Is "hidden room" something you can find in rental listings?

Me: So did you want to talk about what happened here last night?
Henry: About that man who cursed you?
Me; Well, cursed AT me, but...yeah.
Henry: No.
Me: Okay! But I wanted you to know that everything is being taken care of.
Henry: He's gone forever?
Me: Well, no. But we are going to move, soon.
Henry: Tomorrow?
Me: We have to pack first. And find a place. It'll take a while.
Henry: Great! Because I really want a room that has a hidden door to another room.
Me: ...
Henry: You know, a bookcase, and you pull out a book and the bookcase is a door and then you have *another* room behind the door bookcase. I want that. Can we get that?
Me: Probably not going to happen.
Henry: Someday I really want a hidden room. Do you want a hidden room?
Me: More than you know. Right now, though, I just want us to live someplace we can feel comfortable.
Henry: And where no one curses you.
Me: Exactly.

Comments

[Cyndi]

If they advertised a hidden room in the listing, that would kind of ruin the secret, wouldn't it?

[a]

I always wanted one of those rooms too! Until I saw some haunted house episode on A&E where the hidden room with the door in the closet led to a whole 'nother part of the house that no one knew was there (yes, I know, realistic, because square footage is totally not important and mystery rooms always appear out of nowhere). Either way, I don't want a hidden room anymore.

[Lois]

I don't know about finding them in real estate listings, but you can build them. Here's a company that does secret passageways: http://hiddenpassageway.com/. My husband is obsessed with this!

[HereWeGoAJen]

We just bought a house (well, almost, not signed yet) and while looking, I totally saw a house that COULD have a secret room. It was a basement room and there was a room off that room that totally could have a bookcase installed in front of the door. Let me know if you decide to buy it based on my description here. ;)

[emery jo]

my parents have a secret bookshelf door in their new house. My mom had always wanted one. It's SO AWESOME!

[Lynne Marie Wanamaker]

Alice,

First of all, for real: I am so sorry that you are experiencing fear and violence where you live. If you are interested in reaching out please feel free to contact me. I am an anti-violence educator and worked for over a decade with a fantastic agency in Brooklyn. It can help to connect with others, honor the things you are doing to keep yourself safe, and explore additional strategies. You are doing a great job. Hang in there.

And, re: hidden room--I am designing a new kitchen and it occurred to me that I could build myself a writing office accessible only by crawling through one of the cabinets. It has enormous appeal.

[Whozat]

Our two not-master bedrooms (one of which is Peeper's room and one of which is our home office) connect via the closet. Something like that would probably be close enough for him. (How much will you give us for the house?)

[Xdm]

Maybe he means a "panic room." Might not be a bad idea, depending on the new building.

[Holly]

Come on mom, you don't think a hidden room would be good for him when he becomes a teenager? Just think of all the trouble...

[kate]

Was that the landlord cursing you? Does this have anything to do with asking if you could paint over the brick?

Hidden rooms rule. My daughter's room has a "secret" pocket door that leads to our walk-in closet. Her friends think she is the luckiest kid on the planet. And therefore I am the coolest mom, since it was my design idea. I highly recommend it. :)

Best of luck in your search for a safe home.

[Kate F.]

The house my parents moved to when I was 10 has a wall of bookcases in the family room, one of which opens into "The Secret Room," actually a glorified storage space/wine cellar. You can believe we used it a LOT as kids.

[Bextoronto]

I'm pretty sure that I ikeahackers.com or some such place has instructions for how to taken a Billy bookcase and hinge it and use it to hide a door to a closet or other room. And I TOTALLY want one!

Also, I am an adult person.. really I am.

[Zina]

Yeah, my first thought was panic room, too.

In my house growing up there was a door that probably had been meant to open onto a closet but instead opened onto an unfinished space under the eaves. A skinny kid could crawl through it to get to the attic. My brothers found the names of the kids who'd lived there before us written on the roof beams. My mom also had sleeping lofts built into the high-ceilinged kids' bedrooms. It all sounds romantic, but you could get slivers and fiberglass insulation and spiderwebs on you when you crawled through the eaves (although that might have added to the appeal for my brothers) and it gets wearying to have to climb a ladder to get to your bed and not be able to stand upright in a loft.

Oh, yeah, we also had a laundry chute that could be crawled down or hidden in.

I've always wanted a secret room in case I needed to hide any Jews. Maybe it could come in handy for hiding Mormons, too someday (we're LDS).

[Jennifer]

Oh, man. It really sucks when something happens that scares your child. All you can do is promise them that you'll keep them safe--but it's heartbreaking.

I love the ikeahack idea just above my comment! I'll bet you could pretty easily replace a door with a bookcase (well, I couldn't, but someone could!).

[Mjbutah]

I have a contractor friend that has been building hidden "rooms" in the houses he's doing. One of them just goes from the kid's room via a tunnel to a hidden room behind the master bedroom walk in closet, but one of the other houses has one that leads to a spiral staircase in the garage and then to outside. It is awesome. I want one.

[StepfordExile]

We have family in NYC who have a "door disguised as bookcase" in their apartment that leads to their son's room. He loves it and it has the added advantage of blending seamlessly into their living space when closed (so if his room is a mess when they have company, who cares?). As a commenter suggested above, I bet this is something you could hack together relatively easily. By the way, I love your kid. :)

[Sheryl]

Woah... check out hideadoor.com... you can hover over the image and make the door actually open!
You could try getting one of those over-the-bed canopy things. He might be too old for that. But I had mine until I was, like, ten.
Good luck finding the new place... so stressful. Any chance you'll move back to Jersey?

[Tara]

I know it doesn't alleviate not feeling comfortable in your own home, but maybe it'll give you a laugh: My daughter wants to have a bedroom where the back of her closet hides a secret mad scientist room so she can do "crazy experiments". She's 10 now - I'm wondering what those crazy experiments would turn into when she's 16!

[Ariel]

Moving sucks but not feeling safe sucks even worse:(
And ya, I'm 30 and a hidden room is still on my list of things I'd LOVE someday:)

[lb]

My friend built a hidden room for her daughter. She drywalled off the top of the stairwell so that there was a little room there, and it attached to her daughter's adjacent room by a little window-sized hatch. It was high on the wall, so it was right beside her bunk bed. They hung a poster over the hatch so it was veeery secret.

I hope you find a good place soon.

[Dave]

Put… the candle… back.

[hikooky]

Clearly, you need an old castle.

[MJ]

Is the silver lining in all of this that you don't have to redecorate the apartment you now live in? Of course, I'm sure we'll all be happy to give advice about the new place. Best of luck in your search.

[Alexandra]

We had a hidden room growing up! It was like Harry Potter's in his Uncle's house, right under the stair case.

Oh, I don't blame Henry wanting one at all b/c it was so very very cool.

Good luck! Wish I could do more..but am very happy you've decided to move.

[Jessica]

New Yorkers start young with the hidden room fantasies...
You guys should've just bought 17 Prospect Park West. I'm sure there's one in there.

[Candace]

When my sister and brother-in-law built their house they put in a hidden room in the basement. It is the coolest! My brother-in-law thought they could keep the kids from discovering it, but of course that didn't last long.

[Erika]

Poor Henry. He has a kindred spirit in my husband, who just turned 40 and is still longing for a hidden room. Or a turret. But preferably both.

[melissa]

Get him one of the pictures too where he can move the eyes out of the way and watch. Then he'll see all the fun you guys have after he goes to bed!

[Greta]

We have a hidden room!! The sellers would not tell us where it was until after the closing. And I have to admit it was part of the charm of the place that made us put an offer in.

[Jan]

Idea for Henry's room in the new place (or maybe even the current place?): If his room ends up having a decent-sized closet, you could attach a shallow bookcase to the door (shallow so it doesn't pull the door off the hinges once it's got stuff on its shelves!), and make that his secret room. Or you could put the bookcase on casters so it just rolls when the door's opened.

If you wanted to make that feel even more like a real room, you could put his clothes and stuff in free-standing "closets" like you can get at Walmart and Target for about $25-$50. I know because I used to live in an old house with virtually no closets, and kept all my clothes in three of those things for years. They were PVC frames with fitted cloth (think light-weight denim but darker blue with beige trim) so they "breathed", were soooo easy to put together in about 2 minutes, and they lasted for years. They come in different widths; here's a link to a 36" inch one - http://bit.ly/8Zmj2I

[BlabberMouse]

Are you as surprised (ALARMED) at how many of your readers have hidden rooms or hidden room vendor suggestions?

Anyway. The Henryness. So fabulous.

[Alice Bradley]

Blabbermouse: it is all I can think about. These people need to be watched. Carefully. 

[Cincy]

'Bad Ronald' lived in a secret room.

Now I've scared myself.

[Clair]

Obviously, everyone who reads your blog is part of the Webster generation. I really want a room hidden by a grandfather clock, but that's unlikely in my studio apartment.

[Emily, the babysitter (who lives on the A line)]

I hear a lot of apartments on the A line have hidden rooms...

[planetheidi]

We just bought a beautiful old 1920's brick Tudor. Built like a castle and of course, has a hidden room.

[megan]

has he seen the hidden room behind the bookcase at the superhero store? it's awesome! http://www.826nyc.org/

[Michelle]

My brother's house came with a hidden room and, while it was not in the listing, it WAS part of the tour. His three boys fell in love with it, of course. It is pretty awesome...off the back of one of the closets. No clue what the purpose for it was originally but now it is a Super Secret Ninja Playroom!

Can't wait for you to find a place where nobody curses you.

[Mommypotamus]

Those are legitimate desires. Who doesn't want a hidden room? Reminds me of this near-castle my mom worked on years ago with secret passageways and such. A young girl's dream!

[Karen]

Ahem, why do the good tenants have to leave while the problem tenants remain? The violence issue will continue once you've moved on to your secret-panel-door abode.

I went to a house that had a crawl space that connected the son and daughter's rooms. You climbed up a ladder and then there was a whole corridor that you could crawl along in and play (it was full of toys and of me and my friend- as adults). Neatest thing, evah.

[Cara]

I think the people who DON'T want a hidden room are the crazy ones. Because seriously, they're awesome. I'm a grown-ass woman and I want one!

[Lise]

I live in a house built in 1909 and we recently converted a former-bedroom-turned-sitting-room into a library. My fiance designed the bookshelves to include one that swings to reveal the closet. Nobody who has seen the room can find the hidden door. Children think it's cool, but it's adults are are truly enamored of it.

[Sara -- The Football Wife]

Does IKEA sell a do it yourself hidden room system? That would be awesome... and affordable. Henry is too cool.

[Leslie]

So, just to be clear, he's talking about the BatCave, and you want a Panic Room, right? :)

[Mary P (Barnmaven)]

I had a hidden room in my closet when I was a kid. We had an old large house that my dad renovated. I had a walk-in closet, and there was a panel cut into the wall. It really only led into a corner between the roof and the eaves, but it was kind of spooky regardless. I used to have nightmares that monsters were coming into my room through it. It would have been pretty cool if it made me feel safe instead.

[becks]

who the hell is "Bad Ronald"? Dare I ask???

[maille]

Find this book immediately!

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Staircase-Brambly-Hedge/dp/0689830904

[amanda]

It is on my life list, to build a house one day that will have a hidden room for my grandchildren to find. I anticipate dropping mysterious hints, then maybe accidentally leaving clues around the house, it will be FABULOUS.

[Amy]

Bad Ronald was a creepy 70's movies that used to scare the crap out of me but now I think I would crack up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ronald

[die Frau]

Find a house that has a "disappointments room", a hidden room where if one of the family members was mentally disabled or insane or something, they'd be put in there because they were a "disappointment". I'm not kidding. Kind of Jane Eyre, mad-woman-in-the-attic.

Good luck and sorry you want to move because of creepy neighbors!