He Found a DOGMAN Living Under His House, What Happened Next Is Unbelievable!

The Secret Under My Floorboards

When you hear scratching under your floorboards at 2:00 a.m., you assume it’s rats. When you find claw marks carved three inches deep into your foundation, you start asking different questions. And when you finally crawl under your house with a flashlight and come face to face with something that shouldn’t exist… well, that’s when your entire understanding of reality gets ripped apart.

I’m 68 years old now. For the last 43 years, I’ve lived with a secret that would sound completely insane if I told it to anyone. But I’m telling it now, because I’m getting old, and someone needs to know what really happened in the crawl space under my house in Northern Michigan. Someone needs to know that I wasn’t living alone all those years. Someone needs to understand that what lives in the shadows beneath our homes might be more than just pipes and dirt.

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My name is Robert Hendris. In March of 1981, I was 25 years old and had just bought my first house. It wasn’t much—a small two-bedroom place built in 1947 on the outskirts of Traverse City, Michigan. The house sat on two acres of wooded property, isolated enough that my nearest neighbor was half a mile down a dirt road. The real estate agent called it “private.” What she meant was “completely alone.”

The house was cheap, which should have been my first warning. Built on a stone foundation with a dirt crawl space underneath, it had that old house smell: musty and permanent. The wooden floors creaked. The windows were drafty. The basement wasn’t really a basement, just a three-foot-high crawl space you could access through a small wooden door on the side of the house. I’d never even looked down there before I bought the place. The inspector said the foundation was solid, no water damage, structurally sound. That was good enough for me.

I was a single guy with a decent job at the lumber mill. All I wanted was a place of my own, somewhere quiet, somewhere I could finally have some peace.

The first few weeks were normal. I moved in my furniture, set up my bedroom, got used to the sounds old houses make. Every building has its noises, right? Wood settling, wind in the eaves, branches scraping the roof. I told myself that’s all it was.

But then I started noticing things that didn’t fit the pattern.

It started with the scratching.

Late at night, usually between 1 and 3 a.m., I’d hear this sound coming from below the floorboards. Not the skittering of mice or rats. This was heavier, deliberate—like something dragging claws across wood or stone. Long, slow scratches that would last maybe 10 or 15 seconds, then stop, then start again a few minutes later.

The first time I heard it, I was half asleep and convinced myself I’d imagined it. The second time, I got up and walked around the house, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It seemed loudest in the living room, right near the center of the house. I stood there in my pajamas, barefoot on the cold wood floor, listening to something beneath me, methodically scratching away at God knows what.

I went back to bed and told myself it was an animal. A raccoon maybe, or a possum trying to dig its way out. I’d deal with it in the morning.

But morning came and I forgot about it. I went to work, came home tired, made dinner, watched TV. The scratching didn’t happen during the day, only at night, only when I was trying to sleep.

After about a week of this, I decided to investigate. On a Saturday morning in early April, I grabbed a flashlight, put on old clothes I didn’t mind getting dirty, and walked around to the side of the house where the crawl space access door was located. The door was a simple wooden panel, maybe two feet by two feet, held shut by a rusty metal latch. I’d never opened it before.

When I pulled the latch and swung the door open, a wave of cold, damp air rolled out, carrying with it that distinctive smell of earth and decay. I clicked on my flashlight and pointed it into the darkness. The crawl space was shallow, maybe three feet of clearance between the ground and the underside of my house. Support beams ran across the space, and I could see old sections of pipe, cobwebs, scattered bits of old insulation. Everything looked normal, undisturbed.

I got down on my hands and knees and crawled inside. The dirt was cold and slightly damp. My flashlight beam cut through the darkness, illuminating support posts and floor joists. I could see my breath in the cold air. I crawled forward slowly, checking for any signs of animals—droppings, nests, anything that would explain the scratching.

That’s when I found the first claw mark.

It was carved into one of the wooden support beams. Four deep gouges running parallel to each other. Each groove was maybe a quarter inch deep and six inches long. Fresh wood showed pale against the aged gray of the beam. Whatever made these marks had done it recently.

I ran my fingers over the grooves. They were smooth, carved with precision. Not chewed by teeth, not worn by time. These were deliberate cuts, made by something sharp and strong.

My heart started beating faster. I swept my flashlight around, looking for more marks. I found them everywhere—on beams, on the stone foundation, even scraped into the packed dirt floor. Some were fresh, some looked older. There were dozens of them, maybe hundreds, all throughout the crawl space.

Something had been living under my house. Something with claws.

I backed out of the crawl space quickly, breathing hard, my mind racing through possibilities. A bear? No, a bear couldn’t fit under there. A wolverine? Wrong habitat. Large dog? But how would it get in and out without me noticing?

I closed the access door, latched it shut, and stood there in my yard, trying to make sense of what I’d seen. Part of me wanted to call animal control right then. But what would I tell them? That I found scratch marks under my house? They’d set some traps, charge me a few hundred, and probably find nothing.

I decided to wait, to watch, to see if the scratching continued.

It did.

That very night, 2:17 a.m., I was lying in bed, wide awake, listening. The scratching started right on schedule, directly below my bedroom this time. Long, slow drags of claw on wood. I got up, walked to the center of the room, and stood perfectly still. The scratching stopped. I waited—thirty seconds, a minute. Then I heard something else, a sound I hadn’t noticed before, buried under the scratching: breathing. Deep, slow, rhythmic breathing coming from beneath the floorboards.

Something was down there, right below me, and it knew I was listening.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.

The next day, I went to the hardware store and bought heavy-duty traps—the kind meant for large animals. I also bought a motion-activated camera, one of those trail cameras hunters use. That afternoon, I set up the traps around the perimeter of my house and mounted the camera inside the crawl space, aimed at the area with the most claw marks.

For three nights, nothing happened. No scratching, no sounds, nothing. The traps remained untouched. I started to think maybe whatever it was had moved on.

Then on the fourth night, the camera captured something.

I retrieved the camera the next morning and brought it inside to review the footage. The video was grainy black and white, triggered by motion detection. The timestamp showed 2:34 a.m. At first, the frame was empty, just the crawl space, exactly as I’d left it. Then something moved into view.

I had to replay it three times before my brain would accept what I was seeing.

It was a hand—or something like a hand. It entered from the left side of the frame, reaching toward one of the support beams. The hand was large, covered in dark fur or hair, with elongated fingers ending in curved claws. It grasped the beam, and I could see the muscles in the forearm flex as those claws dug into the wood. Then, for just a moment, I saw more: a shoulder covered in the same dark fur, the side of a head, angular and definitely not human, but not quite animal either. And then it moved out of frame, disappearing into the darkness.

The whole clip lasted maybe eight seconds. I sat at my kitchen table, staring at the small screen, replaying those eight seconds over and over. My hands were shaking. This wasn’t a raccoon. This wasn’t any animal I’d ever seen or heard of. This was something else entirely.

I thought about calling the police. But what would I say? What would I show them—eight seconds of grainy footage that showed a furry hand? They’d think I was crazy. Hell, I was starting to think I was crazy. But the evidence was real. The claw marks were real. The sounds were real. And now I had video proof that something was living under my house. Something that shouldn’t exist.

I made a decision that day that would define the next four decades of my life. I decided not to tell anyone. Not yet. I decided to learn more, to understand what this thing was before I brought in authorities who might kill it, or capture it, or turn my life into a media circus.

I decided to try and communicate with it.

That night, I did something that probably sounds stupid in retrospect. I took a plate of raw meat—leftover steak from my freezer—and I set it on the floor of my kitchen, right above where I’d seen the most claw marks. Then I sat in a chair in the corner of the room in the dark and waited.

Hours passed. I was starting to doze off when I heard it. Not scratching this time, but movement. Careful, deliberate footsteps in the crawl space below. They moved across the length of the house, stopping directly under the kitchen, under the meat. Then I heard something I’d never heard before: sniffing. Long, deep inhalations right beneath the floorboards. It could smell the meat.

I held my breath, not moving, barely breathing. The sniffing continued for maybe thirty seconds. Then I heard a sound that made every hair on my body stand up. A voice—low, guttural, but unmistakably vocal. Not quite words, but not animal sounds either. Something in between. It spoke in short bursts, almost like it was talking to itself or trying to work something out. Then silence.

I waited for another twenty minutes, but heard nothing else. Eventually, I got up, checked the meat. It was still there, and I went to bed. I didn’t sleep.

The next morning, the meat was gone. I checked the plate—empty. Not a trace of blood or grease left. Whatever had taken it had been thorough.

I replaced the meat that night with more steak and added something else—a small notepad and a pencil. I know how that sounds. I was trying to communicate with something that lived under my house by leaving it writing supplies, but I didn’t know what else to do.

The meat disappeared again. The notepad remained untouched.

I tried different approaches over the next week. I left drawings—simple pictures of animals, of houses, of people. I left small objects: a coin, a piece of cloth, a shiny rock. Some things disappeared, others didn’t. There was no pattern I could identify.

But the scratching continued every night, and now I could hear other sounds, too. Movement, shifting weight, that strange vocal sound that wasn’t quite speech, but definitely wasn’t animal.

Three weeks after I first crawled under my house, I made a decision that would change everything. I decided to go back down there at night when it was active.

I waited until 2:00 a.m., geared up with my flashlight, a knife in my belt just in case, and crawled through the access door into the darkness. The crawl space was different at night—colder. The darkness felt thicker, more oppressive. My flashlight seemed dimmer, like the shadows were actively pushing back against the light.

I crawled forward slowly, trying not to make noise. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. I moved past the support beams, past the areas I’d explored before, heading toward the back corner of the house, where I’d never ventured.

That’s where I found the nest.

It wasn’t like any animal nest I’d ever seen. It was a constructed space, a deliberate arrangement of materials—old insulation, strips of cloth, what looked like sections of carpet—all woven and layered together to create a depression in the dirt. A bed, a sleeping area. And in that nest, curled up and breathing slowly, was the creature I’d been hearing for weeks.

I froze. My flashlight was pointed right at it, and I could see it clearly for the first time. It was big, maybe six feet long from head to digitigrade legs, covered entirely in dark brown fur, matted and thick. The body was muscular, powerful, built like something between a large dog and something primate. But the head—God, the head was wrong. Too long, too angular, with a pronounced snout filled with teeth I could see even with its mouth closed. Ears that were pointed and too large. And hands, not paws. Hands with those long clawed fingers I’d seen on the camera.

It wasn’t a wolf. It wasn’t a dog. It wasn’t anything that should exist. And it was living under my house.

The creature’s breathing changed. It was waking up. I should have backed away, should have retreated, but I was frozen, unable to move, unable to look away. Its eyes opened. They were yellow, bright, intelligent, and looking directly at me.

We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds. I waited for it to attack, to lunge, to do something aggressive. But it didn’t move. It just watched me with those yellow eyes, calm and assessing. Then it made that sound again, that guttural vocalization, low and rumbling. Not threatening—more like acknowledgement. Like it was saying, “I see you.”

I found my voice, though it came out as barely a whisper. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The creature’s ears twitched. It understood. Maybe not the words, but the tone, the intent.

Slowly, moving as carefully as I could, I backed away. The creature didn’t follow. It just watched me retreat, those yellow eyes tracking my movement until I crawled out of the access door and back into the night air.

I sat in my yard for an hour, processing what had just happened. I’d come face to face with something that defied explanation, something that shouldn’t exist according to every biology textbook ever written. And instead of attacking me, it had just watched calmly, like it was as curious about me as I was about it.

Over the following weeks, a strange routine developed. I’d leave food near the access door instead of in the kitchen. Not much, just enough—scraps of meat, vegetables, sometimes bread. The food would always be gone by morning. I’d hear the scratching less frequently now, and sometimes I’d hear that vocalization, like the creature was talking to itself.

I started to think of it as “him,” though I had no real way of knowing. Some instinct told me it was male, based on the size and build. I went back under the house twice more, always at night, always announcing myself before I crawled in. Each time I found him in his nest, and each time he just watched me. No aggression, no fear, just observation.

On my third visit, I did something bold. I brought fresh meat and set it down at the edge of his nest, then backed away to give him space. He watched me, then slowly, deliberately reached out and took the meat. He ate it while I watched, tearing into it with those powerful jaws, efficient and thorough. When he finished, he looked at me again and made that sound, that vocalization that wasn’t quite speech.

Then he did something that shocked me. He pushed something toward me across the dirt. Something he’d been keeping in his nest. It was a small carved piece of wood, crude but deliberately shaped—a bird maybe, or some other animal. It was a gift, or a trade.

I picked it up carefully, examining it in my flashlight beam. The craftsmanship was rough, but intentional. This creature had made this, had carved it with those claws, had kept it.

“Thank you,” I said. His ears perked up at my voice. He tilted his head slightly, watching me with what I can only describe as curiosity.

That was the moment I realized what I was dealing with. This wasn’t just an animal hiding under my house. This was an intelligent being, something with thoughts, emotions, creativity. Something capable of understanding reciprocity and social interaction.

I was living with a person—a non-human person.

The months that followed were some of the strangest of my life. I continued my routine, leaving food, occasionally visiting him under the house, learning his patterns and behaviors. He was nocturnal, sleeping during the day and active at night. He was clean, even keeping his nest area organized and free of waste. He’d exit the crawl space through a hidden opening I eventually found at the back of the house, go into the woods to relieve himself and hunt, then return before dawn.

He was smart. Frighteningly smart. I started leaving simple puzzles—a jar with a screw-top lid containing food, a box with a latch, objects that required problem-solving to access. He figured them all out within minutes.

I named him Gray, after the color of the wood beams under my house where I first found his marks. I know you’re not supposed to name wild animals, but he wasn’t a pet. And he certainly wasn’t just an animal. He was a presence in my life, a secret companion, a being I was coming to understand and, strangely, care about.

By the summer of 1981, we developed a form of communication. Not language exactly, but a system of gestures and sounds. I’d tap on the floor to let him know I was home. He’d scratch back in response. Two scratches meant he was hungry. One long scratch meant he wanted to be left alone. Three quick scratches meant he wanted me to visit under the house.

I started bringing books down there, reading to him by flashlight. I don’t know if he understood the words, but he seemed to like the sound of my voice. He’d settle into his nest, close his eyes, and listen as I read everything from adventure novels to biology textbooks.

Then, in October of 1981, everything changed.

I came home from work one evening to find the access door to the crawl space wide open—not just unlatched, but ripped off its hinges. Claw marks, fresh and deep, gouged into the frame. Something had happened.

I called out, but got no response. I grabbed my flashlight and crawled under the house, my heart racing. Gray’s nest was empty, torn apart. The carefully arranged materials were scattered, shredded. Signs of a struggle. Then I saw the blood. Not much, but enough—dark stains in the dirt leading toward the back opening where Gray would exit to the woods.

I followed the trail, crawling as fast as I could through the tight space. I emerged from the back opening into my wooded property just as the sun was setting. The blood trail continued into the trees. I followed it, calling Gray’s name, pushing through undergrowth and around tree trunks.

I found him about a hundred yards from the house, lying in a small clearing. He was alive but injured—a deep gash across his shoulder, bleeding heavily. His breathing was labored, and when he saw me, he tried to stand but collapsed.

I didn’t think. I just acted. I ran back to the house, grabbed my truck keys, a blanket, and the first aid kit. I drove the truck as close as I could to where Gray was. Then, using strength I didn’t know I had, I managed to half-carry, half-drag him to the vehicle. Getting him into the truck bed was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—he was heavy, probably close to 300 pounds—but I got him in, covered him with the blanket, and drove back to the house.

I couldn’t take him to a vet. Couldn’t risk exposure, so I did what I could with what I had. I cleaned the wound—it looked like it came from another animal, deep claw marks. Applied antiseptic that must have burned like hell because Gray made sounds I’d never heard before, and wrapped it with gauze and medical tape. He let me work on him without resistance—too weak or too trusting, I didn’t know which.

When I finished, I helped him back under the house to his nest. I brought down blankets, extra padding, water in a large bowl, and food he didn’t touch. I stayed with him that night, sat in the crawl space, my back against a support beam, while Gray lay in his nest, breathing slowly, occasionally making small sounds of pain.

“You’re going to be okay,” I told him. “I’ve got you.” His yellow eyes found mine in the darkness, and for the first time, I saw something in them that made my chest tight. Trust. Complete, absolute trust.

Gray recovered over the next two weeks. The wound healed remarkably fast, faster than it should have. Within a month, you could barely tell he’d been injured, except for a slight irregularity in his fur where the scar tissue formed. But something had changed between us. Whatever boundary had existed before was gone now. I had helped him when he was vulnerable, and he knew it. He trusted me completely.

That’s when I discovered he wasn’t alone.

It was a cold night in November. I was reading under the house, a routine we’d fallen into, when Gray suddenly became alert. His ears perked up, his whole body tensed. He made a sound I’d never heard before—low and almost melodic. A call.

Then I heard it—a response from outside. The same type of vocalization, slightly higher pitched.

Gray moved quickly, scrambling out through his exit to the woods. I followed, curiosity overriding caution.

In the clearing behind my house, illuminated by moonlight, I saw them. Three more creatures like Gray, smaller, younger, but definitely the same species. Two of them were wrestling playfully while the third watched. When they saw Gray emerge, they stopped and approached him, making excited sounds. Gray touched each of them with his nose, a greeting. Then he turned and looked at me, still half hidden near the house. He made a sound to the others. They looked at me.

I understood in that moment what I was seeing. Family. Gray’s family—his pack—and he was introducing them to me.

I stood still, letting them observe me. The three younger ones, I’d estimate as adolescents, approached cautiously. One of them, bolder than the others, came within maybe ten feet, sniffing the air, studying me with eyes that were the same yellow as Gray’s.

Gray made another sound, that same melodic call. The adolescent backed off, but not in fear—more like respect for boundaries.

That night lasted for maybe twenty minutes. The family group stayed in my clearing, and I watched them interact. They communicated with vocalizations, gestures, touches. They clearly had social bonds, hierarchy, relationships. They played, groomed each other, and constantly checked on Gray, touching his shoulder where the wound had been as if assessing his recovery.

When they finally left, melting back into the woods, Gray stayed behind. He looked at me, then back at where his family had disappeared, then at me again.

“You can go with them,” I said, “if you want.” But he didn’t. He returned to his nest under my house. He chose to stay.

Over that winter, I saw the family group occasionally. They never came close to the house except when Gray called them. But I’d catch glimpses of them in the woods, moving through the trees, always at a distance, always watching. I realized then what I’d stumbled into. These creatures, whatever they were, lived in small family groups. They were nomadic, moving through territories, staying hidden, avoiding human contact. But Gray, for whatever reason, had chosen a different path. He’d chosen to stay in one place—under my house—with me.

The years passed. Gray remained my secret, my companion, my responsibility. I learned his patterns, his preferences, his moods. He liked certain types of music—classical especially—that I’d play on a radio I set up in the crawl space. He was fascinated by picture books, studying the images with intense focus. He had a sense of humor, hiding my tools or moving objects around as pranks. But he was also wild, dangerous when threatened. I saw him kill a coyote once that ventured too close to the house. The speed, the violence, the efficiency of it was terrifying. These creatures were apex predators, and I never forgot that.

In 1985, I met a woman named Sarah. We dated for a year, got serious, and eventually she wanted to move in. I had to make a choice—tell her about Gray or end the relationship. I chose Gray. I told Sarah I wasn’t ready for cohabitation, that I needed my space. We broke up. It hurt, but what else could I do? Gray depended on me, and I’d made a commitment to protect him.

The same thing happened in 1989, and again in 1993. My relationships always ended the same way. I couldn’t let anyone get too close. Couldn’t risk them discovering what lived under my house. I gave up dating after that. Gray was my priority. He was my family.

In 1998, Gray’s family returned in a way I hadn’t expected. One of the adolescents I’d seen years before, now fully grown, showed up with offspring of her own. Two young ones, barely weaned, tiny compared to the adults, but already showing the same intelligence in their eyes. Gray was ecstatic. He brought them into the crawl space, showing them his nest, his territory. For two weeks, I had five of these creatures living under my house. It was chaos—beautiful chaos. The young ones were curious about everything, getting into my stored boxes, chewing on old furniture, making sounds constantly.

But eventually, they left. Gray’s family member took her offspring back into the woods. Gray watched them go with what I can only describe as sadness.

“You miss them,” I said. He made that melodic call, the one he used for his family—a sound of longing. I understood then what Gray had sacrificed by staying with me. He’d given up his kind, his natural social structure, for the safety and security I provided. It must have been lonely for him despite our companionship.

That’s when I made a decision. I started building an addition to my crawl space. Not much, just an expansion that would give more room, more space if Gray’s family wanted to visit, wanted to stay for extended periods. I’d make it possible.

It took me three years, working secretly at night, to expand the crawl space without anyone noticing. I dug out areas, reinforced them with timber and stone, created connected chambers that could house multiple individuals comfortably. I installed ventilation, drainage, even running water through creative plumbing work.

By 2001, I had essentially built an underground sanctuary under my house—a place where Gray’s kind could stay safely, hidden from the world. And they came—not permanently, but in cycles. Gray’s family group would show up every few months, stay for a week or two, then move on. I’d leave enough food for all of them, and they’d come and go through the various entrances I’d created. My house became a way station, a safe harbor for these creatures as they moved through their territory. And I became their guardian, their protector, the human who could be trusted.

I’m 68 now. Gray is old, probably in his forties, ancient for his kind based on my observations. He moves slower, sleeps more. His fur is streaked with white, and his eyes, while still bright, carry the weariness of age. His family still visits—three generations now. I’ve watched young ones grow into adults, watched them bring their own offspring. There are maybe a dozen individuals who pass through my property regularly.

I’ve documented everything. Journals, photographs taken carefully in low light, behavioral notes, health observations—forty-three years of data about a species the world doesn’t know exists. And I’ve kept the secret through all these years, through all the close calls, the times when neighbors got curious or inspectors needed to check my property. I’ve kept Gray and his family hidden and safe.

But I’m getting old. My health isn’t what it was. I’ve had two heart attacks in the past five years. I need to plan for what happens when I’m gone.

I’ve made arrangements. My nephew James, who I’ve slowly brought into the secret over the past decade, will inherit the house. He understands the responsibility. He’s met Gray, earned his trust, and committed to continuing what I started. The property is protected through a trust, ensuring it can never be sold or developed. The crawl space sanctuary will remain undisturbed.

Gray is lying in his nest right now. As I write this, I can hear him breathing below me, steady and slow. In a few hours, I’ll go down there and sit with him like I have thousands of times before. I’ll tell him about my day, read to him from whatever book I’m working through, and make sure he’s comfortable. He’s my family, the most important relationship of my life, and no one except a handful of trusted people will ever know he existed.

These creatures—whatever they are, dogman, cryptids, whatever label you want to put on them—they’re real. They live in the spaces between our world and the wild. They survive by staying hidden, by avoiding us, by being smart enough to know that human contact usually ends badly for them.

But Gray chose different. He chose trust over isolation. He chose to let one human into his world. And in doing so, gave me the most extraordinary gift imaginable: proof that we’re not alone in our intelligence, our emotions, our capacity for connection.

There are probably more of them out there—living in forests, under abandoned buildings, in caves and hidden places we’ll never find. They’re watching us, learning about us, staying just out of sight. And maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe some mysteries are meant to stay mysterious. Some beings are meant to remain hidden.

But I know the truth. I’ve lived with it for 43 years. And when I die, that truth will pass to James, who will protect it just as I have. Gray and his kind deserve their privacy, their safety, their right to exist without becoming specimens or attractions or threats to be eliminated.

So I’m telling this story now—not with names of specific locations, not with details that would let anyone find them—but as a testimony to what I know is real.

If you hear scratching under your house in the middle of the night, if you find claw marks that don’t match any animal you know, if you catch a glimpse of something moving through your property that seems too intelligent to be just wildlife, remember this story. Remember that some things living in the shadows are worth protecting. That intelligence and consciousness aren’t exclusive to humans. And that sometimes, the greatest act of love is keeping a secret.

Gray is my brother in all the ways that matter. His family is my family. And I’d do it all again—sacrifice every relationship, every bit of normality, every chance at a conventional life—for the privilege of knowing them. Because some friendships transcend species. Some bonds are deeper than biology. And some secrets are kept not out of fear, but out of profound respect and love.

That’s the truth of what happened to me. For 43 years, I’ve shared my home with creatures the world says don’t exist. I’ve built a sanctuary, earned trust that shouldn’t be possible, and created a family that defies every rule of nature we think we understand.

Gray is still alive, still under my house, still trusting me to keep him safe. And I will, until the day I die. Some secrets are worth keeping forever.