Oh man, I'd LOVE to have my house supported by tombstone typos!

Our house (and our whole neighborhood) was built as "mill housing" for the nearby auto factory in 1950, and so you find some weird wiring and such in them, but nothing cool like that.

I've not really dug into my house, though I'm getting to rip out a bunch of drywall. This place was build in 1902, and has had some renovations over the years. The plumbing, which I've replaced, was creative to put it mildly. Only odd thing I've found was newspapers stuffed under the window sill behind the drywall. One I was able to decipher was from like 1940ish and had a political cartoon featuring Hitler.

That tombstone thing is cool.

The first time I took a shower in my newly-renovated home, I discovered that the contractor had merely dry-fitted the copper pipe. I now know how to solder copper pipe, at least.

I once opened up a toilet tank to find that most of the working parts had been replaced with a Cup O Noodles and a lot of electrical tape.

Toilet worked fine, btw.

I purchased my house with the basement railing, back door screen handle, and most of the living room floor moulding held in place with hot glue, of the craft variety. I'm just glad my grandma wasn't the one to find that the railing wouldn't support a gnat.

They also built the mini-deck on the pool too close, so I can't fit the pool cover all the way around the pool, I have to screw a large plank over an end of the cover to hold it down.

I don't know why I expected anything better than this though, when I went for my final walk-through, she had pulled up all of the flowers from the front beds (turns out she planted the pots, so she could just pluck them out of the ground).

I once replaced all the light fixtures in a client's newly purchased house. Well maybe replaced in the wrong word, the sellor had removed the old units and taken them with her.

Apparently, unless otherwise excluded in the sales agreement, anything merely screwed on in a house isn't technically included in the sale. The sellor took full advantage. Besides the light fixtures she took the shower heads and some low voltage exterior pathway lighting.

Mitheral - at one place I rented, I had to install laminate siding in the bathroom shower, because the previous tenants had removed it. To be fair, they had had to install laminate siding because the tenants before them had removed it.

blackkar: A friend of mine had the same thing happen with things that were supposed to be structural being hot glued. The seller was a theatrical stage designer.

I just realized that whoever moved into my old apartment is going to find (if they look) the drain hose from the washing machine wedged in place with a very gnarly, chewed up length of... cow femur, I think it was. Heh.

The house I once owned with my ex had a closet under the stairs. Someone had built shelves corresponding with the steps going overhead. I'm too short to see the top shelf, so I'd just put stuff there. We'd been there for about two years when I discovered those shelves were lined with newpapers from the '60's.
We also discovered charred roof beams after a leak damaged some ceiling tiles, and a very old folded piece of cloth. The place turned into the money pit.