Why I Don’t Explore Abandoned Buildings Anymore

An Old Side Road

Growing up I had an interesting hobby that involved me exploring abandoned buildings. I would go out and explore buildings that were boarded up and looked like they were about to succumb to the elements. I never ran into any trouble except for the occasional scratch or rusty nail to the foot. I found cool trinkets like old soda bottles and such that I kept in my room to remind me of the places I explored. My hobby died down when I graduated from high school and moved away for college.

              In my third year of college I took a summer job in a supermarket and worked there for about two months before I had an accident that made me basically immobile for awhile. During this time, I moved back to my parent’s house to rest. I stayed at my parent’s house for a few weeks and gained back my mobility. I decided I was going to go back to work in a few days but before I drove back to the city, I would do some exploring for old times sake. I drove my car down some back roads looking for abandoned houses and buildings.

              I came across a few buildings and houses that were along the main back roads but they were too risky to explore as even though the countryside is dead some people still travel the main backroads and they could see me. I took some side back roads and came across one yard that looked abandoned. I drove down the driveway and the knee-high weeds in the middle of the old gravel path scrapped the bottom of my car. The driveway was about two hundred meters long which is quite common for old farm yards.

              The beaten-up path stopped at an old worn-down house and a weather beaten shed about fifty meters away in grass about four or five feet high. I looked around from the interior of the car and didn’t notice any disturbances in the grass or dirt. The property looked completely void of human activity. I decided I was going to explore the old house and shed. The house was a two-storey building probably built in the early nineteen-hundreds. The door was intact but the widows had seen better days.

              I looked at the ground on my trek to the house there were no foot prints in the gravel so I felt at ease and was looking forward to exploring the house. I turned the door knob and walked into the old house. The smell of musty wood hit me as soon as I entered. This was a smell I was used to as the majority of old abandoned buildings smell like this. The house was infested with multiple insects and small mammals. There was a staircase to my left that went to the second floor as well as a closed door. I opened the door and exposed a staircase that lead to the basement.

              The rule of thumb about old houses is to not leave the main floor as the stair could’ve rotted away and you could either get trapped in a basement or fall through the staircase entirely hurting yourself. I looked around the main floor of the house it was pretty barebones. There was an average sized kitchen that was stripped of all appliances except for a rundown fridge and oven. A bathroom was located next to the kitchen and it was your basic bathroom sans a bathtub and shower. The last room was a living room that had and old couch in the centre. There was nothing else in the house and I left it almost the way I found it except for closing a couple inside doors.

              I was a little disappointed with the house as there was nothing cool in it and the place was almost a waste of time. In the past I had found some cool things in sheds so I chose to explore the shed as well. The walk to the shed wasn’t that bad except for all the tall grass which housed numerous mosquitoes. Usually there would be old cars and trucks abandoned in the yards as well but this yard was void of them. The shed had a main door that could fit probably two half ton trucks side by side and a man door. The main door and the man door both look weather beaten but in usable shape. The shed was probably about thirty feet high and looked massive in the barren countryside.

              I went to the man door and opened it up. The shed had natural light from windows that were littered throughout the shed’s walls. I noticed that the shed had a few vehicles in it that didn’t look in too bad of shape and a second set of doors were on the back wall. I got an uneasy feeling as it almost felt like someone was taking care of the shed as the inside looked too good to be abandoned. I contemplated leaving but thought my mind was overthinking. Of course, the shed was built well and it preserved the things stored in it. I looked around the shed a bit. There were shelves against the walls that held car parts and old books that gave off a musty smell. Another thing was the shed was not giving off the abandoned musty smell like the house.

              I freaked myself out and decided I was going to leave but would take a look at one vehicle that caught my eye. It was a pick-up truck that looked to good to be in an abandoned yard. I peered through the window and almost fell backwards. There was a garbage bag in the back seat that had a human head sticking out the top of it. I ran to the door to find that the back door was being opened as I opened the door that I had entered. A man looked at me across the shed and screamed and yelled at me. He ran towards me and I bolted out the door and never looked back. I got to my car and started it and put it in gear as I was moving, I seen the man and swerved around him and got back on the drive way out of the property.

              I sped out of the driveway as fast as I could and made it back to road and drove all the way to the closest town which had a police station. I went to the station and told them what I had witnessed and the police took it seriously and dispatched to the property. I was in shock and my adrenaline was pumping. The police never did get back to me as what they discovered was exposed to the whole world via the national news later that week. The property was abandoned years ago but a group of drug dealers had inhabited the shed and the basement of the house.

              The house’s basement was connected to the shed through a tunnel underground and a back driveway through thick brush had kept the front driveway unspoiled to give the sense of abandonment. The news reports stated that multiple bodies were found as well as a lab. I was lucky to escape when I did as if I got caught, I wouldn’t be here today. This is why I don’t explore abandoned buildings anymore.