Wonder what it is about these things that are so appealing... I recall finding shacks in the wooded areas where we used to play and explore. Not exactly sure how or why they were built, since it seemed too extreme for a place high school kids would build just to drink beer and way too expensive and demanding for a homeless man to build as a home. But we'd always find wooden shacks in those woods. Always deep in thorny weeds and overgrown vines. And I'm sure that was the idea. But you'd see the roof first, usually a few layers of warped particle board. Then you'd sneak up to it and make some noises in case Homeless Harry was inside waiting to spit battery acid in your face. Then we'd peek inside and see nasty old carpeting and things like beer bottles and crumpled white paper bags and empty tubes of model glue. Horrible to think of someone sniffing that stuff.
Abandoned homes were hard to come by, living in suburbia, and we'd usually come across them when my parents would take us to more rural places for long walks through state parks and the surrounding areas. I remember one old house similar to the photo below. I felt really brave since my father was there with us. We insisted he go inside first. And we'd follow. We walked around inside clopping around on the old floors and every noise we made seemed to echo in the empty place. We went up a flight of stairs, and thinking back I wish I crashed through the stairwell and was torn to shreds. Oh how my mother would have given my dad hell for that. I think.
So we get upstairs and poke our heads into one of the smaller rooms. And some hilarious kids had graffitied on the walls and drew a pig with red eyes...with the words "JODIE LIVES HERE." My sister screamed and ran for the door.
I wish she crashed through the stairwell on the way down.
8 comments:
In my town, it was the old gold mill, known as "the ruins". Kids used to go there to party and what not. Several people supposedly died there over the years, suicides, accidents and murders. But it was during the great satanic panic, when I was in high school, that the local busybodies started calling for action, fearing that kids were actually going there to worship the devil. They built a fence around it, which soon enough was festooned with holes. Cops would go there to chase kids off a couple times a day. Back in about 1990, they actually bulldozed the area, The only thing left of the old gold mill is the smokestack. I actually have some personal stories there, including being haunted by a hellhound ghost! I took these pictures some years before the site's internment: http://spookylaboratory.blogspot.com/2009/10/mysterious-ruins.html
JODIE LIVES HERE
Love it.
Those were great pics, Steve.
Would have LOVED to explore something like that.
There's just something about investigating and old abandoned house/shack. I think I would have freaked too if I had seen that painted on the wall when I was younger!! Great story!!
in case Homeless Harry was inside waiting to spit battery acid in your face....Awesome line!!
I wouldn't have made it past the front porch. There was an abandoned house out the entrance to our street growing up. The fire department finally burned it downed in a training practice.
Thanks! Those pics cover less than half of the site. I have other pics that I'll have to rescan someday. Too bad there's no way to take more. They were supposed to build a Home Depot over it but it never happened. Probably were afraid of satanic ghosts.
Old abandoned houses are just priceless--and getting more rare in our race to modernize, etc., etc. Every time I drive by one, I get the feeling that the house has a 'face' and it wants you to come on in and make yourself at home...figure out it's personality and suchlike. And such cool pics, Steve! What a shame and waste that the old gold mill is gone.
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