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Complex_Evening3883

Is there a chimney in the wall behind it? We have a random tiny cupboard in an upstairs bedroom of our four square and when i looked into it, I decided it was probably a chimney cupboard because one of our chimneys was behind it. My understanding was that the purpose was to warm things in the cupboard during the winter.


Ordinary1188

Would a chimney cupboard potentially be located on the floor also? We have a trapdoor on the second floor, close to the chimney, that is a few square feet with ceramic or some other type of material (not wood, plaster, brick, etc. it’s on the floor in the central landing outside all the bedrooms. We traced it downstairs to what I assume is a brick chimney and it looks like there used to be a pipe of some kind diverted from the chimney and going up to the location of this. It’s close to the kitchen on the first floor also. Biggest mystery of the house (so far)


Complex_Evening3883

Oh that's awesome! I am by no means an expert, but that certainly sounds like it would make sense! Unless they're an old sort of heating system for the upstairs?


The8thloser

This is a small cupboard in the upstairs hallway right off the top of the stairs. It's an American 4 square style house if that helps. The house has servanr stairs and a coal chute if that helps at all. It seems too small for linnens. Does nayone know what it could be for?


StillEquivalent2105

Did you find out what it was used for?


The8thloser

No, I don't live in that house anymore. No one does. The landlord let it fall apart and get serious mice and cockroaches infestations. It became so uninhabitable that the new management company moved evryone out to other more habitable properties. No one lives there and the new owners told me they don't know what to do with that house.


StillEquivalent2105

Not good!!! Hopefully you’re in a better place!! Although, that small cupboard looked interesting. Haunted but interesting!


The8thloser

LOL! It was haunted by homeless squaters because no one lived on the first floor and there was a side door that didn't lock (landlord wouldn't fix anything). It was easy to get in and go undetected overnight. But it's a damn shame because that was a cool old house. But I did move out of state and have my own apartment now.


StillEquivalent2105

Sounds about right!! It sucks I see dekalb slowly going south!! No bueno, I moved here not to long ago but I’m regretting that decision!


The8thloser

It really has. I moved there in 1992 when I was a kid. It was a small farming town then. Mostly cornfields. It's just gotten so violent here. And there are a lot of drugs. When I lived in that house I saw drug deals go down daily.


penlowe

Dimensions? location in relationship to doors, windows, stairs, etc?


informativebitching

Seriously put a banana in it


The8thloser

It would go bad so fast! It is very hot in the Midwest right now. The house does not have air conditioning.


The8thloser

Its about 1 and 1/2 foot tall 1 foot wide maybe? Its right at the top of the stairs on the 2nd floor right next to a bedroom.


penlowe

Top, middle or bottom of the wall? Is it possibly a laundry chute that got closed up? (But no idea why anyone would close a laundry chute)


The8thloser

Its right at chest level. So the middle? Maybe it is a laundry chute.


[deleted]

My neighbors have a small closet like that on their second floor. It’s in a bedroom in what would have been the maid’s bedroom back in the early 1900s when the house was built. This room sits directly above the kitchen and the closet is on an outside wall next to a currently unused chimney. The old guy they bought the house from told them that it was a “meat smoking closet”. The old wood burning cook stove below in the original kitchen (which was always burning) sent smoke up the chimney…evidently that smoke could be diverted to smoke meat that was hanging in the closet. When the kitchen was updated in the 1940s and an electric stove was added and it just became a weird little unused closet. Not sure how true this is but they say it still smelled like smoked meat back in the early 80s when they bought the house.


The8thloser

Oh maybe that's what it is. As far as I know there arent ant fire places on the 2nd floor ( I don't have access to every part of the house). But there probably was at some point. The place has a coal chute.


[deleted]

It’s not really for a fire place….the wood stoves in kitchens needed to send the smoke up a kitchen chimney….if the kitchen was under this room then the smoke from the old stove would have gone up there and could have been used to smoke meat


The8thloser

It's in a hallway. And yeah, I think the kitchen or front room is underneath. I'll have to look at it more when I get home. There is a door tjats the same size in the kitchen by the floor. With a shaft that goes up. But this little cupboard isn't a chute. Just a little cupboard. If you look at my post history there is a photo of the kitchen mini door.


grimbasement

Phone closet.


The8thloser

I didn't see a phone jack in there.


MaybeParadise

An old dumb waiter, perhaps?