Walter Castanedo bought a rundown three-bedroom house in East Toledo for $1,000 in May 2024. On New Year's Eve, while gutting the basement, he found $10,000 in $100 bills tucked between bricks where a potbelly stove likely once sat.
Cash between the bricks
The money was in five envelopes, wedged into the gaps between the bricks. The newest bill in the stash was dated 1981. Castanedo was in the middle of tearing out the basement's old walls when he came across the envelopes.
The find came months after he paid a thousand dollars for the property, which needed significant work. The house was rundown, and Castanedo was renovating it himself.
A mystery from 1981
Who put the cash there, and why it was never retrieved, is unknown. The bills are all in $100 denominations, and the dates suggest they were hidden sometime in the early 1980s. The potbelly stove that once stood nearby may have been a marker for the hiding spot.
What Castanedo plans to do with the money is not known. The discovery adds a strange twist to a $1,000 investment in a house that needed everything.
The question of who left the cash between the bricks, and why they never came back for it, remains unanswered.
