Woman Discovers a Doomsday Prepper's Bunker and Trap Door in Her Grandmother's Basement

You'd be wrong if you thought the only doomsday prepper’s house was in The Last of Us. Apparently, secret trap doors and basement bunkers are a thing of reality and TikToker named Carly (@itsmecarlys) is here to prove it. Carly’s grandma moved into a doomsday prepper’s former house a few years ago and she’s finally giving us the tour on TikTok.

Carly takes us through the basement’s secrets, showing us the ins and outs of a doomsday prepper’s house. But as she does this, commenters disagree about the best use of the house’s secrets going forward. What would you do if you found this level of stealth in your house?

In her TikTok video, Carly takes us down to the basement for a full tour of the prep the former owner went through to make the basement livable in the case of an emergency. “So when my grandmother moved into an old house, she moved into an old end-of-day prepper’s house,” Carly tells us. “And I need to show you some of the cool things he has in his basement, like trap doors, hidden bunker, I’m serious.”

“There’s just a big room here with this storage closet,” Carly shows us. “And at the end here was a coat rack coat closet.” As Carly presses on the wall, nothing happens. But then, Carly goes to another part of the basement, where there’s a “false pipe.” She presses gently on the pipe and we can hear it unlatch. She goes back to the coat closet and pushes on the wall, which opens a door.

Yes, there's a secret door, as if the basement is an escape room! People pay money to experience this for fun, and Carly has it for free in her grandmother’s basement. Inside the secret door, there are shelves for canned foods as well as a gun safe. But that’s not all.

Carly then shows us the electricity panels, which aren’t panels. They’re nailed to a wooden board, which happens to be another trap door. This time, the trap door leads to a bunker, which can be locked from the inside. Naturally, Carly doesn’t lock herself in … just in case.

The bunker was filled with canned food storage when they bought the house, as well as gas masks (which are still there). There are also some artifacts left behind, such as a beautiful jadeite mug in the sink of the well pump, which can get an endless supply of water to the well. However, much of it is rusted over.

There are six “bunks” for either storage or even humans to lay down on, as well as long-lasting “Can-R-Lite” candles that have been rusted over and left behind. In addition, Carly found a slide into the basement that she and her brother imagined the previous owner could use to just slide from the outside into the basement if anything were to happen. “When s--- hits the fan, I know where I’m coming,” Carly jokes. “I’m not crazy, but I don’t like people and I’m scared of people.” Who isn’t?!

In a world of DIY, true crime, and house-flipping, everyone has their own ideas of what the doomsday prepper’s basement could be used for today. One person suggested, “I would 100 percent be making the bunker cute and comfy with fairy lights and bean bag chairs.” What a dream! Can I live there, please?

Others thought the basement could have been used for nefarious purposes after watching shows like Criminal Minds and Investigation Discovery documentaries. While the basement seems like it could have served as a lock-in for an abuse victim, the latch from the inside, as well as the immense storage space, suggests that it was just a doomsday bunker.

One person reminded us, “Lots of people built bunkers through WWII,” which makes a lot of sense. Others saw the “slide” Carly found and recognized it as a coal and wood chute, a common addition to basements in older homes.

But the biggest discourse comes between those who would re-prep the basement based on the current state of world affairs and those who would simply “get taken out at the first blast.” Some people who saw the bunker were basically like, “Nope, that’s not for me! I’d rather just go with the majority of the population,” while others were like, “This is brilliant, I must have one.”

Which camp do you fall in? Are you ready for the apocalypse?