# Eerie abandoned house photos



## Ghost of Spookie (Sep 28, 2008)

Saw this article about a photographer who took photos of an abandoned house. If you can deal with the tens of thousands of dead flies and the stench, might make a great haunted house site. No way would I open the freezer. The bedroom photo really struck me with the suit jacket hanging on the wardrobe. Makes you wonder what happened to its residents and how long it has been abandoned. Kind of sad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...d=maing-grid7|main5|dl6|sec1_lnk3&pLid=306128


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

Here in New Jersey, we have entire abandoned communities, the result of the radon contamination scares of the late 1980's. The government would evict residents from entire neighborhoods as soon as a certain number of buildings in the area registered dangerous contamination levels. And because radon is gaseous but heavy, it would cling to everything you own, resulting in the contamination following you, so people had to abandon everything they owned as well. So we ended up with these abandoned neighborhoods with tens of uninhabited but fully furnished houses, made especially creepy by the fact that many seemed to be well heated in the dead of winter even though the utilities had been long cut off years ago (heated by radioactive decay). Especially creepy were the neighborhoods that were evacuated at dinner time, leaving many houses with meals on the table.

But that's all up in the northern half of the state.

Locally, we have lots of old abandoned farm houses, left from the farm failures of the 80's, where the farm land was sold for housing tracts and the developers couldn't be bothered with demolishing the farm houses. So strange, seeing these newish subdivisions and there's one lone, decrepit, 100+ year old farm house overgrown and falling into ruin, and seemingly totally incapable of driving down the subdivision's housing prices. Ever since the 2010 blizzards, a lot of them have been condemned and torn down by the municipalities. I guess a lot of those old roofs caved in under the 4-6 feet of snow that fell on them in two week's time.


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## Guest (Apr 30, 2013)

YIKES. Spending the night is that house would make me curl up in a fetal ball and cry myself into a coma.


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## 22606 (Aug 11, 2008)

Those are pretty cool photos, GoS. Speaking from experience, Vicks _VapoRub_ applied near each nostril is pretty spectacular at blocking out anything that smells rotten (years ago, grandpa's actions led to a whole freezer of unthawed venison in the basement of my relatives' house, the stench of which wafted all the way upstairs to greet each partygoer)


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## RCIAG (Jul 19, 2010)

Every room had some sort of cross or crucifix. Nice furniture & wood though.


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## annamarykahn (Oct 4, 2009)

wow, everything is still in amazing condition

i'm surprised the place hasn't been looted

amk


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## Trinity1 (Sep 5, 2009)

Blarghity said:


> Here in New Jersey, we have entire abandoned communities, the result of the radon contamination scares of the late 1980's. The government would evict residents from entire neighborhoods as soon as a certain number of buildings in the area registered dangerous contamination levels. And because radon is gaseous but heavy, it would cling to everything you own, resulting in the contamination following you, so people had to abandon everything they owned as well. So we ended up with these abandoned neighborhoods with tens of uninhabited but fully furnished houses, made especially creepy by the fact that many seemed to be well heated in the dead of winter even though the utilities had been long cut off years ago (heated by radioactive decay). Especially creepy were the neighborhoods that were evacuated at dinner time, leaving many houses with meals on the table.
> 
> But that's all up in the northern half of the state.
> 
> Locally, we have lots of old abandoned farm houses, left from the farm failures of the 80's, where the farm land was sold for housing tracts and the developers couldn't be bothered with demolishing the farm houses. So strange, seeing these newish subdivisions and there's one lone, decrepit, 100+ year old farm house overgrown and falling into ruin, and seemingly totally incapable of driving down the subdivision's housing prices. Ever since the 2010 blizzards, a lot of them have been condemned and torn down by the municipalities. I guess a lot of those old roofs caved in under the 4-6 feet of snow that fell on them in two week's time.


That's crazy!!! Would love to see pictures of that. The whole radon thing is kind of crazy too. We had to do a lot of research when we were purchasing a home that had slightly heightened levels in one room. Did you know there are areas in Europe where there are spas that use radon as a treatment? I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. I read so much research that stated that it wasn't something to be worried about and then so much stating the opposite. We purchased the home and just made sure that room was well ventilated.


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

Another bizarre fact for folks... 

One staple of haunt prop construction is the Drylock often used to weather seal props, particularly tombstones. One of the company's products is formulated specifically to seal basements against radon intrusion. I had to seal my own basement with the stuff back in the 1990's. 

Anyway, one of the radon communities was located in West Milford NJ, known informally as Demon's Alley. It was about a dozen homes that were evacuated and left meals on the table in the process. Since I wrote a book about the town and all its weirdness (West Milford is known as "Epicenter of all that is Weird in NJ") I'll post some photos of Demon's Alley.

Weirder still, West Milford has an abandoned house that was abandoned because nobody could get inside anymore. I assume a hoarder lived there and one day while out finding more stuff to hoard, a heap inside fell against the door. A hole was cut in the side of the house to no avail.


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## The-Dullahan (Feb 26, 2011)

"Urban Spelunking"

Back home, where even the "new" homes were built in the 1800's (Though there was an Inn built in 1912) and most houses had no one living in them, we used to see all kinds of nice things like this. Albeit, most were far better kept than this house, which seems to be deteriorating.

Here in Florida, we have several such buildings. The state has however only a few years ago, demolished my abandoned Sunland Mental Hospital, so I cannot go there any more. I recall having to parkour up four stories and enter through the attic window, find my way to the staircasess and navigate myself to the bottom floor, to open the door for my sister. Easier said than done, as it was in complete darkness, however, I can see very well in the dark (and cannot see at all when it gets sunny outside, which is why I do these activities during the evening hours):









The hospital was build in a clearing in the middle of a swamp, composed of several large buildings, serving different purposes. The longest surviving building was the administrative building:










I have many photos from my visits there, throughout the boiler room beneath the main building, in the cellar, some of the patient's rooms, doctor's rooms and whatnot. I even have a photo of my Hearse parked in the "Employee of The Month" parking space. I also have, to this day, a number of souvenirs, such as the mains gauge from the master boiler in the cellar.

I have also been through my share of abandoned homes and estates down here, again, all sharing the deteriorating state of being with the farmhouse from the video. All but one. I actually spotted it's roofline briefly through the woods once, while driving to our county's courthouse. On the way back, I circled and navigated myself, via sense of direction, until I knew I was nearby. I ended up driving through a small retirement neighbourhood (in a Hearse, no less) and into the woods. Eventually, I came across a stone wall, which I hopped over. Then I found a mausoleum. After brief study of it and analysis of it's occupants, I moved on further, eventually coming out onto the overgrown lawn of a large piece of property. I found a small pond overgrown with lily-pads, with a small island in the centre with a statue on it. This pond still had Koi living in it...That surprised me. Then the house itself:


























Of course, we have many more. Directly local to me, hidden deep in the woods is this building. It hosts one of the most unusual designs I have ever seen, echoing of some sort of madness behind it. It has a very large great hall, leading out to a turret with a spiral staircase, which actually has a balcony that wraps around it and transports you to another end of the house. Just a strange design that I cannot imagine the practicality behind. It also features a large lighthouse, though we are hours from any ocean. This building actually served as a water tower once upon a time, but has been converted into a living space, with each of the four stories acting as a separate room. The property also possesses a large acreage of fields for growing crops, much of it most likely once used as orange groves (as here, citrus, especially Orange trees grow everywhere, to the point no local ever buys citrus) and the occasional shed or abandoned piece of heavy farming equipment.


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## The-Dullahan (Feb 26, 2011)

We even have an abandoned amusement park, known as "Splendid China"


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## Ghost of Spookie (Sep 28, 2008)

Wow, so glad I started this thread! Great info and photos guys!!

As for radon, our best friend who lived in the Chicago area recently lost his mother to what they attribute to cancer from radon. She spent a great deal of time as an artist in the basement of the house they had lived in for decades. She developed breast cancer, no history any where in family and a non-smoker. We had suggested to our friend when he was buying a house in the NW suburbs to have it tested for radon, as I knew of someone in that area that gets water bills stating there is radon in the water. He decided to get his parents house tested as well and the levels in his parents basement were super high. They concluded that her cancer was the result of living in the house and not knowing all those years. For whatever it's worth figured I'd pass that on. 

I know that the Redding Prong area on the east coast has high levels of radon and remember reading articles decades ago which were among the first to investigate radon as being a source for cancers that were killing people in the area. I was not aware of the community in NJ you referred to but now my curiousity is peaked. Here in Calif. we have a few new towns that were built out by developers before the market dropped and they are basically empty towns of new homes. Because few people bought before the market changed, there never was a tax base for public services and so no street lights, stop lights, etc. People who did buy there live with no one around and found that they obviously couldn't sell their homes either. Living there would be freaky as well. I've seen photos and news specials on the area around Chernobyl and that's another area that came to mind when I saw the photos that sparked this thread. Some people have moved back there to live but for the most part it's wasteland as well. I've also seen stories recently on whole cities that were built in China on speculation and remain uninhabited. People would use their life's saving to invest in condos and such, places they couldn't afford to live in but hoped to sell to someone else and make a good return. No one moved in however. They showed a large indoor mall that was completely empty. Almost like an apocalypse had occurred there. 

I never thought of the radon contaminating all of ones possesions. I thought that air circulation would dissipate the danger as long as the cracks in the foundation were sealed or radon in the water was aerated. We might have earthquakes to deal with here but I'm glad that radon in this part isn't something else to worry about. It's strange how emptiness can create a strong sense or foreboding.


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## 22606 (Aug 11, 2008)

Holy sh!t, are those awesome, The-Dullahan!! I would venture into Detroit to see what is lurking (besides addicts, thugs, and streetwalkers), although I doubt that a ghost can share photos...


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## LAKE OF THE DEAD (Apr 15, 2009)

a picture i took in march in Colorado


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## 22606 (Aug 11, 2008)

LAKE OF THE DEAD said:


> a picture i took in march in Colorado


Pretty neat, even if the truck is not old and raggedy enough to match


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## BR1MSTON3 (Jul 31, 2010)

Love all of these, great post. Feel really sad that I live this close to the Sunland Mental and Splendid China and did not have a clue!


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## The-Dullahan (Feb 26, 2011)

Oh, back home we had far more interesting buildings.

Also, most large cities have entire sub-cities. New York, Detroit, Chicago or Boston for example. There are actually subterranean labyrinths beneath much of these places, remnants of where the city itself used to be, before so much more was "built up" atop them. Especially in older parts of the cities.


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## Laurie S. (Dec 4, 2007)

Awesome pictures in this thread!


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## zombygurl (Jun 15, 2009)

*the haunted hinsdale house in ny*

we went here for a paranormal festival, it's a very creepy house

the haunted hinsdale house


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## Saki.Girl (Aug 22, 2012)

RCIAG said:


> Every room had some sort of cross or crucifix. Nice furniture & wood though.


ya that was first thing i noticed also . 


surprised it was not vandalized must have been really hiding
from people


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## E.F. Benson (Aug 29, 2002)

Very cool photos!


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## mariposa0283 (Aug 15, 2012)

Wow thanks E.F. for bumping this up because I totally missed it when GoS initially posted it. Awesome photos. I love abandoned building/town/park photos! I always end up wanting to know the stories of what happened that caused these people to just up and leave. 

I was also totally drooling all over all the nice furniture they had in that house. The crucifix's definitely gave it a creepy touch, especially the lopsided ones. 

On a somewhat related note, my moms childhood house that was abandoned about 25 years ago was still standing till a couple months ago, I got to go through it a little bit last fall and winter, didn't take any pictures though that I can remember, though I'm regretting it now. It wasn't completely abandoned, they did get most of their stuff but there were still some items left in the house, it was crazy going through that old place where I had so many memories from my childhood, and now its been demolished. I nearly cried when my mom told me. The place was in pretty bad disrepair though, basement collapsing, ceiling falling in... just not good and not safe, but still... the memories. Man, sad times.


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## booswife02 (Apr 2, 2013)

Wow, Thanks GOS. Very cool read with my morning tea. Beautiful and I'm with the others can't believe it hasn't been looted or disturbed in some way.


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## E.F. Benson (Aug 29, 2002)

I agree about the crucifixes, It gave the photos a creepy feel.


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