Why Are There Razors in My Walls?

I was reading a remodeling board and something caught my eye that I though sounded very strange, then *Bing* It Triggered a Vivid Memory From My Childhood.

A homeowner wrote about the kitchen they were remodeling which shared a common wall with a bathroom on the other side. As they started pulling off drywall, they were more than a little bit scared to find several (many) rusty razor blades inside their wall. We have all seen enough horror movies to have an initial reaction of sheer shock, and possibly even fear when you see that many rusty razor blades, where you did not expect to see them, and when you least expected to see them.

Once the initial horror and shock subsided she did the logical thing and googled “why are there razors in my walls?” and was shocked at the large number of results.

You see, in the 1940’s and 1950’s, nearly every bathroom had a medicine cabinet, and at the back of this cabinet was a little slot used for disposing of used shaving razors….not the disposable razors you think of now, but the super sharp “safety” razor blades that were inserted into a razor handle. These blades were extremely sharp, but only stayed sharp for a few uses.

But that slot was really just a hole in the wall. The medicine cabinet was installed between studs in the wall, which is where the blades would fall when you placed them in the slot.

I guess nobody worried too much back then about where these blades went, but this was a safe way to “dispose” of these blades away from kids, etc.

While I do not remember ever seeing a CSI episode where DNA was pulled from an old razor blade inside a wall, this story did unlock a very vivid childhood memory for me.

I very clearly remember my Dad putting shaving cream on his face with a big silly brush, then I remember him sticking his used razor blade into this slot in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom when he was done shaving.

I guess I don’t remember thinking about where those blades really went, and what would happen years into the future when someone opened up the wall.

Perhaps, I was more interested in watching him put toilet paper on his bleeding cuts that he just inflicted with the blade he just through into the wall. Does anyone else have that memory?

As always, please share your remodeling stories!