Of all the things Scott Worgan expected to find while renovating his North Kamloops basement, a box of cash wasn't on the list.

But that's exactly what he found Wednesday morning while taking apart his Linden Avenue home.

"It's very cool," Worgan said of the tie box that was tucked into the basement ceiling.

Inside the box is a stack of $1 bills from 1973 - 99 of them to be exact.

Worgan and his wife Nicole, son Riley, 2, and infant daughter Kyla moved into the house in July. Worgan said the home was a rental and needed a lot of work, but the yard is big and the interior has character.

"This is our forever house," he said.

The upper floors were renovated first. He said the walls were given a fresh coat of paint and some of the hardwood floor replaced or restored.

Downstairs was a different story. Fake wood panelling covered the walls and the floor had a thin layer of carpet on top of concrete. Everything needed to be gutted, insulated and drywalled.

Most of the demolition is complete and Worgan had started taking down the ceiling when he discovered the tie box.

"The plywood went from here across," he said, and pointed at a space between the furnace and wall. "It was tucked up in here near the furnace."

He almost threw the box in the garbage, but realized it had weight when he held it. Worgan was surprised to find the stack of cash inside.

Nicole counted the money more than once and came up with 99 bills each time. Worgan went through it himself. All the cash is from 1973.

There one or two in near mint condition. The rest are worn and wrinkled.

"They probably aren't worth anything," said Worgan. "I'll buy another sheet of drywall with them."

Worgan can only guess at why the money was there. He wouldn't be surprised if the owner stashed the box for safekeeping and forgot about it.

Kamloops realtor Vince Cavaliere said finding money is rare, but people frequently discover rings, old watches and other personal items in the walls and floors of their homes.

"I think, in the early days particularly, that's what people used as safes," said Cavaliere. "People would hide stuff in their houses or in their walls because they didn't trust the banks."

There are no hard rules about what a homeowner should do with found valuables, said Cavaliere. Nor is he aware of an agency that handles such matters.

"How do you even go about tracking down the old owner?" he asked.

Worgan will be extra careful as he takes the rest of his basement apart. You never know if there's more money to find, he said.

"It's got us curious, that's for sure," he said.