diff --git a/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py b/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
index 51ee0e04c4..a7b4470b92 100644
--- a/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
+++ b/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@ def do_pickle(data):
 
 def do_unpickle(data):
     """Retrieve pickle from pickled string"""
-    return loads(to_str(data))
+    return loads(data)
 
 
 def dbserialize(data):