1. Not a batbox. Usually an alarm box. my grandfathers store that was built in the early 50’s had one just like it. til it was broken into in the early 2000’s and they knocked if off the wall thinking it was still active
Any idea what this speaker looking thing is? It’s on our 1930s brick colonial in northern Virginia.
2. I was thinking a bat box but no guano underneath
3. I’m alarmed by all the answers.
4. We had an alarm system put in our house in the early 1980s. We have boxes like this on the corners of the house that contained the sirens.
5. Hard wired fire alarm. Probably was once monitored by local alarm co.
6. We have these on the mid century townhouses in my neighborhood in Baltimore. We have a bird family that nests inside ours each year. Would be cool if bats lived there.
7. Bottom might just be vented in insure no moisture buildup. Could house an electrical control or switch. Edit: But I like the idea of an alarm.
8. I didn’t know bats existed small enough to get through those little holes in the bottom. It is a metal box with speaker holes at the bottom put up high enough somebody could not easily disable it. Probably an old security alarm siren that was painted to blend in with the brick. If it was for an exhaust fan it woukd have been higher in the gable end and have larger holes to keep them from clogging up.
9. We have a brick colonial also, does around your windows at brick leak?
10. We had one similar. Turned out to be an external ringer for the telephone. Lol got a landline when we moved in to get a bundle deal with internet. Never got an actual phone. Once in a while, the thing would make this weird noise a few times, then stop. Took forever to figure out what it was.What do you think?—————————————————————————–
4. We had an alarm system put in our house in the early 1980s. We have boxes like this on the corners of the house that contained the sirens.
5. Hard wired fire alarm. Probably was once monitored by local alarm co.
6. We have these on the mid century townhouses in my neighborhood in Baltimore. We have a bird family that nests inside ours each year. Would be cool if bats lived there.
7. Bottom might just be vented in insure no moisture buildup. Could house an electrical control or switch. Edit: But I like the idea of an alarm.
8. I didn’t know bats existed small enough to get through those little holes in the bottom. It is a metal box with speaker holes at the bottom put up high enough somebody could not easily disable it. Probably an old security alarm siren that was painted to blend in with the brick. If it was for an exhaust fan it woukd have been higher in the gable end and have larger holes to keep them from clogging up.
9. We have a brick colonial also, does around your windows at brick leak?
10. We had one similar. Turned out to be an external ringer for the telephone. Lol got a landline when we moved in to get a bundle deal with internet. Never got an actual phone. Once in a while, the thing would make this weird noise a few times, then stop. Took forever to figure out what it was.What do you think?—————————————————————————–
Old houses have a way of whispering their stories—sometimes literally.
A slight indentation in a hallway, a ghost of a doorframe where none exists, or an unfamiliar metal fixture can instantly become a puzzle that tugs at the imagination. In this case, the mystery centers around a curious object attached to the exterior of a 1930s brick Colonial in northern Virginia—something that looks suspiciously like a speaker, but almost certainly isn’t.
