A close up of what my son pulled out

creepy

No, it's so very typical of old plaster. It is animal hair, likely horsehair. In fact old plaster is often called horsehair plaster because hair is used as a binder to help hold the plaster together.

If not horse, then goat. Having mixed horsehair plaster myself, I can state that getting it mixed in evenly without clumps takes a lot of time and patience. So clumps of fiber meant they were in a hurry, and dropped in a big wad of hair.
Casey

Its pretty fine, doesn't look like horsehair. And the clump was a handful, what my son was holding was just a small bit of what was in there. So I would say they were in a big hurry. On a side note, talking about plaster. Our upstairs plaster walls look like plaster, from a mile away. Not even, like most plaster walls we've seen. But the downstairs walls seem to be down by an artist. Extremely even, like drywall would be. But with a texture finish, like swirls almost. Is that typical in a house, to have one floor done so skillfully and another done like a rush job?

" Is that typical in a house, to have one floor done so skillfully and another done like a rush job?"

Yes ... people put the $$$ where they could be seen and skimped on the family areas and even more on the servants quarters. One 3-story house I remember from Norfolk VA had lovely walnut or cherry wainscoting with carved molding going up the stairway from the main floor ... right around the corner of the landing it switched to oak with plainer carving up to the family bedroom floor ... and switched again to plain yellow pine going up to the 3rd floor where the children and servants rooms were. All servant's staircases were plain yellow pine wainscoting with decent but not perfect plaster.

Another in Newport RI had a similar setup EXCEPT that the stairway to the 3rd-floor ballroom was elaborate the whole way up ... because guests would use it.

Makes sense. We have much nicer oak HW floors on the first floor and nicer trim.

That's true that oft times the floors seen by family only were not finished off as richly as floors guests might see, however I've never seen a house of that vintage with original 'swirled' plaster. I've seen plaster scored like tiles and plaster moulded into designs, but this sounds almost like the first floor has been reworked or repaired at a later date. The swirling was often put in to hide cracks and irregularities.

I'll see if I can get a decent pic of it tomorrow with daylight. It's pretty subtle, but very nice. The first floor has had some remodeling done as early as the 30's, and I'm not sure how much since then. All entrances into other rooms are square. But where they extended a wall, the shape is curved, more like a spanish home would be (we are in ohio, near pa). It hard to tell when everything was done but it seems that updates ceased by the 50's or 60's.

I have seen plenty of "horse hair" plaster walls( or what ever hair was available) but never in clumps that big

This is the best picture I could get. The entire downstairs has this pattern in the walls. Some are bigger, some are smaller, but they are all in pretty even rows, so to speak.

When we went to re-do the outside stucco in our house, the contractor found the wall LINED with hair!!!! He said it was used as insulation back in the day.

Eww, and eww! lol But, back in the day, I know that people didn't let anything go waste, and I guess hair might work too?

Thanx for the plaster pics with the swirl patterns. I was out on the issue, since I am not familiar with all parts of the country as to their local customs on houses that age, but since I live in Ohio as well, can tell you that I am almost certain this is a more modern finish to cover old plaster flaws.

I have to agree with calliope as well. I'm in central Ohio, and my house is two years older--and all of its plaster is smooth finish and original. The only place it wasn't smooth, was the bath--it had a sanded texture which I had to cover over as it wouldn't sand off, and I didn't think of skimming over it back then. Even my kitchen and hall plaster, under several layers of paper (now removed) was totally smooth.

Cattle hair was used most commonly, followed by horse hair, and both were very coarse and short.

The thing you found in your wall is definitely not horse or cattle hair. I agree with a prior commenter: SPOOKY!!

Here's a close-up of animal hair (probably cattle) in the plaster in my 1925 Colonial:

Like I said, it's probably goat. You can still buy goat hair in the UK for plastering. Now, if you find goats icky, fine, but it's not a remainder from somebody's uncle or ex-.
Casey

Here is a link that might be useful: goat-hair plaster

The hair is fine, finer than some people's hair even. Whether is be human or animal, I'm not creeped out. Was more just curious why such a large clump lol. I *think* the narrow oak floors were installed at a later date, as the kitchen and rest of the house have a wider soft wood (am actually going to post that in it's own thread). When you walk from the kitchen to the living space, the narrow oak is slightly higher. Maybe when (if) they put in the new floor, they did a treatment on the plaster as well to spiffy up the whole area.

I’m currently restoring my 1920’s home and tearing into some plaster with metal mesh instead of the wooden lath. Today I found something similar. Really fine clumps of hair. Doesnt appear to be animal hair and too fine to be human. It was a reddish brown in color. I’m located in Western KY.

Hey all, I live in Malta and today I found hair in the wall of my old house. And a piece of cloth. anyone figured out what it is?

I found some similar hair in the great in the ground my house was built in the 30’s and I was pulling it and it just kept coming out in chinks I had about a half a grocery bag full of hair that was brownish red. can’t get to wear it’s coming from because someone nailed wood in under the vent. It’s long hair and most be very old because it was just breaking apart as I was pulling.

eh, im creeped

Just found this when renovating my house. Built in 1901 in Dublin. Looks human. Thought it might have been the lock of hair from a child or wife of a plasterer working on it at the time.

It looks to me like steel wool and not animal hair and why it was reddish in color: the steel wool was rusting.

This was a common practice and i have done it myself. Plugging a hole with plaster did not deter rats from chewing another hole back in the plaster, but rats hate chewing on steel wool. To stop them, its common practive to fill the hole with steel wool then plaster over the hole. Since rats have poor eyesight and travel by smell and whisker feel primarily, they just dont gnaw a new hole. It actually will stop them, and fills the unsightly hole.

The orginal poster said it was in a chimney race, the perfect rat avenue from basement to living space.