‘I bought a home left abandoned for 20 years, only to find a treasure locked in the shed’

A young mother has become wealthier after making a surprising discovery when she opened a shed that had been locked up for over 20 years.

Maggie McGaugh (@maggiemcgaugh) is a renovator who purchased an abandoned home in 2022, and has been spending the last year trying to turn it into a liveable home.

The property has been abandoned since the early 2000s, and when Maggie first entered the house it was still furnished with vintage furniture but had become filthy and needed to be deep cleaned.

Maggie revealed she bought the home from a widow who “locked the doors and never looked back” after her husband passed away, and that the woman had also left all the electricity on for decades, but despite the dirt, the home was in “really great condition.”

Maggie has now been cleaning out the property and has discovered some unusual things about the home. She has unfortunately found a squirrel skeleton in one of the old beds and also found that the kitchen has three ceiling lights.

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However, Maggie was also shocked to discover a mysterious shed at the end of her new garden that had been chained up with a padlock, but was weary to try and open it up due to the number of spiders climbing around the shed walls.

Maggie has been documenting her home renovation on TikTok, and in a recent video posted this week, she excitedly revealed she had managed to get the shed door open, and discovered an expensive treasure inside.

Maggie said: “We finally got access to it and I could not enter for obvious reasons. So then we opened the other door and I could not believe it.”

In the shed, there was lots of “amazing equipment” according to Maggie, which included a vehicle lawn mower, but Maggie was also shocked to discover a boat gathering dust inside the shed.

She said: “I could not believe it, we had no idea the house came with a boat [and] lawnmower, but especially the boat.”

In Maggie’s comment section, one commentator speculated that the boat looked “expensive” and advised that Maggie should try selling it.

In the comment section, Maggie also revealed she had hired cleaners to clear out the shed, and that they had managed to get rid of the dust and dead bugs on the boat.

Many users congratulated Maggie on her discovery, as one person said: “Hidden treasures to sell for big money! That’s an awesome find!”

Someone else wrote: “I’m so happy for you! What an awesome way to walk into a new home.”

A third viewer commented: “Damn, it looks like you hit the jackpot. And it looks like it was well-maintained.”