TikTok’s Buried Rug Saga, Explained

If you’ve ever been convinced your house is haunted, you may just relate to Katie Santry, the latest viral story-timer to rake in millions upon millions of views on TikTok over the course of a 28-part series that may not be over quite yet.

Over the past week, the Ohio-based content creator—who typically discusses motherhood and other lifestyle topics on her social media accounts—became the TikTok’s new main character after discovering a mysterious rug buried in her backyard. Fast-forward a few days and police cadaver dogs appeared to sniff out something worth digging up.

Throughout the saga, followers on TikTok and X (a.k.a. Twitter) became thoroughly invested in what they believed could be a true-crime podcast playing out in real time. Luckily, you don’t actually need to watch all 29 videos to know what happened. Here’s everything you need to know about the so-called haunted rug in the latest edition of TL;DR.

Give me the TL;DR

Santry began questioning if her house was haunted after finding her laptop broken in her sunroom, as well as a few other items around her workstation mysteriously misplaced. While discussing her possible ghostly invader on TikTok, she revealed that she and her boyfriend had recently discovered a “rolled up carpet buried underground” in her backyard while they were preparing to build a new fence.

After doing some minor digging of their own, Santry and her partner ended up calling the police based on advice from her TikTok comments section. Throughout the series, Santry and many of her followers theorized that a ghost was causing mayhem around her house to bring attention to a potential dead body hidden in the buried rug, though the tone of her videos took a turn from light-hearted (and even excited) to more concerned and anxious after multiple police cadaver dogs allegedly reacted to the hole where the rug was discovered.

“The way your entire demeanor shifted from previous videos to this one. It just got serious,” one of the many commenters replied to the first video about the dogs. She followed that video up with a five-minute video showing parts of the crime scene investigation and an interaction with a reporter.

So, what happened next?

Well…exactly what everyone should have probably expected. As of October 4, we know there was no body in the carpet dug up by excavators, but the police have taken the rug into custody. For now, Santry is back to thinking about her broken laptop and considering hiring a psychic. “Was there blood? I don’t know,” Santry responded to one follower during a TikTok live on October 4. “[The police] took everything with them, so they’re going to do some testing. But he said there was no visual evidence of anything.”

Many fans are not satisfied. “I simply cannot accept this answer,” one commenter wrote in the comments of her most recent video, receiving 58,000 likes in two hours. Another wrote, “This saga isn’t over. Something happened on that rug.”