Freddy moved into the abandoned house as soon as he received the keys. It was better than he imagined it. His father had bought it for a decent price, but after marrying Doreen, they moved into the big mansion that Hazel inherited.
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It still stung that his parents didn’t think he was good enough to get it. Hell, I’m not good enough to receive a fair split of their estate. But it didn’t matter anymore. It was his new house, and he had to take advantage of it.
On the first day, Freddy assessed everything that needed repairs and settled on remodeling the bathrooms and the kitchen. But after doing a little research on the internet about renovation costs, he sighed loudly. It would take thousands of dollars to make the place livable again, and that was only on labor costs.
“I could learn how to do it myself,” he shrugged, reaching for his laptop again. “How hard could it be?”
Spoiler alert: It was complicated. Freddy, a theater kid turned world-traveling photographer, embraced this challenge as his most complex endeavor. He hoped to debunk stereotypes about his capabilities by documenting the renovation process on social media.
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Two weeks later, Freddy finished the kitchen and moved to the bathrooms. But he stared at the main one for a long time, sighing. Renovating was a lot of work, and the bathroom seemed trickier than changing a few cabinets and the tiles. Perhaps he should invest money in professional remodelers.
“Hmmm, maybe I can do something else,” he wondered, walking through the house and talking to himself. “The bedrooms need new paint certainly. And the floor. Wait, what is that?”
Freddy had just entered a small room, which must have been intended as a home office. But it was the first time he took it in and saw a strange protrusion in a corner. “Ugh, don’t tell me this floor is rotten or something. How much will that cost?” he lamented, thinking the rest of his inheritance would have to be spent on real construction work.
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He bent a knee and touched the strange unevenness on the floorboards, and surprisingly, his hand went through the floor. “Yuck! It is rotten,” Freddy noted, wiping his hands. But when he focused again, he realized a strange hollowness that shouldn’t have existed.
“What?” Freddy muttered aloud and got his phone. With his flashlight, he took a better look and saw… stairs leading into the darkness.
His hand went through the floor. “NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!” Freddy’s hand scrambled to cover the hole with a blanket and barricade the door.
Days later, he contacted Mr. Schneider, curious about the house’s floor plans. “How do I find the floor plans for this house?” he asked, hesitant to explore the hidden staircase.
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Mr. Schneider suggested checking the municipal office. “You know…My father’s old house had a bomb shelter that we didn’t know about until he died. Built it right during World War I.”
The lawyer offered to find more information and get back to him. Several days later, Freddy received the floor plans, confirming the house indeed had a basement hidden beneath a trap door.
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