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Kitchen fitters find 20-year-old note and secret gift hidden under the floor

A team of kitchen fitters have uncovered a sweet message and gift left more than two decades ago, (posed by models, Getty Images)
A team of kitchen fitters have uncovered a sweet message and gift left more than two decades ago, (posed by models, Getty Images)

When you decorate your house, you might be tempted to scrawl a quick message before painting over the walls, but one team of kitchen fitters discovered more than a 'The Smith family woz ere' tag under the floor of the house they were working on.

Craig Harrigan was carrying out essential renovation work on a home in Edinburgh with his colleague last week when the pair stumbled upon a time capsule left untouched.

Turns out the former owners had scribbled a message on the tiles 20 years ago, and even left a mini bottle of whisky for the next person to find, urging them to "have a drink on us".

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Sharing a video of the find on TikTok, Harrigan captioned the clip: "Carrying out essential work! Great find. Not sure I would drink it tbh."

In the explanatory video he tells the camera: "So we’re stripping out a kitchen, and we found a message under the floor."

He then reads the message aloud, which says: "Jack and May lived here, three kids and a dog. Kitchen done up during April/May 2001. All the best, have a drink on us."

In the comments, Harrigan added: "When I seen the date, I thought 'oh, not that long ago.' Until the lad with me said he wasn’t even born then."

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Since sharing the sweet find to the video-sharing platform, the clip has clocked up almost 14K likes with users impressed by the gesture.

"That’s actually so cute. Like that restores my faith in the world," one person wrote.

"Very cool. I love finding secret stuff like that," another agreed.

Meanwhile, another person shared how they had a similar idea when refitting their kitchen, but the end result wasn't quite so touching.

They joked: "I did this in my kitchen when I refitted it, except I drew [genitals] and the date instead."

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People often uncover messages from previous owners when they move house. (Getty Images)
People often uncover messages from previous owners when they move house. (Getty Images)

But it seems there's actually a twist in the tale, as it turns out the secret note was actually written by the homeowner's father, who had recently moved after selling the house to his daughter.

The kitchen fitter ended up cutting the section of floor for the client to keep forever, along with the miniature bottle of Glenkinchie whiskey.

"We were stripping out the old kitchen last Friday morning," Harrigan told the Daily Record.

"I called the customer in to show her and she said it was her mum and dad's old house that she recently bought and the note was written by her dad," Harrigan told the Daily Record. "She was one of the three kids."

The fitter went on to explain that he often finds things hidden under floorboards when stripping kitchens.

"We do find lots of old things," he added. "Cigarette packets, sweets wrappers. The thing I like finding the most is the newspapers. A lot of them we can still read."

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