Have you explored an abandoned building? If so, what was it like?

I went to Plymouth, England while working on a ship and noticed an Island with an abandoned complex of buildings. We decided to row out with our small boat to check it out and it ended up being an abandoned artillery battery. It was a nice day out, kind of like spending the day walking around an overgrown garden with some WWII history thrown in. https://imgur.com/a/eoxGr

Sure, a few of them.

One of the warehouses my employer owns is effectively abandoned- it's basically cold machine storage for shit that hasn't been used for 50 years. I had to go in there for a couple weeks as part of my job and it's sure weird, all these massive millwork machines towering over you in the shadows deathly quiet. Once in a while you unexpectedly scare off birds or rats or one time a homeless dude. After a week it was pretty normal though.

A few miles outside of the town I live in there's an abandoned homestead. Only just found it this summer actually. It's still mostly standing but all the windows are blown out and most of someone's possessions are still inside. An antique truck is parked outside in various states of disassembly, there's a chicken coop, an outhouse, and a well. Now that one is incredibly somber. This place was someones hopes and dreams, they loved and lost and toiled endlessly in that house and over that plot of land for thousands of hours, only to be ripped away from it by some unknown event- maybe economics, maybe a sickness, maybe their own death. Now it only sits decaying, the floors subsiding into the dirt, the walls beginning to bow and break, all these bits of wood stuck together into something that meant the world to some pour soul long since gone from this earth. Nature and physics returns to claim humanity's folly, and all those hopes and dreams of that unknown person are forever lost to time, an ethereal thought lasting not even a picosecond in the cosmic scale of time.

I spent a lot of time wandering around that old homestead. Probably wasn't safe to go inside but it was still pretty humbling to see how little everything matters in the end. Dust to dust and all.

We used to walk through a mental hospital that was abandoned in the 80s. It was creepy as fuck all. Bed pans and beds in rooms still, utensils in the kitchen, narrow tunnels in the basement with shackles on the wall. It's since been torn down.

I grew up in a tropical island, and it was a (not well kept) secret that one of the resorts went bankrupt and was shut down. They kept the lights on and from a distance you couldn’t really tell there was no one there, and they had security guards patrolling the property… well, my partner and I, and young horny teenagers, decided it would be cool to sneak in and get naughty on the rooftop. That part was fun and all, but it was so cool to go through the empty hallways and rooms and play mission impossible when the security guards were nearby lol… I went back a few times to explore late at night, never got caught by any authorities thankfully 😅

I toured a home that had been vacant for years. The basement was a mess. Someone had been majorly into canning. Shelves had collapsed, shattering jars.

Other than that, it was a lot like touring a house while house hunting. Dirtier and more missing steps, but that's it.

I visited an abandoned roadside attraction in Thailand. It was a replica of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but it looks like it was never completed and now sees only the occasional tourist. There are shops and things right next to it, so maybe it's more semi-abandoned.

https://files.catbox.moe/bfwlax.jpg https://files.catbox.moe/roxi2g.jpg https://files.catbox.moe/e7856r.jpg https://files.catbox.moe/yeqdwv.jpg https://files.catbox.moe/quns9x.jpg

I was driving through the Sahara and there was a weathered building that looked like it had nearly been finished and then forgotten. It sort of felt like part of a pvp game. I slept overnight there so I didn't have to set up my tent.

In China, I rode my bike through entire towns that were completely built up and abandoned, including a 40-story fully furnished apartment building with a ridiculous gym and water features. It was demolished a couple months after i explored it

In Thailand I slept in this old temple that was totally overtaken with vines and brush. I was worried about snakes, but Buddha was like right there, so it was fine

In Hawaii there was this pillbox halfway through a mountain ridge hike. It was pretty locally famous and dull.

In Ireland, there were a bunch of abandoned houses on the road I walked down and when it rained too hard(every ten minutes or so, February in Ireland), I took refuge in them. They were missing walls and windows, but Ireland is so pretty they all felt like sacred sites instead of witch houses.

Oh I did find an abandoned building once taken over by hobos or teens and then reabandoned I guess, but it had needles and bottles and graffiti and I got real creepy feelings that around every corner or in the next room I'd find someone hunched over, biting their own tongue off or something.

I didn't though, so it was fine.

It was damp, smelly, and dark. But very exciting and cool.

It was interesting. A buddy and I were out riding our motorcycles and endeavored to "get lost"

Took a few pics lol https://imgur.com/gallery/xGUsnOb

For those on the fedi microblogs (mastodon, eg), you might appreciate this account: @AbandonedAmerica@mastodon.social

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So many, but I think my favorite was The Boyce Thompson Center in Yonkers, NY around 2004.

Pic when it was abandoned (which was after I went because it still had some windows back then): https://www.yonkersny.gov/Home/ShowPublishedImage/13314/635695526682900000

Now it’s been turned into some kind of mall thing according to google.

https://boycethompsoncenter.com

It was huge and creepy with underground tunnels that were flooded. The elevator shafts were standing open. We found a giant safe stuck on the stairs. It was one of the coolest experiences. Sadly, this was before everyone had a camera phone and I don’t think any of the crust punks I was with took any actual pictures.

Abandoned barracks. It was interesting and dangerous due to collapsed floors and stuff. I went there for Geocaching.