44-year-old letter hidden in woman's staircase mentioned a cat named Kizzy. Facebook found its author in 1 hour

36-year-old charity worker Michelle Harwood was having some renovation work in her house when a worker stumbled upon a scrap of paper. The paper turned out to be 44 years old, a letter written by a 10-year-old girl in the 1980s. For all these years, the letter was hiding inside a cavity of a stairway. After Harwood discovered it, she took the aid of social media to find the girl with the "neat handwriting." Dated 12 August 1982, the letter was 8 years older than Harwood. Within minutes, her feed was flooded by people who helped her track the old letter’s writer, according to a September 27, 2026, report by the BBC.

A long shot

Harwood didn’t expect to find the writer of the letter, let alone within an hour. Little did she know that she wouldn't just discover the writer but also find a series of parallels in their lives. 54-year-old Rachel Miles is now a teacher in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Miles was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, near where Harwood’s husband, Jonathan, lived as a child. Also, both of them owned cats while living in the house. Harwood started living in this only 11 years ago, but for Miles, it was just a building site where she hung out with her friends.

Envelope with an old letter (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by John Mark-Smith)

Mystery of the 44-year-old letter

When the BBC reporters contacted Miles, she told them that time capsules were popular in the 1980s because of the influence of Blue Peter, the children's television program, per The Telegraph. She wrote the letter after her dad found a cavity behind the stairs. "I just thought it would be quite nice to basically post a letter for the future, and I'm obviously quite delighted to see that someone had found it," Miles recollected. As for Harwood, it wasn’t until she posted the old letter’s photo on Facebook that responses started pouring on her feed. "I couldn't believe that note had been there longer than I've been alive," she exclaimed.

The letter was addressed “to the finder” and read, “This letter was planted here on August 12th, 1982, and the reigning Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.” Miles had then specified her name and written that she lived in the house with her parents, her brother, and a cat named Kizzy. The next paragraph indicated that at the time of writing this letter, Miles was just 10 years old. 

Time capsules around the world

A note tucked into a staircase can easily disappear for good. The International Time Capsule Society estimates that more than 80% of time capsules are lost or never opened when intended. Miles’s letter survived 44 years inside the stairs — and this time, its finder had a way to reach the person who left it

Credit goes to social media

Harwood credited Facebook users with helping her find Miles so quickly. "I think social media is great for things like that, because so many people are connected," said Harwood.

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