Realtor Discovers Spot Where Previous Owner ‘Melted Into the Floor’ (Exclusive)

When Des Moines, Iowa, based real estate broker Nikki Snyder purchased her first rental property in 2021, it appeared to be in great condition.

The home came with new paint, new carpet — everything, she told PEOPLE exclusively. But after her first tenants moved out, the unit was in desperate need of repairs — and the renovation would lead to a discovery she never could have imagined.

Hoping to find out if there were hardwood floors underneath the existing carpet, Snyder looked up older photos of the home’s interior on a real estate site. Luckily, there was hardwood flooring— but the image was a bit suspicious. In the middle of the living room, a “giant” rug covered a good portion of the space.

“I looked at the listing description and it said, ‘Please contact agent to talk about the smell,’” Snyder tells PEOPLE. “I was like, ‘Oh, I have a feeling I know what this is.’”

The agent, who Snyder knew, said he sold the house after the previous owner died unattended in the home. He mentioned the man died in 2015 at the end of July, in a house with no air conditioning — and he was there for several weeks. 

She moved ahead with her renovation.

“We kind of knew when we were pulling back the carpet, we were going to see something,” Snyder says. “[The previous agent] said, ‘You’re probably going to see a real imprint, like a full body imprint when you pull that carpet back.’” 

Snyder frequently uses social media to promote her properties and renovation progress. So, she grabbed her phone to record the reveal. 

Anticipating a full body imprint in the hardwood, Snyder was surprised to only find a partial one. The previous owners had cut out a majority of the flooring and covered it with a piece of subfloor. But Snyder says they “quite literally cut corners” as the outer edges of the imprint were left behind.

“This is where a past owner passed away and melted into the floor,” Snyder wrote in the onscreen caption of a TikTok posted on July 17. “They cut him out but forgot his arm and handprint.”

Since Snyder’s post, the video has amassed more than 3.5 million views and 125,000 likes.

Upon further research into the death of the former homeowner, the realtor discovered he “wasn’t super connected to his family.” Snyder, who also has a background in mortuary science, says that his body began to decompose and liquify into the flooring while the body remained undiscovered. 

In Iowa, realtors are not required to disclose if there were any deaths on a property, unless it was a high-profile case, according to Snyder. But she says knowing about the death beforehand wouldn’t have changed her mind on the purchase.

“They know, that video went so viral,” Snyder says of her current and former tenants’ knowledge of the death. “We ended up telling both of them, and neither one of them really cared.” 

But, that doesn’t mean the property is free from paranormal activity she says.

“Sometimes I will feel senses of nausea or dizziness in older homes,” Snyder says. “There were a couple times when I first went in there that I would feel it in the basement.”

A friend of the realtor later volunteered to clear the property’s energy.

“I don’t know what she did, how she did it, I just know I haven’t felt it since,” she says.

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Snyder believes her property went viral because there aren’t a lot of videos out there about unattended deaths. 

“There are probably stories, but not a lot of videos,” she says. “I think people just avoid the topic of death altogether because it can be uncomfortable. I talk about it so freely, like I’m ordering a sandwich. To me, it’s just such a common part of life.”

So, what did Snyder end up doing to the imprint?

“We ended up just cleaning the floor and putting flooring over it,” she says. “We won’t cut it out. We won’t cut it out until we really absolutely have to.”