I never thought I'd have cause to use a crowbar.

Karaoke went well.

I sang too loudly (from the audience, you may be assured), wrecked my voice and had enough to drink that crawling into our 'basement' at 2am seemed like a really good idea.

I think The Wife and I would be much more happy about our discovery A) if it weren't dank and dark, but more importantly B) if it weren't such a pain in the ass to access.

As is, where the door should be / once was is behind our stacked washer/dryer.  It's not moving. We have no other place to put it. So our only means of access is through our floor, along the dirty/narrow crawlspace.

Hardly ideal.

Unless you've had a rum & coke or two. Then, as I said, it's a great idea. 

I can now confidently say that there is virtually nothing of interest or use down there. Since we're (hopefully) going to be moving in less than a year, renovation isn't even worth thinking about, let alone pursuing.

We did find a pair of cellar-door type things set into the floor down there, but they've pretty solidly rusted shut since whenever they were installed.  Intriguing, yes - it's probably someone's bomb shelter built back in 50's  - but I'm frankly not too thrilled about the prospect of finding more living things underneath our home.

The Wife wants me to take a crowbar to them. We'll see.

P.S. "Piano Man" is much longer than you think.