apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love that fish wallpaper! I hope you didn't tear it down. :(

God I love your wallpaper!!

my brother is a contractor in nyc who does a lot of work on older apartments, so yeah, he's come into contact with this phenomenon many times. gotta be careful around the medicine cabinet...

when he first told me about it, though, i was in utter disbelief. such a weird thing to do with ANY item, let alone razor blades...

We recently tore out the 100 yo marble on our bathroom vanity and replaced with new arabescato...that's a story for another time.

But, when we pulled the backsplash off the wall, out fell about 100 razor blades. No blood ensued. I took some photos and then promptly got rid of them.

In my old condo there was a razor blade slit in the medicine cabinet. Although I replaced the cabinet with a more modern one (and I couldn't see down inside the wall when I swapped out cabinets), I never did any drywall work. If there were razor blades tossed down the slit then they are still there. makes me think I should have warned the woman who bought the condo from me in case she planned on doing any remodeling.

Yikes. I hope you got a tetanus shot.

This is the strangest thing I've ever heard of! Who was the brilliant person who came up with shoving razor blades in walls? Weird.

Our house was built in '49 and still has all of the original fixtures including the medicine cabinet with razor blade slot in the rear. If I ever replace it, I'll put a note inside the new one for any future residents.

I love the wallpaper AND the light fixture. wow. As for the razor thing, yeah, I've always thought those were so weird. I've lived in two old homes that had those, but I've never seen the walls opened up to see how many razors piled up in there. Such a strange concept.

yuck! at least there wasn't a tampon disposal...oops, did i really just say that?

Stephvixen!! Hahahaha, oh man. Terrible!

My medicine cabinet has a slit... The bathroom was remodled last in 1934 (according to NYC Dept of Bldgs) so I imagine there are lots of them in the wall..

As a kid, growing up in the bay area (San Pablo, El Sobrante, Richmond, Vallejo), I saw the slots in several houses, but not the pile of blades. My Mom actually used the slots for dull blades.

I grew up with one of those too, probably from the early 50s. They shouldn't be a problem unless you have wiring which isn't in conduit or metal flex... Or when you open the wall, I've heard of that. Now the blades just end up in landfill....

I forgot to add, that maybe the slots were actually a "green" solution.

My old apartment in Chicago had a razor blade slit exactly like this. As I actually use a old-fashioned single blade razor, I used it all the time. I used to think about all the used blades that must be piled up in the wall.

I suppose it is a bit unappetizing, but I felt a certain connection with all the people who'd lived in the apartment before me. Sometimes we forget that our apartments aren't really "ours" we're simply the current occupants.

I rather wish there were more ways to connect with the history of the places we live in and the people that came before us.

Where did this idea come from?

When archeologists of the future (wearing tin foil and velour jumpsuits as in the 50 Sci-Fi movies of course) excavate the building, I wonder what will they make of the razor blade slit? "Obviously people of the 21st Century tried to insolate their homes with tiny sharp metal squares. As part of the insulation ritual they rubbed the squares over their faces, legs, or underarms to become ONE with their homes before giving the sharp square to their God called the Razor Blade." http://condo-blues.blogspot.com

yes, the wallpaper is staying : )

the blades came out on the other side, which is a kitchen wall (shared with the bathroom) that was crumbling and needed some help.

i'm glad to hear everyone was as baffled by the razor blade phenomenon as i was.

oh this brought back memories! hahhhahaha. It was my first house, circa 1950 tract 4 bd/1 ba. my ex spent the day ripping open the wall between kitch and bath. I arrived home and he couldn't wait to tell me about The Razor Blades!! I knew exactly why they were there, having seen those slots in medicine chests. Now this was a man of very, very few words, but I he just wouldn't shut up about the HUNDREDS of razor blades he found in the wall!!!! There were single edge, double edge, etc etc. What would make someone do that, etc etc etc. He even saved a tiny pile to show me in case I didn't believe him. (roll eyballs here)

I finally just let him go on for a couple of hours and get the disbelief out of his system. Maybe it wouldn't have been so weird for him if I'd been home of if he'd had one of his buddies over that day to help. .. btw, he didn't touch anything, just got out the shop vac, cleaned up, then dumped it as usual in the trash. This was in the early days of separating trash so it was still ok to toss blades.