Of course the wife knew. There’s no way she didn’t know. I also find it hard to believe the kids, no matter how tyrannical he could be, never once ventured down into the basement to do a little exploring as kids will do or they didn’t notice daddy dearest was busy building and taking supplies down there. Perhaps the kids didn’t know exactly what was going on down there, but they had to have known something was unusual was going on behind that door. Looking at the picture, you can see very plainly the marks the door made on the floor so it’s not like it was that big a secret.
Calling Gladys Kravitz....
Look at the map of the place -— looks to me more of the complex was under the back yard/street than the basement.
The only thing in the basement was a dummy 2’ by 3’ electrical access panel -— that was locked.
It’s possible. I have never been in the crawl space in my own home. Hubby’s been down there a few times to fix pipes or whatever but I’ve never been down there in 17 years. I also don’t know what’s going on in my neighbor’s homes, or their attics or basements.
It was said that they lived in an apartment building (that they owned, perhaps?) I have a friend who lived in an apartment building for years. There was tenant storage and laundry facilities in the basement but she never once went down there to use either. She used the laundromat and her parent’s garage to store stuff because she was a little afraid to use an isolated basement area, especially at night. So she never did. I can see not going into a basement area in an apartment building quite easily.