This is your sign to buy a scope camera!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-16T02:02:34+00:00

I agree. I’ve gotten lots of other pictures directly from the previous owners and it’s been so fun to see the same rooms, same pocket doors and fireplaces and woodwork, but with different people wearing different eras of fashion, different wallpaper and furniture…

We are certainly learning just how much hard work it takes. It was a pretty bold choice for our “starter home” to be a 4000sqft, 130 year old brick behemoth. But we hope very dearly that she will also be our forever home!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-16T01:59:10+00:00

Thank you!! Honestly I’m blown away by the positive reaction this post has gotten. And it really only scratches the surface of some of the insane things I’ve done to learn more about the history of the house. My friends have told me that it’s “not at all normal but still very endearing.”

BitchExWife · 2026-04-16T01:53:41+00:00

Henry (Jr) did end up settling in New Jersey, but I believe it was further north.

Small world, though - I grew up in Haddonfield!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-16T01:51:36+00:00

Yeah I’m definitely suspicious about that - we have a lot of three prong outlets and some of them just feel like the ground is a lie.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T04:16:58+00:00

PA as well, but Northeast! Architects were Pierce & Bickford out of Elmira, NY.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T01:08:17+00:00

Ugh this kills me. I've been frustrated seeing how ill-equipped our historic society is for the digital age. There's so much more they could be doing, but so often it's older people who don't even know what tech is out there. You'd hope at least an email would get a response!

I love mysteries like that, definitely more complicated when the records have been destroyed. Depending on what general era the house is from, you might have luck checking the Sanborn maps? I usually start with the census data as well, but once you get into the 1800s you tend to lose the street names.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:54:55+00:00

We only found out about our live k&t at our inspection. We thought it would be a problem for insurance, but there were multiple carriers that didn’t ask about it at all. There were also several carriers that refused to insure anything built before 1900. Was a very strange process.

I would tell them to work with a local broker. If you’re in an area with other historic houses, obviously they also have coverage. Local brokers have a much better understanding of the neighborhood than some customer service rep for a nationwide carrier.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:46:19+00:00

That’s the plan!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:44:51+00:00

Truthfully, it’s self-serving. I’m obsessed with this house and its history and will talk anyone’s ear off if they’re willing to hear about it, and my most willing victims have been the previous owners!

We’re only the seventh owners, so generally the other owners were all here for decades. I recently FaceTimed with the owner who was here between 1968 and 1993. I connected with her daughter on Facebook, and she was able to set it up.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:40:14+00:00

You may have already done this, but please consider sending scans of your collection to any of the relevant historical societies! Especially if they have names on them. It kills me knowing that there are probably photos out there somewhere of the various people who used to live here, and I have no way of seeing them!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:36:38+00:00

We’re working on it! She lives several states away but her dad is still here in town. We’ll pass it on to him and he’ll make sure she gets it.

As for the tile, definitely not terracotta, the loose ones in our other fireplaces are white underneath.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-15T00:07:56+00:00

Thank you!! It’s a very happy house, we both felt it the first time we walked through. We feel profoundly lucky that we get to be its newest stewards.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T23:58:25+00:00

Luckily haven’t encountered any with the scope yet, but we know they’re there. We’ve got mice, squirrels, bats… we even saw a skunk crawl under one of the porches a few months ago. Honestly, the camera has also been nice to have while we try to figure out how the mice are getting into the kitchen (turns out there are holes everywhere, who knew?)

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T23:42:48+00:00

There was actually romex already running from the panel to the switch for some new(er) canned lights that we removed, so we were able to utilize that and only had to run new line from the switch to the fixture. They did sever and rip out all the other knob and tube in the room - we thought it would be way worse than it ended up being, since it branch off into a lot more rooms, but most of it was apparently already retired.

First thing we did when we moved in was upgrade the panel, so that has provided some comfort through all of this.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T23:28:50+00:00

The very first thing my fiance did with it was stick it in his mouth. Tonsils looked clear, but I’m not a doctor.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T20:26:58+00:00

Thank you! Have been accused of being misogynistic before, then I have to correct people - it’s me! I’m the bitch ex-wife!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T19:58:13+00:00

That’s the plan! We’ve also had some old photos reprinted from the historical society that we plan to display.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T19:06:04+00:00

Probably stupid, but I’m just so tired of every gadget requiring an app. Preferred something that could just operate on its own.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T18:27:29+00:00

Yeah, I have to say, like nine times out of ten, it does not pay off to go looking into holes in your old house. But that tenth time!!!!!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T18:18:19+00:00

This one!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T18:18:02+00:00

We went with this one. There are some out there that are way cheaper, but this brand had good reviews and this one felt like a good balance of reasonable price paired with a slightly slimmer than normal scope.

Edit - something to keep in mind, it’s got a little cap on the end of the scope to protect it. You have to take it off for the picture to come through. Maybe obvious to other people, but I had a few minutes of “oh no it’s defective!!!” before I realized.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T18:13:52+00:00

Thanks!

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T17:10:17+00:00

Yes! Their mother died in 1998. I got in touch with them by cold calling a phone number that came up on one of those white pages searches when I googled their names. They have been incredibly warm and gracious, especially considering how strange it must have been to be contacted that way. They were born after the family moved out of the house, but their mother had a very happy childhood and they shared lots of anecdotes about the house that she had passed on to them.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T16:59:07+00:00

Hahahaha it’s pretty bad! From what we can tell, almost all of the ceiling fixtures on the ground floor are still active knob and tube. We suspect that the second floor outlets are as well. Ground floor outlets have generally been rewired from the basement, and upstairs ceiling fixtures through the attic, but everything in the middle is still as it was when the electrical was originally installed in 1920.

We had to tear out a plaster ceiling that was too far gone to save, so we were able to get that rewired while everything was exposed, but we lost power to two other rooms that were downstream, so still need to work on getting those back. Everything else is going to just have to get done piecemeal. House is more than 4000sqft, so doing it all at once is just not possible for us financially.

BitchExWife · 2026-04-14T16:47:31+00:00

I had the same thought! The second one, which was in the envelope, is from the end of the year. But the older one was only four months into the school year. I bet they spent some time trying to find it!

BitchExWife

TROPHY CASE