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Home / World

Creepy wardrobe message unsettles Massachusetts homeowner

By Imogene Bedford
Journalist·NZ Herald·
12 Aug, 2025 07:08 AM2 mins to read

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NZ Herald Afternoon News Update | NZ's economic outlook and Aotea Square bomb scare

A Massachusetts woman has discovered a creepy message inscribed in a wardrobe of her US home.

While reorganising her clothes, Madeleine Jones noticed a phrase written on the wall.

“A red river clogs my eyes as I slide down deeper from despair to death,” had been carved into the wardrobe’s closet paper.

Jones told Newsweek the find left her unsettled.

“Who could sleep 5ft [1.5m] away from something like that?”

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The 101-year-old house has been home to many occupants over the years, leading Jones to question the context of the phrase.

Google searches failed to provide any answers.

After finding other inscriptions such as “I love Gary”, she has concluded the eerie message is likely an incidence of teenage angst.

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In a comment to Reddit, Jones said the room had been shared by three teenage girls in the 70s and 80s, which she said “would be enough to make me write this too”.

For now, she plans on keeping the wardrobe, joking that she is “enjoying the creep factor for the time being”.

Mysterious discoveries on historic properties are not so uncommon.

In 2022, a Wellington homeowner accidentally uncovered what appeared to be human remains buried in their back garden.

An investigation is under way into a similar discovery made in a separate Wellington garden this year.

But the excitement of a haunting story has also fuelled faux reports of ghoulish finds.

Pranksters buried fake skeletal remains on a Kauri Coast beach in 2021.

The bones were quickly discovered to be a hoax after sparking concerns within the community.

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