Ziegler is a realtor, investor, house-flipper, and entrepreneur extraordinaire. She curates images of the basements she encounters on the job with an Instagram account called @ihavethisthingwithbasements.

By Madeline Bilis |February 23, 2020

Ahead, Ziegler shares four reasons to love the subterranean house feature, musty stench and all.

Basements hint at a house’s history

Unfinished basements offer a treasure trove of curiosities. “What I love most about basements—the old-fashioned, spider-filled kind—is the hints to the history of the home,” Ziegler says. “The older the basement, the weirder it will be, with tiny trinkets left in corners from past owners, structural updates, repaired damages, and clues about the heating system before this one.” Basements, she explains, allow her to solve the mysteries of a home, whether that’s deducing the choices a previous owner made about the house, or deciding on the next set of choices to fix an issue down the line.

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