The secret room in the old mill home on Whitten Street in Greenville’s Dunean section contained a handwritten letter from the previous owner titled, “You Found It!”
“Hello. If you’re reading this, then you found the secret room. I owned this house for a short while and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem. One that actually made my children very sick to the point that we had to move out,” Kerri Brown read from the letter.
The Browns sued the mortgage company and got their $75,000 back.
It’s a bizarre story, but someone on bldgblog offers some clarification:
That’s right, and the reason they’re actually grateful to the previous owner (who left the note) and why that previous owner isn’t on the hook for this is because those folks defaulted on the mortgage — it was the only way they could get out of the house quickly, which they needed to do since their daughter became critically ill, too. After they defaulted and lost everything, they essentially became exempt from any liability: responsibility as seller moved to the mortgage lender/Fanny Mae (and presumably the realtors). The previous owners then purposely left the note in a hidden-from-view area because they wanted the next owner to find out quickly. They (previous owners) hadn’t been told about the problems, and figured the house would be sold on to another unsuspecting rube (which it was). That’s what the note was intended for: to alert the new owners.