: Mexico who wanted fire insurance from you. Um, what are
8:42
Speaker 1: you gonna do? Send some guy out to look at
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Speaker 1: every single one? Now, your contract with the Sandborn Map
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Speaker 1: Company to make maps of twelve thousand cities and towns
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Speaker 1: around the United States and from eighteen sixty seven and
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and drawn aerial maps. And these things were detailed, man,
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Speaker 1: I mean like they they look like um land use
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Speaker 1: maps of today. Um Like there's not a little tiles
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Speaker 1: drawn in or bricks or anything like that, but I
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Speaker 1: mean like they're detailed, Like here's the closest fire hydrant.
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Speaker 1: Here's how many sprinklers this house has. Here's where the
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Speaker 1: windows are. Here's what the building nearby is used for.
9:22
Speaker 1: I was looking at one. I can't remember what town
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Speaker 1: it was, but there was like the foundry or the
9:26
Speaker 1: old foundry, and it said like vacant. And then there's
9:28
Speaker 1: the other foundry nearby, and here's these houses. Is the
9:31
Speaker 1: drawing of a city, And they did it all over
9:34
Speaker 1: the place. And again they did it too for the
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Speaker 1: fire insurance industry. But these towns also got copies of
9:40
Speaker 1: these maps, and a lot of them have them on
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Speaker 1: file because it was for the fire insurance. Was why
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Speaker 1: you get detailed like where the windows and doors were.
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Speaker 1: And I think it also says what materials your house
9:51
Speaker 1: was made up. Right. They also did them in Mexico
9:54
Speaker 1: and Canada. They also did um maps on sugar refinery
10:00
Speaker 1: in places like Cuba and whiskey distilleries throughout the country. Um,
10:05
Speaker 1: because those things tend to explode. And uh yeah, they
10:09
Speaker 1: the Sandborn company basically made it so that you can
10:12
Speaker 1: find what your house looked like any any time during
10:15
Speaker 1: this period or where what else is around. It's really
10:18
Speaker 1: cool because they also included street names and addresses. So
10:21
Speaker 1: if you're if your city has a Sandborn map, you
10:23
Speaker 1: are in luck. Yes, agreed. Um. The other thing you
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Speaker 1: can do is well, if you if you are able
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Speaker 1: to trace the deed back to the original owner, you
10:33
Speaker 1: can go to the internet. Then if you've got a name,
10:35
Speaker 1: it's always worth a try. Oh, definitely, because you never
10:37
Speaker 1: know if someone back then it was noteworthy enough to
10:40
Speaker 1: be included somewhere in the historical records on the net.
10:43
Speaker 1: Right you and you you if you can't get the deed,
10:46
Speaker 1: but you can if you have other records like surveys,
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Speaker 1: tax assessors, census um records. Uh, they'll have the name
10:56
Speaker 1: and ages and occupations of everybody in the house occupation.
10:59
Speaker 1: That's kind cool, it is very cool. Um, well we'd
11:02
Speaker 1: be what would we be back then? Yeah? Oh I
11:06
Speaker 1: was a cobbler for sure, were you? Yeah? Yeah, Cooper?
11:09
Speaker 1: Really wow? I underestimated you, Jerry, what about you? She
11:15
Speaker 1: has no idea? And also you can find the occupations
11:19
Speaker 1: of the people who own the house through a reverse
11:23
Speaker 1: telephone book. Yes, the polk the polk reverse telephone directory. Yeah,
11:28
Speaker 1: did you know about these? Had no idea that. It's
11:30
Speaker 1: just such a smart thing, and it's so it sounds
11:32
Speaker 1: so old timey reverse telephone directory. Yeah. And that means
11:35
Speaker 1: you can search by the address. If you don't have
11:37
Speaker 1: the name, right, you search by address and then it
11:41
Speaker 1: takes you over the name and that will be at
11:42
Speaker 1: your library. So now we've moved on from the County Cord.
11:45
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I forgot to tell everybody we're at the library.
11:48
Speaker 1: Were the library here? That's why it's so quiet. Yeah,
11:50
Speaker 1: So that's where you can find the polk directory, and
11:54
Speaker 1: that's where you can find the occupation, which I think
11:56
Speaker 1: is probably one of the more interesting things. You can't
11:57
Speaker 1: in the census records too, well, what if you can't
12:00
Speaker 1: find it? All? Right, So now you've got we're also
12:03
Speaker 1: we're in the library still so U sorry. Now now
12:06
Speaker 1: you've got the name or one of the names of
12:09
Speaker 1: one of the homeowners who lived in the house before you.
12:13
Speaker 1: Now it can get interested, right because I suggested the internet.
12:17
Speaker 1: If the internet uh comes up empty, which it likely
12:20
Speaker 1: will not likely, but it may, am I that means
12:23
Speaker 1: you need to look at something called microfiche. Yes, and
12:27
Speaker 1: if you're under oh i'd say probably thirty years old,
12:31
Speaker 1: you probably have no idea what microfiche is. So microfiche is, um,
12:36
Speaker 1: it's micro film. I don't know why they call it
12:39
Speaker 1: micro fisi instead of micro film. Someone will know and
12:41
Speaker 1: we'll find out. Yes, Um, basically, it's a ton of
12:44
Speaker 1: information on a very tiny strip and you use a
12:46
Speaker 1: little magnifying glass. Actually it's not a little magnifying glass,
12:50
Speaker 1: is kind of big machine. Right. You can spin through.
12:53
Speaker 1: You got this cool little dial old timing, and you
12:56
Speaker 1: can spin through and find um newspaper clippings used to
13:00
Speaker 1: use it. I'm sure too, right, And yeah, I was
13:02
Speaker 1: never a microfiche, whiz, but I have used it. It's
13:05
Speaker 1: pretty fun, but you have to cross references. Like you
13:07
Speaker 1: you look for what you're looking for, and then you
13:09
Speaker 1: go through like a decade of newspapers on one film,
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Speaker 1: and you can find press clippings about whoever's owned your house.
13:17
Speaker 1: You might find that there was a murder there, or that, um,
13:22
Speaker 1: there were several murders there. Because frankly, Chuck, isn't that
13:25
Speaker 1: what everybody is doing? A house history is ultimately looking for.
13:27
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, I should show you my note
13:30
Speaker 1: right here. The real reason is to find out if
13:32
Speaker 1: anyone's been murdered there exactly. That's the number one reason
13:34
Speaker 1: I would say anyone would look at their house history.
13:36
Speaker 1: I would say, let's cut to the chase. But man,
13:38
Speaker 1: it took us a long time to get to the
13:40
Speaker 1: ultimate point. I know. Yeah. Um. I do have one
13:43
Speaker 1: more point about microfiche though, because a lot of people
13:46
Speaker 1: think they're like Google Masters and research on Google line.
13:49
Speaker 1: I'm so good at it. You don't know research, dude,
13:52
Speaker 1: until you get on microfiche. That's where it's really hours
13:56
Speaker 1: and hours in the library, and it'll seriously test your
13:59
Speaker 1: investigative skills. Yeah, these people who like write a book
14:03
Speaker 1: based on a year of experience that they took a
14:06
Speaker 1: year out of life to go do something and then
14:09
Speaker 1: they wrote a book about it. Those people don't know
14:11
Speaker 1: writing a book. Talk to like Norman Mailer, Go talk
14:15
Speaker 1: to like um Robert Woodward. Go talk to these people
14:19
Speaker 1: who actually hand to go do research on micro feache
14:24
Speaker 1: and didn't just blog about something they were doing for
14:26
Speaker 1: a year. It's not writing a book. That's called lucking out,
14:30
Speaker 1: it's called dropping out. Wow, so chuck microfiche. Are we
14:37
Speaker 1: done with that part? Uh? Yeah, I think so. Um.
14:39
Speaker 1: The library is also we're going to find the census
14:41
Speaker 1: records so that you were talking about. Wait, I thought
14:44
Speaker 1: that be at the at the city hall. It could
14:46
Speaker 1: be in both. Actually, if you strike out at the
14:48
Speaker 1: city hall, you can look at the library at the
14:50
Speaker 1: hall at the city Hall. And the other thing you
14:52
Speaker 1: can look at the library is look up some books.
14:54
Speaker 1: There may be a book called the history of East
14:57
Speaker 1: Lake in Atlanta, and start thumbing through it, and there
15:00
Speaker 1: may be a picture of your house, and you know,
15:02
Speaker 1: the original mayor of Eastlake lived there. And when you
15:05
Speaker 1: find that out, try to contain yourself. Remember you're in
15:07
Speaker 1: a library, don't shout funny. You should bring up east
15:12
Speaker 1: like Chuck, because number one, that's where you live. Indeed,
15:16
Speaker 1: and number two, Emily wrote about Eastlake. She did some
15:19
Speaker 1: research on Eastlake, right yeah, I think she in order
15:22
Speaker 1: to write the article, she just did a little digging
15:23
Speaker 1: around about her own hood to uh kind of live
15:26
Speaker 1: the experience maybe, and she found out some pretty cool stuff. Actually,
15:29
Speaker 1: I had no idea she did. Eastlake is probably best
15:33
Speaker 1: known now as the home of the Eastlake Country Club
15:35
Speaker 1: Old country Club, host of the recent PGA tournament there
15:40
Speaker 1: for they've been hosting it for a while, right, yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: they usually have one tournament there every year, but now
15:44
Speaker 1: I think they finished the season there every year. So
15:47
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods was just in town. Hun, he was right
15:49
Speaker 1: across the street from me. He's kind of foul mouth,
15:51
Speaker 1: he does, actually, And I was able to make a
15:54
Speaker 1: couple of hundred bucks parking cars in my yard. That's right.
15:57
Speaker 1: Last year, Chuck um it up a bloody Mary stand
16:02
Speaker 1: in his front yard and I was able to sell
16:04
Speaker 1: one before the cops came and h took the joint down. Chuck.
16:08
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant is what we call a hustler. I thought
16:11
Speaker 1: that was a sterling idea. It was a great idea.
16:14
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't have a liquor license. Yeah, that
16:16
Speaker 1: was the only rub there. Soeeah, I was shut down
16:19
Speaker 1: to it. Sweet. So East Like, as it turns out,
16:21
Speaker 1: back in the day, the turn of the century, it
16:23
Speaker 1: was a farm five miles outside of the downtown center
16:27
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. This was most of America at the turn
16:29
Speaker 1: of the last century. Absolutely, we should say the last century. Uh.
16:33
Speaker 1: And it had two creeks and a five spring watershed.
16:35
Speaker 1: And the owner of a streetcar company in Atlanta bought
16:38
Speaker 1: this farm. He damned it up and created a lake
16:42
Speaker 1: and like a beach community around this lake, and the
16:45
Speaker 1: old built hotels. And it was actually one of the
16:49
Speaker 1: first quote unquote suburbs of Atlanta, which is funny because
16:52
Speaker 1: it's the suburbs in Atlanta. Now, are you know, forty
16:55
Speaker 1: miles away. Yeah, if you're a fan of urban sprawl,
16:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna love Atlanta. But East Like is Atlanta now,
17:01
Speaker 1: it's not considered by any stretch of them very much.
17:04
Speaker 1: Five miles from downtown is that it's just a neighborhood,
17:07
Speaker 1: although I suspect with traffic the way it is. It
17:09
Speaker 1: takes as long to get downtown from East Lake these
17:12
Speaker 1: days as it did in Now you kidding me, No,
17:16
Speaker 1: I just shoot down to cab Avenue turns into Marriad
17:18
Speaker 1: and you're there. Uh so the horse and buggy that
17:23
Speaker 1: was quicker, you think, Uh yeah, Okay, Now you have
17:27
Speaker 1: hopefully found out the owner of your house, the original owner.
17:31
Speaker 1: You've gotten some information, and you may have gotten some
17:34
Speaker 1: information on the building of your house because you said
17:37
Speaker 1: the reason you would really want to find out to
17:39
Speaker 1: see if anyone was killed there. There are other reasons
17:41
Speaker 1: to like if like you were talking about, architecturally, there's
17:45
Speaker 1: all kinds of architectural oddities. Many times in these old
17:48
Speaker 1: houses don't make any sense unless you find out the
17:51
Speaker 1: history of the home. Yeah, Emily says, um that you
17:54
Speaker 1: might find out that your kitchen is where you're living
17:57
Speaker 1: room you should be, which explains some of the odd
17:59
Speaker 1: angles as you which you're talking about your house. Actually,
18:02
Speaker 1: we don't really have anything that odd, except for the
18:05
Speaker 1: flooding issue in the basement, which I can't figure out.
18:08
Speaker 1: But like something more interesting. Let's say you have a
18:10
Speaker 1: window in your uh this little tiny closet and you think,
18:14
Speaker 1: why would there ever be a silly little window there?
18:16
Speaker 1: And then you find out that it was a back
18:19
Speaker 1: room distillery during prohibition or something. You never know. The
18:22
Speaker 1: house I grew up in as a child in Talita
18:24
Speaker 1: had a secret passageway, no way, I kid you not,
18:29
Speaker 1: in a in the back of a linen closet which
18:31
Speaker 1: the walls in the back were painted black. Um. If
18:35
Speaker 1: you pushed on the back wall, you went through a
18:37
Speaker 1: little door and you crawled through when you were on
18:39
Speaker 1: the steps going down to the basement on the other
18:41
Speaker 1: side of the house. So how old was the house?
18:43
Speaker 1: Do you know? I don't actually like seventies ranch, I
18:47
Speaker 1: don't think so. No, it's definitely, uh fifties at least. Yeah,
18:51
Speaker 1: but it was fun to play. How you can go
18:53
Speaker 1: seeking there? Well, if you, I bet, if you have
18:55
Speaker 1: some architectural audity in your home and you you know
18:58
Speaker 1: you're into this kind of thing, would be looking into
19:00
Speaker 1: for sure. Definitely. Um. Also, if you are a renovator
19:04
Speaker 1: and you've been tasked with restoring a house, I mean,
19:08
Speaker 1: how are you how else you going to find out? Yeah?
19:10
Speaker 1: If you're really big into conservation and you have a say,
19:13
Speaker 1: an old Victorian home and you really want to bring
19:15
Speaker 1: it back to its former glory. You should, you know,
19:19
Speaker 1: respect the original plans of the house. Definitely, and you
19:21
Speaker 1: can also charge an arm and a leg if you
19:23
Speaker 1: do all this extra research to renovate to the original state. Absolutely,
19:29
Speaker 1: and chuck um. One last thing I wanted to mention
19:32
Speaker 1: um ghosts. Sure, I didn't know this. In California and Hawaii,
19:39
Speaker 1: you are required to disclose any ghostly activity in a
19:43
Speaker 1: house when you're selling it. Yeah, I didn't know that.
19:45
Speaker 1: I didn't either. But if you suspect that there's ghostly
19:48
Speaker 1: activity in your house, and you don't live in any
19:51
Speaker 1: of these states, you might go back and find out
19:55
Speaker 1: that there was that murder that you've been looking for. Yeah,
19:58
Speaker 1: and how cool is that? What do you want to
20:00
Speaker 1: part or that? Yeah, if you found out someone is
20:01
Speaker 1: murdered in your house, wouldn't that be cool? That wouldn't
20:04
Speaker 1: scare me. I think it was neat unless obviously it
20:07
Speaker 1: turned into like an amiable horror type of scene. But well, exactly,
20:12
Speaker 1: that's a good reason, I would say, if you have
20:14
Speaker 1: blood coming out of your wallpaper, that's a good reason
20:15
Speaker 1: to research the history. And the other The other final
20:18
Speaker 1: reason I think is if, um, you might find out
20:21
Speaker 1: that someone famous used to own it, or someone famous
20:23
Speaker 1: might have stayed there, and you could potentially get it
20:26
Speaker 1: listed as a historical site and save that house forever. Yeah.
20:30
Speaker 1: I'll bet your house ends up on the register in
20:32
Speaker 1: fifty years. Okay, but I'm gonna find out the history
20:36
Speaker 1: of it though, all right, are you really? Yeah, I'm
20:37
Speaker 1: gonna look into it when happens. You're not just saying that? Do?
20:40
Speaker 1: I usually not follow through my podcast promises. Well, if
20:44
Speaker 1: you have a really interesting history for your house and
20:46
Speaker 1: you want a little more detail, you can read Emily's article, Um,
20:53
Speaker 1: how to find the history of your home. You can
20:55
Speaker 1: type that in the handy search part works dot com
20:58
Speaker 1: go find a Sandborn map just to look at him. Yeah,
21:00
Speaker 1: they are pretty interesting. You can find them online. Um,
21:03
Speaker 1: in some cases not all um. And since I said
21:07
Speaker 1: handy search bar, that means, of course that it's time
21:09
Speaker 1: for a listener maid listener mail Josh. Before we do that,
21:15
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say that give a special thank
21:18
Speaker 1: you to the boys and the Henry Clay people. Oh yeah,
21:21
Speaker 1: I'm I'm holding their couzy right now right. Uh. If
21:25
Speaker 1: you remember a few weeks ago, we mentioned that some
21:27
Speaker 1: band in southern California rote us and they were fans
21:29
Speaker 1: of the show, and I like the CD, and I
21:32
Speaker 1: tried to get everyone together to go to the performance,
21:34
Speaker 1: which was a few nights ago, and I was the
21:37
Speaker 1: only one able to make it, unfortunately. So I met
21:39
Speaker 1: the boys in the band. I met Joey and Andy,
21:40
Speaker 1: the two brothers, and I met the drummer. I believe
21:43
Speaker 1: his name was Mike, and that was the only other
21:45
Speaker 1: guy I met. Hung out, had some beers. They're super
21:48
Speaker 1: cool kids, very very talented. And remember we said that
21:53
Speaker 1: we were going to be at that show, and we
21:54
Speaker 1: actually had two fans come out seeking us out. And
22:00
Speaker 1: you introduced your friend justin to them as me as Josh.
22:03
Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of funny. This lady comes
22:05
Speaker 1: up in the lobby after the show and I'm hanging
22:07
Speaker 1: out with the band, and I think your name was
22:08
Speaker 1: Jeannie and Jeannie. If I got that wrong, I apologize.
22:11
Speaker 1: I had a few beers at that point, and Jeanne
22:13
Speaker 1: and her husband came up and introduced themselves and they
22:15
Speaker 1: were super nice and very complimentary, and they came to
22:19
Speaker 1: the show on our recommendation and rate Josh and Chuck Sider.
22:24
Speaker 1: So in the city of Atlanta. We had two people
22:26
Speaker 1: interested in coming to see us. It's awesome, which is
22:28
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Well, that's not bad. It's like the people
22:31
Speaker 1: in Atlanta listening to us, and it was cool. I
22:33
Speaker 1: talked you know, you know, me and my band stuff.
22:35
Speaker 1: I just peppered them with questions about being in a band.
22:38
Speaker 1: I feel, I know we hit it off. I feel
22:40
Speaker 1: like an honorary Henry Clay person. And you may meet
22:43
Speaker 1: him in December if you come to l A with me.
22:45
Speaker 1: I'm not you're not gonna be able to come up.
22:48
Speaker 1: So you got any letters? Yeah, I got a letter. Um,
22:51
Speaker 1: this is from Emily, and we're gonna see her last
22:54
Speaker 1: name because it's a special thing. Emily friedened All wrote us,
22:58
Speaker 1: I've been a big fan of the podcast since I
23:00
Speaker 1: discovered them in July. I was working at temp job,
23:03
Speaker 1: filing and making binders for eight hours at a time
23:06
Speaker 1: in a back room of a lighting company. Not fun. Um.
23:09
Speaker 1: The podcast helper get through all this. We get a
23:11
Speaker 1: lot of these emails of people born jobs. And she
23:14
Speaker 1: thanks us for that, and then she says, in fact,
23:17
Speaker 1: it got me so excited about how stuff works and
23:19
Speaker 1: the topics you covered. I decided it would be kind
23:22
Speaker 1: of a dream gig to be able to write some
23:23
Speaker 1: of the articles that you covered. So I went online
23:25
Speaker 1: submitted materials to be a freelance writer. And I just
23:28
Speaker 1: found out a few hours ago that I was accepted.
23:31
Speaker 1: She's a colleague and only is now a co worker,
23:33
Speaker 1: and she says she can't wait to start rolling on
23:36
Speaker 1: a project. And have you guys to thank for inspiration
23:39
Speaker 1: and for helping me put myself out there. And I
23:42
Speaker 1: emailed her a few times and told her congratulations, welcome aboard,
23:46
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll try and pick out one of
23:47
Speaker 1: our articles the podcast. That's awesome. Congratulations Only So she's
23:51
Speaker 1: she's a co worker officially, Sweet Chuck, is that the
23:54
Speaker 1: only letter you got? Okay, Um, let's plug Kiva. Yeah,
23:58
Speaker 1: go ahead. So ok had the bright idea of setting
24:01
Speaker 1: up a Kiva dot org. Stuff you should know team
24:05
Speaker 1: uh And if you're not familiar with Kiva, it is
24:07
Speaker 1: a micro lending website. It's a nonprofit UH, meaning you
24:11
Speaker 1: don't get any return on investment, but you do get
24:14
Speaker 1: your investment back if you choose and loans as small
24:17
Speaker 1: as twenty five dollars go to fund bigger loans for
24:21
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs in um developing countries, and we talked about it
24:26
Speaker 1: on the micro Lending uh podcast. If you want to
24:29
Speaker 1: familiarize yourself with that, you can go listen to that
24:31
Speaker 1: when it was pretty good. So you can go to www.
24:35
Speaker 1: Dot Kiva dot org, slash teams, slash stuff you should know,
24:40
Speaker 1: and you'll come to the Stuff you Should Known Nation's
24:43
Speaker 1: team page. You can donate whatever you want as little
24:47
Speaker 1: as twenty five bucks. And like I said, don't forget
24:49
Speaker 1: you this, this is repaid. The loan is repaid. Uh.
24:52
Speaker 1: They also have gift certificates on Kiva dot org and
24:55
Speaker 1: it's a really good cost. And um, we've already got
24:58
Speaker 1: seven fifty bucks done age I and what like twenty
25:01
Speaker 1: team members huh. And we're stoked and we want to
25:03
Speaker 1: call out again the lousy Colbert Report and to see
25:08
Speaker 1: that learning email we got from somebody. Yeah, yeah, it
25:10
Speaker 1: was like don't do you know what happens when you
25:12
Speaker 1: call out student Colbert? Yes, you get his attention, which
25:15
Speaker 1: is exactly what we're trying to do. So we're calling
25:17
Speaker 1: we're calling them Outain is lousy fans who are cheap
25:20
Speaker 1: and we want to Bury. We're the ones that crossover
25:23
Speaker 1: between share of course, so we we want to beat
25:26
Speaker 1: them and get their attention and challenge into a kiva off.
25:30
Speaker 1: So if you have an interesting story about your house,
25:32
Speaker 1: if there's a murder there chucking, I definitely want to
25:35
Speaker 1: hear about it. Have any suggestions about the key the team,
25:38
Speaker 1: let us know or if he's wanted say high, unicorns, tornadoes, torpedoes,
25:43
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. Send in an email to Stuff
25:47
Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
25:55
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
25:57
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more house stuff Works, check out
26:01
Speaker 1: our blogs on the House of works dot com home page.
26:06
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
26:09
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you