10 Years After Moving In—Kid Finds Something Previous Homeowners Forgot

A Missouri woman has revealed her 9-year-old son’s hilarious reaction to making the most unexpected of discoveries in the family home.
Dee Crawford, who runs the online gift shop business Do Me a Favor, told Newsweek she was busy packing orders in the dining room when she heard her young son shout: “yo, dude, I just found a phone under the stairs.”
“I don’t know why I thought to start recording, but after I saw it and he showed me where he found it, I was speechless,” Crawford said. “We’ve lived there almost 10 years and have never seen it before.”
In a video posted to Crawford’s TikTok account, DoMeAFavorSTL, she said how her son uncovered an LG handset was discovered buried deep in the gap between the staircase and carpet on one of the steps.
Crawford said her son is very curious and was, for some reason, looking there when he spotted the phone. She added that it might not have been seen at all, but the fact that the carpet “was not done extremely well” meant there was a gap.
“It’s not in good condition; the front buttons are off, and it doesn’t have a battery. So, it made me think it was hidden there for a reason,” Crawford said. “Hopefully, my friend’s charger will turn it on, and we can see if there’s anything interesting on it.”
The video went viral, amassing almost 2 million viewers and comments from people offering their own unique theories and observations on how it might have ended up there.
“That was someone’s ‘secret’ phone,” one viewer said, with another commenting: “that’s either a hubby’s or a teenager’s secret phone from the 2000s.”
A third user was able to identify the model, writing: “The LG Shine! Lauren Conrad was in the commercial for that phone. I had one. Ha-ha.” The phone dates back to early 2007.
A fourth, meanwhile, posted: “Am I the only one who would have stuck that phone in there while talking to someone on the stairs and then walked away and TOTALLY forgot where I put it.”
Arguably the most hilarious response came from Crawford’s son, though. Kids aren’t the best when it comes to identifying old technology.
In a survey of 2,000 parents of school-age children conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Cricket Wireless, only 51 percent were able to identify a landline phone in pictures, while just 24 percent knew what a pager was.
Crawford’s son was similarly clueless when it came to identifying the handset that he found. “He thought it was an iPhone from 1997,” she said, laughing.
As for how it got there, Crawford remains clueless. “The previous owners still live nearby and never had kids. We keep in touch but not often,” she said.
“Stay tuned for updates. My friend’s dad has a phone forensics plan to see if we can get it to turn on.” At the time of writing, they are no closer to learning about the contents of the phone.