As some of you know, I like to go to abandoned houses. I went to three over the Easter break. I always take a souvenir when I leave and I always hope to find an old set in one of those places, this time I did. But something’s wrong with this old farm. I parked down the road since the driveway is gated and I didn’t want cops seeing my car out front. I walk to the back where I find an old 1955 or so Chevy work truck with a flatbed, sunk to its axles in the dirt, I felt bad for it and shut the open door after sitting in it for a minute and shifting the gears. I was already picking up a “weird vibe” that I didn’t like but there was so much cool shit to look at that I couldn’t leave. I found a total of I think 5 cars and trucks, two Chevy long bed pick ups from about 1975 one being a camper special, it’s been awhile since I‘ve seen one of those. One truck had been wrecked in the front. Two were AMC wagons from the early to mid 70s. All had plates that expired in 1983, all were sunk to the axles in the dirt. They looked to be in good condition when left, almost no rust or dents, just vandalism and theft of parts. One AMC had maps and a coat on the seat amongst other crap, the cars were simply driven there and left to rot. The Chevy trucks were rotted away from sitting, those mid 70s Chevy trucks in particular would rust a week after they rolled off the assembly line, the imported steel they used was very bad.

THEN there is the barns and garages, nothing good in there but they are all full, the hayloft is full of very old hay. The main barn had a lot of old household crap and magazines laying everywhere. Outside in the yard is farm equipment, tractor from the 20s that have been stripped for parts, a very large combine and other equipment, engines, barrels and shit. The garage stunk of chemicals, there are old metal cans of antifreeze and paint thinner rusting and leaking all over. All cabinets and drawers gone through and pulled out, things everywhere. You could tell people have taken anything of value, but there is so much there still. Sadly, no lawnmowers, probably stolen years ago. I don’t think anything was taken by the owners, only abandoned. WHY?

I saved the house for last, it had the most foreboding feeling of any old house I checked out. All windows are broken except a few which is too bad because that is why so much water is getting in. The back door was wide open, the second I walked up I got a chill and my intuition or inner voice, whatever you want to call it was saying get the f out of there. Did I leave? No. I probably should have but no. I went on in, smashed glass and crap all over the kitchen floor, looked into the living room, there was furniture, personal paperwork, family and school pictures, kids homework and more, all at least 20 years old. In the old front porch which had been turned into a room in the 70s had a lonely 1975 Zenith SS black and white tv and a 1987 MGA color set that was laying on the floor next to the very old bedframe that was in there. The roof has been leaking for some time now, the stairs have rotted badly so getting up there was not easy, water damage from top to bottom. The other side of the house has a leak in the roof in the same place, opposite the other leak. It is going to meet in the middle and the house will fall down in a few more years. The bathroom is upstairs and has the water damage from the other leak. More personal belongings up there, one bedroom has two beds for kids and a 1969ish Motorola 19” B/W set. The bed has seemingly been moved out of the way of the leaking water as if someone cares about it. The tv was on the floor in front of the two beds and a box fan is by the wall, wind howling thorough the broken windows. There is a very surreal and SAD feeling in this house. The only thing I noticed totally missing are clothes, I think that’s all they took like they left in the middle of the night and never came back. The other rooms have more paperwork, bills and crap.

There is something weird about the way this house seems to cry for help, it’s all I can do not to go out there and tarp up the roof and start fixing things. I usually never feel this way about them and have been in many, it’s like it’s calling me back. I was thinking of the house on Monday night laying in bed when it was raining, sad that more water is getting in. I have also never felt so compelled to write my story down. I am going back to check it out better and find info on the people that lived there and do some more exploring. I took the Motorola tv and it has the creepiest feeling, even after I got home. I may just bring it back to the house, I don’t want that energy at my house, I never brought it in, I just put it out in the garage. I doubt I’ll bring it back up those stairs but I’ll leave it in the living room. I also find it odd that there has been vandalism but no one smashed those tvs. Maybe it looked somewhat like this when they left, I don’t have any idea. I’m starting to wish I had never stopped there, it’s like I feel different now and can't explain it. I should have listened to my intuition. Thanks for reading my insanely long story about a wierd house and a crappy tv that none of us are really crazy about. I’m posting the story now but I’m going back this week to take pictures and bring that set back. I’ll post the pics.

that is a good story,mark.i think we all have been in similar situations.at least you didn t trash the place more.most folks your age would have done so.please post pics of your find.will see you in hilliard!

I really enjoyed your post, and completely understand the feeling you had when you were around that house. Some places just have a stronger "imrpint" on them than others, and I can only imagine how much stronger that feeling is when the previous occupant's belongings are still strewn all over...

Some places definitely come to mind from your story...Places stuck in another time, like there's a layer of dust over a still-life of a deceased person. Sad indeed, but IMHO the TVs are still worth saving. Let's face it, no one wants them anymore and the place is probably going to be demolished one of these days.

It's eerie to think about what, if any, spirits or energies are attached to the possessions which come from these type of homes. I think most are benevolent, but you'd ''best watch out'' for the ones with malicious intentions.

Only one time, out of all the times I've taken stuff 'from the unknown' did I feel as though I had encountered a malevolent spirit:

A 1987 CTC-130 TV from the curb. Worked well enough as found. One day I went down to the room where it was set-up and it was on, with a blank picture. You can believe the next part or not, doesn't matter to me: But it did happen.

The set wouldn't shut off, or change channels, or do anything. You should have seen how fast I ran after I held the AC plug in my hands and a beyond-HD image of an old man's tattered face appeared.

Weird stuff associated with this hobby, for sure.

Houses like that are breeding grounds for all sorts of fatal to humans bacteria & viruses.
That creepy feeling or vibe you picked up is death reaching out towards you.
Better call the EPA if chemicals are leaking into farmland soil.

Being raised on one of these farms/ranches before I moved to 'town' I can identify and totally recognize the scene you have described.
In fact, we still own several like you described.
Many farms here are conglomerations; a few thousand acres here, and then another thousand here, thousand there, Like us as people sold out to my family over the years as they left the trade for greener pastures.
Some of the previous owners stuff still resides here, and there in a few of our 'YARDS' as there is no garbage disposal services on the farm other than a dump, and burning barrel.... who wants to drive for 45 minutes or more just to reach a landfill, especially to throw away stuff that isn't theirs!!

When we moved to town all those years ago we selected things we wanted, and things we would sooner forget stayed out
Some are just acreage with a grainery here or there; the larger ones are peppered with a couple of houses and maybe a fuel tank or two with Toolbar's and disks, some seeders, combines, tractors ect, I just got done working on one of the farms last week.
Several farms have implements, but no tractor because the tractor goes from farm to farm with the operator rather than owning multiple expensive tractors and is stored off-site to prevent vandalism..

I was there from tuesday 7:00 am until 8:00 pm, same hours wednesday,thursday and also saturday last week.
I finished working the acreage and am not scheduled to return to this farm to work the land for another 3 YEARS, it is in CRP..
so for all parctical purposes this land is abandoned
So the farm is occupied approximately 48 hours over a 3 year period.
This can make for a pretty 'spooky' feeling for the uninitiated, non farm raised person but likely this scene would have not even caused me to pause for I know just how common it is.
To someone else coming to one of these farms/ranches from a busy, hustle, bustle city it could easily be culture shock; I can't even think how many 'farm garages' I have been in that look just like you described, pillaged and plundered; just like the owners left them:yes:
tal
http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll351/qboneus/IMG00428.jpg

Some places definitely come to mind from your story...Places stuck in another time, like there's a layer of dust over a still-life of a deceased person. Sad indeed, but IMHO the TVs are still worth saving. Let's face it, no one wants them anymore and the place is probably going to be demolished one of these days.

It's eerie to think about what, if any, spirits or energies are attached to the possessions which come from these type of homes. I think most are benevolent, but you'd ''best watch out'' for the ones with malicious intentions.

Only one time, out of all the times I've taken stuff 'from the unknown' did I feel as though I had encountered a malevolent spirit:

A 1987 CTC-130 TV from the curb. Worked well enough as found. One day I went down to the room where it was set-up and it was on, with a blank picture. You can believe the next part or not, doesn't matter to me: But it did happen.

The set wouldn't shut off, or change channels, or do anything. You should have seen how fast I ran after I held the AC plug in my hands and a beyond-HD image of an old man's tattered face appeared.

Weird stuff associated with this hobby, for sure.
I believe it. With all the experiences I've had, I whole heartedly believe it. This might just be one of those tvs. I did plug it in as found, it tried to work but no HV, not bad for a set that has been in front of a broken window for years with the elements blowing in on it. I really don't know if I want it. No other "souvenir" form an old house ever gave me this errie feeling before, at least not THIS bad. What did you do with that RCA??? It would be scary just carrying the set out of the house after that. Weird stuff indeed....

Hey Tal, thanks for sharing, this stuff usually don't bother me either but it was different this time for some reason. I too was raised in the county and we had a farm. I can't wait to go get the pics to share. It took a couple hours to look at it all, there is a few things I'm going to check better. It is weird that the tractors are there, like you said those usually go with the people because they cost so much.
eberts, I agree with you on the bacteria and viruses. I do this stuff at my own risk. These places are extremely dangerous, to think I used to do this as a teenager with no cell phone and no one knowing where I was......at least this time I had a phone:D

Yeah, Mark.....about that RCA....I didn't tell anyone why i wanted to get rid of it, and my buddy took it for free. Never saw it again, and he used it for another year or two and then upgraded. He threw it out.

There is a place near here called Pressmen's Home. It was the headquarters of the printing pressmen's union from 1911-1969. They built several buildings there, the most impressive of which was the Technical Trade school Building, a massive 5 story structure built at a cost of a million dollars in 1948. It was a swanky place in its day-the lobby had 2 man elevators in it, & was finished in pink variegated East Tennessee marble. Anyhow, I took a self-guided tour of the place in Feb 1991-by myself. The main floor was where they had printing presses set up, above that, the various floors had layout/stripping equpment, offices, classrooms, drafting/layout light tables, darkrooms, & the top floor was a 1000 seat auditorium. All the photographic/printing press equipment was long gone, but quite a few of the layout/stripping/drafting tables were still there. I guess I spent an hour or so wandering thru there, it was a bright warm Sunday afternoon, NOBODY else was there-And I had no real business being in there, either-But I'll swear on a stack of Bibles that I was positive I was being watched the whole time I was there. Nothing malevolent, you understand, just "under observation". There was one section of the building that I didn't go into-it was built into the side of a hill, & was black as pitch, & my Spidey-Sense said "Stay the F out, Fat Boy !" & I did. I guess I was so fascinated by all the stuff that was in there, that overcame my fear of being in a potentially dangerous place. I drive thru that settlement every so often, & almost every time I do, I get a feeling of almost indescribable sadness. But y'all know how sentimental about stuff I am. Maybe that's why the spooks 'n' ghosts didn't bother me the day I was there...

I travel quite a bit with my business, most of it in my Tahoe. I certainly run the interstate some and major highways as well, but a fair amount is on 2-lane country roads. As a result, I see a lot of abandoned houses.

The thoughts run through your head, what happened? Why is that house abandoned? Did they die and leave no heirs, or could the heirs not agree about what to do, or how to "divide up" the estate?

They seem to range from "already fallen in" to just starting to look scruffy.

The saddest part is seeing those big old houses that were beautiful at one time and maybe a few years ago, could have been saved, but now are too far gone.

I've never ventured inside one, for lots of good reasons, but practically every day I see one of them. :tears:

Some are just acreage with a grainery here or there; the larger ones are peppered with a couple of houses and maybe a fuel tank or two with Toolbar's and disks, some seeders, combines, tractors etc, I just got done working on one of the farms last week.
Several farms have implements, but no tractor because the tractor goes from farm to farm with the operator rather than owning multiple expensive tractors and is stored off-site to prevent vandalism..

I was there from Tuesday 7:00 am until 8:00 pm, same hours Wednesday,Thursday and also Saturday last week.
I finished working the acreage and am not scheduled to return to this farm to work the land for another 3 YEARS, it is in CRP..
so for all practical purposes this land is abandoned


http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll351/qboneus/IMG00428.jpg
I'm a city boy, so I have no idea what this machine does. Maybe it injects seeds into the ground?

I've heard that the government paid farmers to not farm their land. Is that what "CRP" is?

Where I grew up, northeast NJ, in surburban NYC, a farm was defined as "a piece of land where houses haven't been built yet". In Montvale NJ there was a roadside food store "Tice Farms" and a farm with apple trees and such behind it. One day a fire destroyed the store, and it got covered on the New York City local TV news. A friend who grew up in a farming community was laughing at the NY TV news reporters doing a story on this "farm". That he figured that most of the food sold there was trucked in from far away. The place later became the "Tice Industrial Park", with lots of parking lots and 3 story office buildings...

In upsate New York, along Route 17 I used to see lots of hilly farms, some with cows. Something about where milk comes from (I said I was a city boy :D )

I'd love to see pictures of this set. Something about abandoned buildings, especially when their contents are left behind, really intrigues me.

Thanks for reading my insanely long story about a wierd house and a crappy tv that none of us are really crazy about. I’m posting the story now but I’m going back this week to take pictures and bring that set back. I’ll post the pics.

I came across a house like the one in your story a couple of months ago. I saw an MLS listing for a cheap house on one of the only streets around me that fared well in Katrina. A little background - every structure in my parish (county) flooded except for about two dozen (my own best estimate), mostly a few old farm houses near the Mississippi River levee and about half the houses in this two-street subdivision. So I had to go check it out.

Now seeing tens of thousands of destroyed houses, with everyone's possessions strewn about the floors or piled 7-8 feet high on their front lawns kinda numbs you after a certain point. I drive over to this house, and start walking around the property. There's a large garage (4-6 car capacity) I look in first that is packed full of furniture and stuff - staring at me through the window is a rather large mid-late 80's console TV (Zenith or RCA.) I walk back to the house and looking through a back window into a bedroom I see the roof has been leaking for a long time, and on top of a dresser is a military burial flag in a wood & glass case. Odd that someone would leave that behind. But many people evacuated and were either too sick to return or died before they had the chance, so I'm figuring that's the case, maybe they had no family. I try the front door next, and it opens. First thing I see is a 1980 Quasar console TV, still in great shape, but all the furniture, newspapers, magazines, etc....everything looks like someone left for the store one day and never came back. Creepy. I've walked in 100 flooded houses, but my intuition was telling me not to go in, so I don't. Before I left I noticed another window and I look in - there are medicine bottles on the sill that expired in 1998.

So I'd really like to know the story behind this house - it is in a good neighborhood where houses just aren't abandoned like in some poorer parts of New Orleans. And why is it for sale now? Why would the heirs wait over ten years to sell a house that they could have gotten 3-4 times as much for before the roof went bad? Weird, just really weird.

Knowing that someone is going to have to pay to clear the house out, I thought about calling the listing agent and asking her about the Quasar, but heck, I really don't need another 80's console TV, don't know what I'd do with it. Maybe if I saw a ghost in it I could get on the Maury Povitch Show (or whatever program caters to that type of crap these days!)

I went into a few abandoned houses as a kid,but it always creeped me out too much to go back.But one time when I was in my late teens,I just couldnt resist.A friend of mine and I always loved the old building,so we climbed through a hole in the fence,and found an open door in the back.There were several theatre seats in various states of disrepair,and a roll of old tickets.We checked out the stage,and looked around.I wish I could have just stayed for a few hours to take in all the history.
BTW,it was the old Pan Pacific Auditorium in L.A.One of the most beautiful buildings ever,IMHO.There is a replica of it at the entrance to the MGM/Disney Studios tour at Disney World.
Jimmy

I've also got a thing for old and abandoned buildings, although I haven't been in any interesting buildings lately. I've seen some interesting things, but unfortunately I don't have pictures of most of them. It's a subject that I can ramble on about a bit, so if this gets too long and too far off topic let me know and I'll edit it down.

I spent a lot of time in the old Nubrik brickworks/quarry. I found the site sometime around 1995. At that time the production had stopped long ago and most of the production equipment had been or was in the process of being removed, but the company was still using one of the office buildings on site so vandals hadn't gotten to it yet. Wandering around the site I was amazed by the scale of some the machinery. Also the contrast between the newer (80s) machines controlled by PLCs and the much older stuff with control cabinets stuffed with masses of relays, uniselectors and even tubes.

As far as TVs the whole site was littered with many late 70s 12" B&W portables. They had been modified with video inputs, but the modification was switchable so the tuner could still be used. They had been removed from a massive "mission control" console that was in pieces in the middle of one of the buildings. I guess the employees dismantling the machinery were watching them. By the time I returned to the site later with a camera the vandals had gotten to the place and this was the condition of what remained. They had also destroyed some rare and unusual computer equipment including an original HP-150 touchscreen. The site remained abandoned until 2003 or so as the masses of asbestos and contamination on the site had scared the developers away. Eventually the housing boom pushed prices high enough that a developer took a chance, but that failed when the houses they built started sinking into the big hole that was there.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/brokenbwtv.JPG

I also spent some time in the old Waverly Park stadium that is now a housing development. Being the only person in a place that once held tens of thousands of people is a strange feeling. The only intact TV I found on site was a 14" Rank Arena portable that had been modified with a video input and an NTSC decoder in one of the commentary boxes. In hindsight I should have grabbed that set. Waverly park had a Stewart Warner video scoreboard that was installed in 1979. It could display a quarter of a video frame in 16 grey (well yellow/brown) levels on a screen made from 150W incandescent light bulbs. This was controlled by a dual redundant PDP-11/04 computers with a mass of custom electronics. The video gear had been removed from the control room when it was sold at auction, but the buyer left the PDP-11. Vandals had smashed the terminals and put a couple of dents in the cabinet, but those machines were built tough. After seeing other interesting machines meet an untimely end I decided to save this one. Getting it down from the 5th floor in pieces was hard work. It's in the hands of another collector now as it was too big for me to keep.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/waverlypdp.jpg

One day while wandering around the city I found someone had left the back door of the old Melbourne power station open. I couldn't find a way into the main generator room which was probably a good this as there was supposedly pretty extensive contamination in there, but I did check out the other building that housed the offices, a medical center, class rooms, a pool hall, and an auditorium among other things. Over the years it seems that building was used by many people for purposes unknown. Candles on the stairs, paper arrows on the walls to lead the way, messages written in the dust. There were several tube PA amplifiers there, but I had no way to remove them at the time and wasn't able to get back in later. This was shortly before the redevelopment started so security was much tighter the next time I was there. I hope someone managed to save them. I made it to the roof and this ancient elevator appeared to be still alive, but there was no way I was going to try it out.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/elevator.jpg

has anybody read 'The Road', by Cormac McCarthy?

No, but please fill us in on the book. And thanks to all who shared their stories about this stuff, it fascinates me, keep 'em comin'. Long posts are always welcome in my threads. I like the way this thread is turning out. I am going out tomorrow or the next day to take pictures.

IMO put that TV back if your getting a weird vibe, and stay out of that house as well. Just doesn't sound good to me man. Take someone with you in case you fall or something happens next time. A phone won't help if your knocked out cold.

^ That might be good advice. Hard for me to say, not having been there with you.

Talking about abandoned equipment and whatnot keeps reminding me of the decrepit radar station at Camp Hero, Montauk, NY. Tons of old radar amplifiers, modulators, antennae, and god knows what else. One entire portion of the base, which is underground, appears to have been deliberately filled with water. Very creepy considering some of the alleged 'experiments' surrounding the place in the early 1980s...:scratch2:

Great Thread!! Great stories!!! Almost every time I have seen abandon houses, farms & factories I get to wondering what went on and would love to walk thru them, but never had the time or the nerve!!! Thanks all!

The biggest thing keeping me out of abandoned houses is the knowledge that I probably don't look good in an orange jumpsuit! :D

Private homes are one thing as far as criminality, but when it comes to abandoned government facilities, military installations and the like, you better watch yourself for sure! THAT would be a scary time for a black Crown-Vic to roll up on ya.....:yikes:

Very good reading! Some great mental images. Well, I love abandoned places, too, but have always been too chicken to explore much. Or maybe just too "goody-two-shoes" to trespass? The places I have nosed around made me very nervous, and there was no reason to be-they were owned by people I knew (if distantly.)

When I was kid I got to know the farm behind us pretty well. There was the remnants of a road in the woods, you could just make it out in a couple spots, and there were trash piles along it dating from the thirties through the sixties. I found lots of great bottles back there, and let my imagination run wild about the people who lived in the old brick farmhouse. It was abandoned then-a couple times I wandered over. I could never get inside the house itself, though an old addition on the back had a wall that was failing-I could nearly squeeze in there. The basement was open, though. I found some Newsweek magazines from the 70s and a wrapper for an AMC car part. One day the owner (a farmer who lived just down the street) came up the long drive while I was there...I didn't want to run, but I sure did walk home fast! Again, I'm sure he wouldn't have cared. Funny that I didn't get spooked more-get this: the house is now restored, I know the present owner fairly well. He has researched it quite a bit. One of the oldest houses around, and it was a stopping point on the Underground Railroad!

When I was maybe 12 years old I was out riding with my Dad & one of his friends. I think they were scouting out a place to goose hunt? So they go up this driveway through a woods; to the left were the remains of what had been a large old house, nothing left but the basement. (it had been burnt) We then went in this small building to the right, probably a milk house or some such, and inside were several rolls of Scott toilet tissue that looked to be from the 40s! I didn't get them, but I did get the stack of late-40s magazines next to them-mostly Time. Then we went in this big barn; scary to me at the time because he stairs were not sturdy, but up we went. There were 2 very unusual things upstairs. One, and it still baffles me: it looked like a gallows! Maybe 16' tall or more, with a rope hanging from the highest point, and something in a noose that was ragged and looked about the size of, well, a head! My Dad & his buddy didn't seem to concerned with it. The other thing up there was a very, very long canoe! No idea how it got up there. Later we were looking through the magazines and in one there was an article on the Harvard (?) rowing team, showing the guys in a similiar boat. So, maybe one of the team was the son of the farmer? All gone now, another housing development.

Story I've related before: my great-grandparents lived in another one of the oldest houses around here, from the 1870s I think. He died in the early 60s and she died in '71, right before I was born. The house was inherited by their oldest daughter. While I have always lived near the place I never knew much about it. Finally, just prior to my great aunts death, one of my cousins bought the place. That was when I learned that all those years that house had sat, basically abandoned-and basically the way it was the day my great grandmother died. A few momentos and such had been removed, and and another relative had stored some furniture in there. But-her clothes were still in the closet, the food she had canned was still on the shelf (now ruined, of course), their 1951 RCA TV was still sitting there. It was said that my great aunt sensed her parents spirit in the house, and did not want it disturbed. And so it wasn't. I would not say I felt any eerie feeling when I finally did tour the place-it was more of a magical feeling, just an excitement of being in the middle of this time capsule.

I'll have to think of some other tales to tell, when I get time.

I didn't realize so many other people were also fascinated with abandoned homes and buildings. I've been exploring them since I was a kid, and have been in dozens of them.

In Paradise Valley, Arizona, there was an old "printing house" sitting in the middle of empty acreage, not even near a road, abandoned for years after it was fire-damaged. Lots of fascinating bits of printed stuff there, along with some of the old machinery, but I watched it gradually disappear to looters before it was finally razed to build something else on the property.

Here in Hong Kong during the 1980s, the pace of redevelopment was hectic. There were always old colonial-era buildings being torn down for re-development into high-rise developments. I went through every one I could, dozens of places, and picked up (rescued/salvaged) plenty of "souvenirs", including carved blackwood furniture with marble insets, old pressed glass, a solid copper-and-brass fire extinguisher from the 1920s, some nice colored-glass windows, etc...

There are also ruins going back a few hundred years, partly overgrown. Perhaps the most fascinating place is a large Banyan tree in the New Territories area, that grew right over a house that dated back a couple centuries. The brickwork of the house mostly either eroded away or perhaps was taken for recycling, but the roots and lower trunk of the tree, still grasping brick sections and single bricks in places, form an almost perfect square. You can literally walk "inside the tree" --well, inside the lattice-like web of its root/trunk structure-- as if you were walking into a room. It must have taken a couple of centuries to grow like that!

The most dangerous experiences I've had exploring the old buildings here were two staircases that collapsed while I was on them. I "rode them down" as if surfing, with only very minor injuries, but it isn't an experience I'd ever recommend. VERY dangerous! In one case, there was old chemical glassware (so it probably had traces of acids, etc...) on the ground floor below, where the stairway collapsed. One very elaborate and huge distillation flask I was keen to take as a souvenir, but unfortunately it was smashed by the collapse. :tears: I've never seen another flask quite like it, and am still curious to know what it was used for!

One other time that was scary was a place where a major section of an upstairs floor had collapsed, leaving only a strip around the outer walls, about 4 to 6 feet wide. The whole floor had been coverd with decorative Victorian or Art-deco tile work, laid over a thin cement layer, atop a wooden beam-and-board floor. My guess is that the weight of the tiles and cement on top had become too much for the aging (and probably rain-weakened, since the roof was poor) wooden flooring, leading to the collapse.

The strips along the outer walls were the only way to get to some back rooms, so I walked along that slightly-spongy-feeling strip of floor, hugging the wall as the strongest part, just waiting for it all to collapse underneath me and send me plummeting down.

Fortunately, it held and I survived to tell the tale. STUPID thing to try, but I was into exploring these places then, and had the bravado (=stupidity!) of relative youth.

One place gave me a bad feeling, and a bad cough every time I went in there. There was a gorgeous carved wooden bureau there, which I managed to take home, but for weeks afterwards --as long as I had it in the apartment-- I continued to cough, until I decided it was carrying some disease germs. It sat in storage for a few years and eventually was shipped back to the States. Seems to have lost it's cough-causing power over the years, if there ever was any such connection.

That same place had a wonderful fancy old ceiling fan with ornate metal work and beautiful carved-wood blades, with ruby cut-crystal lamp globes suspended below. Probably the most elaborate yet beautiful ceiling fan I've ever seen. It looked like something one would have seen in a circa 190X high-class Parisian salon (or perhaps bordello...) I managed to get it down and bring it home safely, too. In that same building (a high-end place with several apartments in it), just a day or two before I was first there, someone (unfortunately not me) found a large cache of mostly silver coins. Wish I'd found that! (Although I did get a smaller cache of silver coins from another place, later. A friend who was working in the demolition company found that and passed it to me. He is since deceased, so I keep it in his memory. Not really worth much monetarily, but worth something nostalgically.)

IMO put that TV back if your getting a weird vibe, and stay out of that house as well. Just doesn't sound good to me man. Take someone with you in case you fall or something happens next time. A phone won't help if your knocked out cold.

Good point, as much as I want to save the set, I don't need any more bad energies around me. Not to derail the thread but I have had so many run ins with that sort of thing that it is just not cool anymore. In fact, I think I may start a thread in the off topic forums on the subject. I could post stories for days, all still very fresh in my memory. I can still see all the things that happened like it was yesterday, they made quite an impression. Believe me or not, but I don't make this stuff up. I don't have to. I'm going to bring it back and put it in the living room, it will be better off there instead of upstairs, that and I'm not carrying it back up there. You will understand when you see the pics. This will be the last time I go there. NOTHING like this has left such an impression on me since I was a kid. This will be with me for a while, it's hard to put into words the feeling I have and the sadness at that house. I do believe I was being observed there like Sandy G. said in his post earlier. I know all this stuff is crap to some people but I go with what I have experienced, call me a kook or whatever. There are things in this world beyond the physical exterior.

Good point, as much as I want to save the set, I don't need any more bad energies around me.

Similar to this TV set?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/43/Poltergeistposter.jpg
:D

I know I'm nuts but this time I'm bringing my Mag light to see what's in the second half of the basement or crawl space, I really couldn't see before and I wasn't going in the dark. The first half seems to be an addition ( the kitchen ) The older part is all stone, I would date the house at around 1900. I'll take pictures down there too if something don't eat me. If I don't post anything else in a few days, come look for me. No one I know has the balls (or stupidity) to go with me to these places, that's why I've always done it alone.

It was really spooky looking out the front windows on the porch, the only ones with glass pretty much. Just looking at the cars going by thinking, what the hell is behind me??, it was like someone was hovering over my shoulder looking with me, maybe my imagination but I don't know...... I really wish one of you guys could come out there with me. Any takers????

Similar to this TV set?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/43/Poltergeistposter.jpg
:D

Yep, just not a Sony:D

Want creepy; make your skin crawl try exploring minesites!

Approximately 4915 abandoned hardrock mines exist in Montana by 'official' numbers

I only wish at the time, when I was more adventerous, I had a camera to document and share some of the 'findings'

I never took or picked-up anything that I didn't come in with though with good reason in these areas...


my great-grandfather blew 2 fingers off as a child living in red lodge Mt when he found a blasting cap laying on a rr track set by a mine and picked it up to play with it:eek:
That was 80+ years ago; imagine how unstable dynamite can become by aging and sweating in un-controlled environment for an additional 80 years or so....

some with larger cause to be concerned about 'energies' than others
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Mine_disaster
positively CREEPY atmosphere!

If you like abandoned industrial sites mines are :tresbon: if you are crazy :nutz:enough, know what you are doing, and careful enough..
tal

I don't know.........mines are where I draw a very big line. Those things make me feel claustrophobic just thinking about them:)

In Pressmen's Home, right next to the Trade School bldg I went into, is a chapel. The ramrod behind PH was a Maj. George Leonard Berry, he was president of the Union from 1907 til he died in '48. He was married, but it was common knowlege he had a "girlfriend". In the chapel, there was a fresco painted on the ceiling, w/angels & cherubim, etc, the face of one of the "angels" was sposed to be the girlfriend's face... The doors to the chapel were broken down, one was pushed over from the doorframe from where the floor was rotted away to where it got "solid" again. there was a maroon carpet that was about 2" thick covering the floor. I went in a little ways, could see the faded fresco on the ceiling, but it was dark in there, & you really couldn't tell much about it. Besides, the floor was kinda, well, not very solid, & I'm a big guy, I felt like Discretion was the better part of Valor, so I didn't tarry in there too long. Didn't particularly feel like trying to climb out of a basement in a ruined church...I also went into another bldg, it was their telephone building, it was kinda small, like a toolshed, all the old phone switchgear was still there, along w/manuals, spare parts, general junque. The latest date I found on stuff was 1948... Wished I'd "cabbaged" a bit on some of that stuff...The only thing I took was a weird tube that was pretty big, & had gold-colored getters in it instead of the more familiar silver...No #s on it of course.

Man, that place sounds cool Sandy. Is it still there?

Yep. There was a guy bought part of it though, & now he runs everybody off that wants to "look around". Google "Pressmen's Home", & you can see what it was like c. 1964...

Cool stuff! There is a lot that comes up about it. Glad to hear it's still there. On another note, WOW. I just got the weirdest de-ja-vu I've had in a while.

What's kept me out of abandoned buildings around here is *who* may also be inside. Lotsa crime in New Orleans. Guess that isn't much of a concern out in the country. There's a highrise downtown (The Rault Center) that's been vacant since the 1970's when there was a fire and 8 women jumped to their deaths. Pieces of it fall onto Rampart & Gravier Streets now & then. I know someone who's been inside (legally) and they say the upper floors are gutted, walking through the lobby & ground floor is like walking into 1973. There's more vacant highrises & industrial buildings since Katrina, but I'm more wary of the bums & crackheads than the police department!

I did find my 13" XL-100 and a Heathkit W-5M amp & pre-amp in a building my old boss was taking down in '06. Also saved the 1960's recessed fluorescent light fixtures from a board room and put them in my kitchen :) And an old ceramic-cased Western Union wall-mounted dialer that summoned a messenger to the place from the WU office.

What's kept me out of abandoned buildings around here is *who* may also be inside. Lotsa crime in New Orleans. Guess that isn't much of a concern out in the country. There's a highrise downtown (The Rault Center) that's been vacant since the 1970's when there was a fire and 8 women jumped to their deaths. Pieces of it fall onto Rampart & Gravier Streets now & then. I know someone who's been inside (legally) and they say the upper floors are gutted, walking through the lobby & ground floor is like walking into 1973. There's more vacant highrises & industrial buildings since Katrina, but I'm more wary of the bums & crackheads than the police department!

YES! I have thought of this many times, sometimes going in with a knife in my hand just incase. I went into a house in the middle of the ghetto in Kenosha a few years ago, I was very worried that someone was in there, people scare me more than ghosts and whatnot.

You know what, the camera I'm taking also does video. I'll bring some extra batteries and make a video for youtube.
I can post a pic of the set tonight, it's out in the garage "evil-ing" the place up.

I can't wait to see what you find there....Great thread:thmbsp:

And yeah, people can be way more frightening than spirits....only thing, at least you can see/hear people better, and know what's actually in there!

(...Is there anybody....OUT THERE?) :D

No way in Hell I'd do now what I did back then...Not w/all the Meth Labs & other nonsense they find around here now. The area where PH is has ALWAYS had a very "creepy" feel to it...Lots of people have claimed to see odd lights & stuff in the bldgs there-most of which no longer have electricity connected to them. There was a tuberculosis sanatarium there where quite a few people died-Back in the old days, there was a good chance you'd contract TB if you worked in a platemaking dept of a printer, because of the chemicals they used. When the Union pulled out in '70, they tried to contact the families of folks who had died & were buried there, to see if they wanted them moved. Some did, but a lot of the older graves had no remaining kin, & the cemetary was subsequently abandoned, & a lot of the records of who was buried there were apparently lost. That cemetary is ONE creepy place.

I explored many abandoned buildings when i was a teenager, and i did came across a couple of places packed full of TVs and assorted old electronics.

One was a huge early 1900s brickwork kiln, someone stuffed the kiln chamber with old electronics, appliances, bicycles, furniture and other assorted junk, lots of 60s tube B/W sets in there, most were smashed or missing parts so i just took the speakers, knobs and tubes from them, a couple were intact and i saved them along with cool 50s tube phonograph, this was back in 1992, the kiln is still there today but it's completely grown over by bushes and access to it is absolutely impossible.

The other was an old barn on the riverside, there were about ten 50s and 60s TV sets in there, they were all smashed up by vandals and again i took the tubes, knobs and speakers from them.

Today there are still quite a few abandoned building around here, including one fairly large and cool 1920s summer colony, but exploring this place is quite risky due to squatters and junkies living in the buildings, this problem has gotten a lot worse in the last few years, i've done a couple of trips in there on my mule so that i'd be able to get away fast if need to, but of course i can't get to the upper floors, you don't really want to take a chance and ride a half ton beast on a possibly unsafe floor

Excellent thread - great reading! I used to go "roguing" (as we called it) around abandoned houses all the time in my carefree youth. The only time anything strange happened was in this house. (Picture taken at that time; back in the early 80s.)
http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/scenicdive/OldHouse2.jpg
Friends of a friend were living in the one story addition on the right side of the house that had been the servants' quarters. They were living rent-free and looking after the property for the owners. They had keys to the main house and told us we were free to explore as long as we were careful not to break anything. It was an amazing house; fully furnished with all its contents undisturbed since the owner had died sometime in the early 60s.

The story we were told was that the owner's children could not agree on what to do with their deceased parents' estate and it had been allowed to just sit for over 20 years. I seem to recall that the family name was something like Lee or one of those other Virginia names that rhyme with history and in this case: money. Apparently the heirs were well off enough to allow what must surely have been, even back in the 80s, a multi-million dollar estate, to just languish.

The room off to the right in the picture below was the library. I still have dreams about this room - good ones, though. It was too dark to take pictures in since I didn't have a flash but it was lined with leather-bound books and drawers full of old maps. There were lots of maps from WW I showing detailed troop positions and trenches somewhere in France that had to have been originals - in English, French and German. There was one of those German helmets with the spike on top, guns, a bugle, flags, and thousands of letters. I feel certain that the deceased owner must have been a high ranking officer in the AEF.

http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/scenicdive/OldHouse1.jpg

Most of the furniture was Victorian and very posh looking but there were a few rooms with cheaper looking furnishings from the 40s and 50s. Nothing had been removed - the closets were still full of clothes and the pantry was stocked. My friends and I had lots of fun exploring the first two floors, joking and laughing and trying to play the bugle. It was a cold but bright sunny day, as you can see in the picture.

I was the first one to venture up to the third floor. At the top of the stairs the first door I came to opened on a large room, painted light blue and jumbled with children's furniture. It had a large fireplace which was filled with dead birds. The whole room was full of dead birds. The sun was streaming in through those three smaller windows (on the right side in the photo) but the room was freezing. And the air in the room was impossibly still and just said DEATH.

I wasn't exactly frightened, but I had to get out of that room immediately. I warned my friends but they had to experience it for themselves. I left the house immediately and waited in the yard. We thanked our hosts for the tour and had a very quiet and introspective ride home. It was weeks before we felt like discussing the "room with all the dead birds" but we all had similar reactions.

Thanks again for the great stories, I have been fascinated with this kind of stuff since I was a little kid and strange things started happening when my Dad remodeled the house we just bought. This was back in 1987. He came down the stairs sheet white a couple of times. Here are the pics of the infamous Motorola tv.......
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4303.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4304.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4305.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4306.jpg
Not much to look at but it sure aint stayin' here no more.

Interesting reading. Someone I know recently told me that a friend of his found an abandoned house way out in the woods that was full of old TV's. I told him that I'd like to check it out; but,The more I think about it, I probably should forget about it for many reasons. I did get a CTC38 console and an old Admiral B&W console out of a long vacated house; but, the owner of the property was with me when I got the sets. The house looked ransacked on the inside. I think it was one of those deals where it took years to settle an estate or some crap like that and the owner was cleaning out the house so she could sell it.

You know, in a way, this stuff is kinda fun. I'd go check 'em out if I were you but maybe not bring anything home. May make for some cool pics at least.

Thanks again for the great stories, I have been fascinated with this kind of stuff since I was a little kid and strange things started happening when my Dad remodeled the house we just bought. This was back in 1987. He came down the stairs sheet white a couple of times. Here are the pics of the infamous Motorola tv.......

Not much to look at but it sure aint stayin' here no more.

Don't just toss it or return it to the abandoned house to rot. In a way it seems it was somehow meant to be discovered and saved from the elements or vandals. I'm sure someone here would take it. Heck, I might be interested..:scratch2:

There are at least 3 HUGE mansions in the Tri-Cities area I know of that were tied up in estate squabbles-Fortunately, 2 of them in Bristol, Virginia, seem to have been resolved, & have been returned to their former glory.

oddly, I'd keep it. Better than letting it rot or get decimated by vandals.

We'll see guys, as strange as I feel around the damn thing, I too feel sorry for it and want to see it saved, that's why I took it in the first place against my better judgement. I'm going out there today with the camera, let's see what happens. If it's "not so bad" this time, I MIGHT keep it. But I'm NOT bringing it in the house.

In a way it seems it was somehow meant to be discovered and saved from the elements or vandals.

I too thought of this, and am contemplating. It is rather odd that no one has messed with them, especially the '87 color BPC set. You would figure someone would steal it. Now, if I keep this one, what about the other two I don't want? Let them rot in there?

Sandy G's mention of old phone switchgear reminded me of this.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/tubepabx1.jpg

It's a 25 line pabx with tube tone generators, probably from the mid 60s.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/tubepabx2.jpg

It was found installed in a tiny old house on the site of the Rocla pipe factory in the Springvale. That little house held the offices before the larger building was built in the 70s. It was abandoned until around 2001 after production was stopped in the mid 80s and the research lab closed sometime in the early 90s. It is now a housing estate, but the 70s office building remains and was still occupied when I was last in the area. Most of the production machinery was from the 60s or earlier and most of the control gear was still tube based in some way (well, thyratrons, analog computers and nixie tube displays anyway).

http://65c02.org/images/ak/tubepabx3.jpg

Dr.Ido- Yeah, that's kinda what I remember it lookin' like...Bunches upon bunches of relays, miles & miles of wire...It apparently was a "3-digit" system, which certainly limited growth. And the fact that the whole kit 'n' kaboodle fit in a room that was about half the size of a one car garage...Like everything else over there, though, it was in this solid little brick building that had opening windows, & was finished out as nicely as someone's house..EVERYTHING they built or did over there was done that way, though. I can just remember it when I was a little kid, the whole place had an incredible "manicured" look to it. Even the Trade School, which had suffered mightily from vandalism by '91, still had a hint of being well-taken care of-at least in part of its life.

3-digit system? Not surprised it was left to rot! But it is still an impressive looking machine:yes:

Mark: That's different from the Motorola I was picturing, but in a weird way, this one IS a creepy little bastid! Something about it, and I haven't even felt the odd vibe you have felt around it. Just looks like it was the property of some mean senior citizen who would yell at the kids to "stay off my lawn damnit!".....Someone from a different time; someone who bought the set new and used to watch Camel cigarette ads on network tv back in the day. Perhaps the same cigarettes which led to his demise.

That said, I'd return it for sure. And....watch your back on the drive....a creaky old set in the backseat can never be trusted....

Wow man, I can't wait for the pictures!

I've always been fascinated with this sort of thing too. There's a number of abandoned farms around here, in rural Saskatchewan. We used to drive around looking at them. We never really went inside, but just sorta looked in the windows and everything.
My grandparents used to take my mom and aunt to go see these places when they were kids too. Some of these houses were still fully furnished. One of them even had a 1940s calendar, still hanging in the kitchen (this was in the late 1960s, early '70s).
My grandma used to drive out looking at abandoned farms too. She came across a victrola, and a big pile of 78s, and an old diary in one particular place. She read the diary cover to cover. She left it behind though.

A while ago, me and my friend were hired to clean up all the scrap metal off an abandoned farm. There were a bunch of buildings just FULL of stuff. You name it, it was in there.
The house was still full of stuff too. It was kinda eerie, how all the furnature and everything was still layed out as if they just went out for a pack of smokes or something.
The basement was totally flooded too. Down there, there was shelves full of all kinds of stuff, and furnature and everything, but all under water.
There was also a bunch of old cars in this swampy slewy area. Early '60s era GM's; 2 Pontiac Laurentians, a Pontiac Strato-Chief (Canadian models), a Chevy Bel-Air, and a GMC truck. All sunken right into the ground, with license plates that expired in the '70s and early '80s.
There was also an '80s era Pontiac Parisienne sitting by the house, which was obviously their daily driver, still sitting there, waiting to be driven again.
I did get a souvenier from that place; a ~1969 Road Runner 14" travel trailer, that was destined to be scrapped. But it was still in great shape, and would cost jack shit as scrap, so my friend said I could have it, and he'd help me get it home and everything, in exchange for a day of work.
I'm gonna start restoring it, and my friend's also very excited to see what I'm gonna do with it.
It's a cool little thing. I did have to totally scrub it all out with bleach though, due to the multitude of mouseshits lol

But yea, that's another thing. You gotta be careful at these places, because deer mice (the ones with the big round mickey mouse ears) spread the hantavirus, and that's fatal.

I think this summer I'm gonna go exploring in some abandoned farms, but i'm gonna bring a friend along with me just in case.

Just imagine stories that abandoned houses, cars, etc. can tell.

Tom: Yeah.....I could smell it back there on the way to work. Same creepy smell of that house. Now, it's been back there all day in the sun, my car reeks I'm sure. It's funny that it is now sitting in the middle of Lake Forest Il, one of the most rich communities of the North Shore:). It may or may not go back "home" today. I find myself becoming more and more attached to it. I was afraid of that. Same thing has happened before with weird old creepy stuff I've picked up. Nevertheless, I'm heading out there at 3:30 this afternoon, I'm almost free from work! Pics posted tonight. Video on my youtube channel too, I may upload that tomorrow.
Wilkes: Great story!

But yea, that's another thing. You gotta be careful at these places, because deer mice (the ones with the big round mickey mouse ears) spread the hantavirus, and that's fatal.
Just imagine stories that abandoned houses, cars, etc. can tell.

I have never understood the huge fear of Hanta, since Mt started keeping records in 1992 we have had a total of 8 deaths!
8 people in 17 years!

I and many other 'farm folks' here in montana feel that the hanta fear is unwarranted and very rarely take ANY precautions when dealing with "possibly infected" materials because I have a higher likelyhood of being struck by lightning, or a drunk driver than I do contracting Hanta.:sigh:
tal

Here are some of the pics, I'll do a photobucket of all of them soon. I also still have to make a video, I killed the battery on the pics. I'll do it tomorrow. Nothin's hurt me yet, what's one more time gonna do??
North side.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4421.jpg
The set was found in front of the closet on the floor.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4389.jpg
to the right in the same room.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4390.jpg
Zenith in the front room.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4380.jpg
MGA off to the right of the Zenith.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4383.jpg
Living room looking north towards the stairs.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4379.jpg
Looking down the stairs.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4394.jpg
Me in the bathroom mirror, pieces of wall in the reflection.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4412.jpg
More to come later. I'm tired and have to get up at 5.

Did you jump when you saw yourself in the mirror? I worked in some old hangers at the K.I. Sawyer AFB and there was an upstairs that was no longer used. It was a locker room with showers. I went snooping looking for cool stuff. It was really dark because the lights were burned out. I turned a corner and I saw something move. Alas it was just my reflection in a mirror. Boy did I jump!

If I would have thought about it sooner I would have went snooping around the old airbase sooner. By the time I thought about it there was too many people around. Now if I was teen I could have gotten away with snooping around. If caught people would just tell you to get the hell out of here. the perfect time would have been when the land still was still military jurisdiction and the cops really were hampered by what they could do. I know people that were pulled over for speeding but were let go. Eventually it was all conveyed to the county and the local police then had jurisdiction.

There are still tons of empty rotting buildings out there. But the county want's a crap load for them. The housing area has steadily grown. When they started selling the duplexes they wanted a lot of money for them. Well with all the gov. loans defaulting they are a dime dozen from the banks. But who want to live there? All the riff raff in the county moved there because they couldn't get in anywhere else. And then the "prison family's" moved in from the big citys. Back when I first lived out there it was fairly quiet but as time went by kids slowly started forming into packs that would traverse the base causing trouble. There was two high speed chases while I was there. I should say slow speed because everything was glare ice and the banks 6 foot high. If you go there now it's pretty depressing area.

Newhallone, too bad you couldn't have checked that place out better, who knows what you may have found.
Yesterday was a little different at the house, I walked in and that feeling of anger and doom was not so bad, maybe if there is something there, it knows I'm not there to do harm. I still felt the extreme sadness though. I lingered a while to take it all in. I noticed right away that things have been moved, someone else had been there. The wood paneling that was laying on the stairs from water damage was now thrown to the side, you can see it in the living room picture by the window. That revealed just how rotted the stairs were. It seems that fate had saved that set after all, maybe I was supposed to find it when I did. Those stairs will not hold a person this time next year. Those two leaks in the roof are fatal to this house, they are eating away a load bearing wall that holds all the floor joists for the second floor. it will then fall in starting in the middle. I'd like to patch that fucking roof but it would be pointless, the damage has been done. It leaks where the two peaks of the roof join in the middle, the gutters plugged and water backed up and started coming in, plus it rotted the edge of the roof and the soffits. I think it could have been saved about 8 years ago. The roof is starting to fail in other areas too, the spots are showing and will eventually look like the corner of that room by the bed. One place is the front room where the other two sets are, one spot being right over the Zenith. I have pics of the adult bedroom and it has a small religious keychain on the window sill that is for protection, I took a pic. A wish prayer on a piece of decorative cardboard is also on the floor. This is the nicest room in the house, no broken windows or bad damage, just a mess. A photo of a woman is there on the floor by the bed and alarm clock. The corner of the closet in that room is starting to show the slow demise of the house, it is the wall shared by the bathroom, the other leaking area. The small blue room is a nursery with a crib and stuff everywhere, more mail, receipts ect. One being form the Kenosha Co. Co-Op for feed in 1965. This was the Schaffer farm. That is the only name on everything of any date, this house was in that family for a long long time. I wonder if there are descendants that know anything about the place? The closet in the blue room is falling through too, also because of that leak in the other kids room. It's right above the stairs, mail and paperwork are starting to fall to the first floor.
I noticed in the pictures, there are some white orbs in the pics of that front room, coincidentally, the room with the strongest presence in it. Look at the pic of the MGA by the window, it's sticking to the wall there. I've seen this happen many times, people tell me it is dust, I only see these when there IS some sort of presence in a place or on things. I have seen these little orbs in pictures clinging to tv sets in my collection and Doug Harland's too amongst other things. I have pictures of things no one has been able to explain logically. I have also seen very odd colored ones, and with my own eyes floating down a hallway. That will be one of the stories on my thread in the OT forums. Also, coincidentally, these are sets that neither one us can seem to let go of. One of his is a CTC7 Sanford model.
I may very well be the only dumb son of a gun that wants to preserve the history here, soon my knowledge and pictures will be all that remains. I took 115 pictures. BTW, I can't seem to let go of that damn tv......

Aww man, just imagine all that's gone on in this house. Families being raised there, and now it just sits to rot.
I wonder how long it's been abandoned? The damage looks as if it's been abandoned for decades.
That house does have a wierd energy to it too, like there's still a family living in it. Even from the pictures, you can tell.
And about those orbs, I have seen those before, and I don't think it's just dust.

Hell, I'd take that Zenith set :D Actually....we tried that already didn't we ha-ha. Orb says: hands off, AKers. :yes:

Neat bunch-o pictures. I definitely agree that these orbs are real and are not just dust like everyone seems to say. Video ones are cool too: The way they appear and disappear is pretty wild.

The child's crib thing and the microwave oven near the MGA are the eeriest things in that place as far as I can see. :scratch2:

Call me crazy, but microwave ovens have an especially miserable and spooky presence to them in an abandoned house. I remember cleaning out my grandparents' home after they passed, and I unearthed a knob-timer oven just like that, which hadn't been used in years. An early 80s model Tappan IIRC. It worked well, and I cleaned it up for sale at a yardie. The other nuker, an old Sanyo, sat for another few years and then got junked. It used to feed the family and now they're gone and it's all by itself destined to be trash. :sad:

But yeah, very interesting stuff here Mark. And you don't even look scared in the mirror photo! :thmbsp: Keep the Motorola, I bet you can make it work really well again!

That IS one more creepy lookin' place...Puts me in the mind of Ed Gein's house. And no, I don't think those orbs are light tricks or dust bunnies, either. And yes, I think you SHOULD save that TV. Something needs to be saved from that place, in another year or 2 it'll be too late...I'm surprised somebody hasn't torched it. That's a favorite trick of the vandal set down here.

Cool house, I'd be more worried about Mold than Ghosts though. :)

If you clean the set up it'll look less spooky.

Look closer at that ol' MAG color set on the floor, it almost looks like it's on with a blank raster.

That IS one more creepy lookin' place...Puts me in the mind of Ed Gein's house.

I hope there weren't any meathooks on the back porch.

Alright, I looked carefully at the pictures again...but I can't figure something out.

What the hell is an orb?

I believe it's a white spot of light, believed by many paranormalists to indicate the presence of a spirit.

Looks like some attention was paid to that house back in the seventies, judging by the paneling and trim. To me it just seems empty and kinda sad. On a very slow path to death.

That MGA looks to be one of their "blue tube" sets. I don't know if I've ever seen one in person.

Another old house story (and another repeat) in the late 90s I answered an ad in the classifieds, "old TV sets for sale". Turns out that a 90+ year old gentleman had died and his nephew was settling the estate. He had a farm with an old house and lots of buildings; he lived in an old trailer out by the road. The house and farmstead had been packed with antiques and for 3 straight weekends they had held auctions at the local firehall. What was left were the TV sets, seen as pretty much worthless. I did get some decent stuff out of there, but I had to leave maybe a dozen sets. Mostly bw consoles from the late 50s/early 60s. They were all in the house, which as very close to falling down. Every room had one or two sets in it, along with assorted junk. (trash furniture, old mattresses) I would have liked to spent more time and explored but, 1) I was being escorted by the nephew who kept me from venturing far and 2) the only time I could meet with him was late in the day, just before dusk, and there was no electric in the house. The real gems were on the enclosed front porch; I was basically down on my knees digging in the dark, throwing whatever I could grab into boxes. Tubes, knobs, assorted electronic knick-knacks. There was a 50 year old refrigerator on the porch used to store tubes and such; there were also about a dozen Electrolux vacuums in there which I could have had but didn't have room for. The nephew mentioned that his uncle had never owned a color TV; well, there was an 80s RCA in one shed, in pieces (the newest set I spotted) and inside there was a sad Sylvania tube chassis color set. (I brought that one home and should have saved it, but didn't-had HV issues) The greatest find, and the one that always struck me as peculiar in some sort of way, was a Zenith 25MC30 roundie, a bare-bones metal console. (looks like they made special efforts to build it cheap) The set is clean as a pin inside and out, and I was able to get it working with very little effort. Biggest fault was a bad power switch. Seeing that big "eyeball" in that lonely back room at dusk on a cool April day....strange. For a long time I felt a little uneasy when I watched that set, as if it was going to go "kaplooey" at any point, or something.

That whole place, the house, the TV sets, the farmstead, became a practice session for the volunteer fire company. All long gone now. The nephew and I actually destroyed a shed while we were there-we were able to push what was left of it into a pile. Inside were 2-3 fruit baskets full of globe/ST tubes. Yeah, I got 'em.

I believe it's a white spot of light, believed by many paranormalists to indicate the presence of a spirit.

I get those spots often when shooting in a dirty/dusty environment, especially when firing a flashgun. Film or digital.

In fact, I took a pic last week and there's several on the side of a hutch in a warehouse. The owner is still alive btw.

I've participated in many a debate about the orbs on a couple of paranormal discussion boards. Pretty convinced that they can be something from another plane, but hey I have no proof either.

The MGA blue-screen sets made quite a nice picture. I was given a 26" one a few years ago and it had composite inputs and stereo. I sold it for I think 25 dollars. Sure looks like it's on in that picture, good point...strange.

I don't wanna see this thread 'die' :D

Speaking of orbs, here are a few cool pics of the barn, dusty but the wind was still in there. There wasn't much dust in the air according to the beam on my Maglite. The dark pic was taken with no flash, orbs still appear.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4322.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4323.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4324.jpg
Look at this one closely, some spots are little holes, but not all of them.
Here is the same pic, only brightened. Look at them now, a few are kinda green. Some were even hiding in the completely dark parts of the pic.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4324_2.jpg
BTW, anyone think I should save the other sets???

Very cool post... I really enjoyed it as well as all the other contributions. Growing up in suburbia we just never have abandoned homes. Most of the homes here were built in a forty to fifty year time frame so you just don't see old homes where I live.

Thinking about if I were in an older area like that it would be really weird and creepy.

Just for the hell of it, here's a few more...
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4395.jpg
Baby's room
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4396.jpg
To the right in same room
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4399.jpg
Further to the right, it says "HELP" on the wall
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4403.jpg
Adult bedroom. I believe this is Emma Schaffer
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4406.jpg
Religious keychain for protection, the window is broken, I thought this one wasn't in an earlier post. Still the nicest and most safe feeling room.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/100_4414.jpg
Also in the same room

Yeah, you oughta save all the sets you can from there. You were led to that house for a reason, maybe saving the sets was it.

Cool thread! I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff as well...in fact, stopped yesterday at a farmsite where everything but the garage had been leveled. There was a big scrap pile...I was looking for a small sheet of aluminum to fashion into a bottom cover for my ham transceiver. No aluminum...did pick a bunch of bare copper wire that'll come in handy for grounding & such. On the pile was an extremely battered "farm radio" (batteries only) that was waaaaay beyond rescue...but none of the tubes were broken! Into the trunk it went to be parted out. Found a really busted-up brown plastic AA5 radio, too...some salvageable parts there as well. I'm stopping back today...gonna load up this small air compressor that looks like it'll be easy to get going. Need one of those!

BTW: I read an article a few years ago in Popular Communications about an abandoned farmhouse somewhere in Minnesota that had the remains of a radio repair shop on the 2nd floor. Lotsa tubes, parts & radios...the usable stuff was harvested. The writer avoided indicating the location. Drat! I'd love to stumble across something like that!

BTW: I read an article a few years ago in Popular Communications about an abandoned farmhouse somewhere in Minnesota that had the remains of a radio repair shop on the 2nd floor. Lotsa tubes, parts & radios...the usable stuff was harvested. The writer avoided indicating the location. Drat! I'd love to stumble across something like that!

Before I got into fixing radios, I failed to scoop up the contents of an old desk in a carriage house - every drawer was filled with old caps & resistors (and other small parts) from the 20's through the 40's. Back then, my uncle's grandfather & father ran a radio shop out of there before moving to a storefront around 1950 or so. I did save all the old meters I found, and some radio & appliance trade magazines from 1945-47. I had no idea anyone would want those old caps & resistors. The house was sold five years ago, and I have no idea if the new owner cleaned out the carriage house.

Here's a color roundie that had the misfortune of being installed in the wrong area code.

Photo NOT mine.

http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/leeplaza/0211TV2_JPG.jpg.html

Aww, man, what a sad picture !

Man, that sucks. I'd still bring 'er home and put in a CRT, the rest don't look bad, neither does the Zenith.
I'm thinking of grabbing the other two sets. I'm also looking into who currently owns the house, checking at the county records this week. I'm gonna see if there's a way to save the whole damn place. If not, oh well I tried.

You a Good Man, Charlie Brown...

Man, that sucks. I'd still bring 'er home and put in a CRT, the rest don't look bad, neither does the Zenith.
I'm thinking of grabbing the other two sets. I'm also looking into who currently owns the house, checking at the county records this week. I'm gonna see if there's a way to save the whole damn place. If not, oh well I tried.

WHOAA! Awesome man! Wouldn't it be cool if you ended up buying the place?

Do you think the house is at all salvagable? I know there's water damage of biblical porportions, but it would still be cool to revive the place.

WHOAA! Awesome man! Wouldn't it be cool if you ended up buying the place?

Do you think the house is at all salvagable? I know there's water damage of biblical porportions, but it would still be cool to revive the place.

I could save it, I'm a good carpenter. It would take a while but it could be done. Fix the roof and you have all the time in the world to worry about the rest. after further inspection I found that most of the studs and rafters are good, that old cylotex wallboard and plaster is falling all over but I've dealt with that before. Just suit up and start rippin' it down. Out there, you can gut the place and bury all that crap out back. I doubt I'll be able to do anything though, it probably is owned by family that is letting it rot. I wonder if anyone else has inquired about it? That's why I am, you never know.

Here's a color roundie that had the misfortune of being installed in the wrong area code.

Photo NOT mine.

http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/leeplaza/0211TV2_JPG.jpg.html

Anyone know what make this set is? Looks like a later round-screen color receiver. I agree, except for the destroyed CRT, the rest of the set looks good. This was a pretty cool looking hotel it was installed in.

Gilbert

I'm thinking CTC-15 clone, not sure of the make though.

http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/leeplaza/0212TV3_JPG.jpg.html
Check out this combo! I spy a garrard changer.

BTW: I read an article a few years ago in Popular Communications about an abandoned farmhouse somewhere in Minnesota that had the remains of a radio repair shop on the 2nd floor. Lotsa tubes, parts & radios...the usable stuff was harvested. The writer avoided indicating the location. Drat! I'd love to stumble across something like that!

http://www.qsl.net/wa0jcv/Shop.htm

Hey...thanks for finding that! Cool story, huh?

http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/leeplaza/0212TV3_JPG.jpg.html
Check out this combo! I spy a garrard changer.

And a Packard Bell TV......

That would be cool if you got it, restoring an old house is something I've always wanted to do.

That would be cool if you got it, restoring an old house is something I've always wanted to do.

Me too! I own an old house in town but it's not the same as fixing up something like this. Just imagine the possibilities this place has.....
I also grew up on a place like this, my mom showed horses and later I helped run my girlfriend's dad's Black Angus farm. The BEST meat I've ever had to this day!

That "Help" scratched into the wall gave me the heebee geebees.

Very cool thread!

It gave me the creeps too, I also think it has meaning behind it. That house just begs for help.
I'm also getting the courage to start work on that set, I'll post pics of the inside.

RED RUM....RED RUM....RED RUM.....RED RUM...Mbwahahahahahaha...

RED RUM....RED RUM....RED RUM.....RED RUM...Mbwahahahahahaha...

:lmao: I love "The Shining"!

---

:D Looks like you're about to set him on fire or something! Great pic. Some serious orb action too....wow.

Cool pic Grimer! Those orbs look like they're gonna get you!

This is the first time that I could describe a thread as 'riveting'

A rattling good read - pics are good too.

I explored a partially burnt down large house when I was a teenager - and got that same sad feeling, unfinished business, 'where are they now' kind of feeling. Half the house was completely wrecked but the living room was quite untouched, walls lined with books and everything neat and tidy. The hall ceiling had collapsed against the living room door, so no chance to get in the room - just empty - a very weird feeling.


John

check out this vid, dozens of old abandoned TVs in there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Ds8S6F6Bc&NR=1

Good point, as much as I want to save the set, I don't need any more bad energies around me. Not to derail the thread but I have had so many run ins with that sort of thing that it is just not cool anymore. In fact, I think I may start a thread in the off topic forums on the subject. I could post stories for days, all still very fresh in my memory. I can still see all the things that happened like it was yesterday, they made quite an impression. Believe me or not, but I don't make this stuff up. I don't have to. I'm going to bring it back and put it in the living room, it will be better off there instead of upstairs, that and I'm not carrying it back up there. You will understand when you see the pics. This will be the last time I go there. NOTHING like this has left such an impression on me since I was a kid. This will be with me for a while, it's hard to put into words the feeling I have and the sadness at that house. I do believe I was being observed there like Sandy G. said in his post earlier. I know all this stuff is crap to some people but I go with what I have experienced, call me a kook or whatever. There are things in this world beyond the physical exterior.

Some places just give you bad vibes. The reason why you feel sad is because at one time there was a feeling of sadness in the home. Maybe that's why they lost it. I feel that way when I walk buy some foreclosed homes in my city. Some homes give off certain energies of what occurred there. Maybe the spirits liked the home and want to stay and feel like your intruding on their property. I would not recommend taking anything from the house, you might bring back something to your home.

It's hard to convince any skeptic that these things are real. Until they have an experience, they too will believe themselves.

I also enjoy going to abandoned places. Love the stores posted. This weekend I'm going to visit the Mansfield State Reformatory in Ohio.

I would take all those sets. They are only going to waste there. Actually that other Black & White set is far better looking than the one that you did take!

I've seen and experienced a lot of these sort of strange things, and while I will say that I do think this sort of otherworldly stuff is totally real, just because it's weird, doesn't always mean it's bad. Whenever I came across something that was really not good, it got cold, very, very cold. If you walk around that house and don't feel that cold, (that's not to say that there's not something going on there), but it's probably ok. The study of the paranormal/supernatural, whatever you want to call this stuff, is of great interest to me, I just usually don't talk about it because I don't want people thinking I'm nuts.

I'm with you there Adam, I study it too. The house didn't have the cold feeling like the one I grew up in (LOTS of stories to tell about that one!) You could see your breath in the middle of summer sometimes in the upstairs bedroom across from mine. I too was thinking that people would call me nuts but hey, I was the one to experience all these things in my life so I figured that it don't matter what others think. I am happy I did share some of them, this thread has turned out more interesting than I would have ever thought.

Besides the odd TV ghost story which I mentioned earlier in the thread, only one other occurrence stands out in my memory. One time when I was about 10 years old I was taking a shower whilst home alone. It was dusk when I went in the shower on a summer night. When I was all done it was dark outside. I remember passing the room which overlooks the street in the front of my house, where there is a streetlight. Usually the streetlamp is clearly visible, especially when its lit, before my descent down the steps to my bedroom. This time I saw pitch black darkness. Thinking the door to that room was closed, I went to push it open, but it was already open. I was baffled so I entered the room. I saw the outline of a man's figure blocking the window. I ran so fast I almost lost my towel! I was ready to call the cops but instead called my friend to come over. We went back up there and there was nothing to be found. Of course he didn't believe me.

My sister & a friend of hers were riding around one evening, & for whatever reason, ended up in Pressmen's Home. The "big" hotel there, The Pressuana, sat off to the right on this little rise. There was a small parking lot in front of it. Now, this was in the late '70s-early '80s, the place had been abandoned for a good 10 years at that point. Anyhow, my sister swears to this day that time there was a big Cadillac limo parked there w/a bunch of guys dressed like the Blues Brothers standing around it, staring ominously at ML & her friend. The other girl was driving, ML punched her on the shoulder-"Hey, look at THAT..." and they were GONE. No Caddy, no Blues Brothers, no nothing.

I remember passing the room which overlooks the street in the front of my house, where there is a streetlight. Usually the streetlamp is clearly visible, especially when its lit, before my descent down the steps to my bedroom. This time I saw pitch black darkness. Thinking the door to that room was closed, I went to push it open, but it was already open. I was baffled so I entered the room. I saw the outline of a man's figure blocking the window. I ran so fast I almost lost my towel! I was ready to call the cops but instead called my friend to come over. We went back up there and there was nothing to be found. Of course he didn't believe me.

Sounds like you saw a "shadow person", a lot of people call in Coast-to-Coast AM with stories about seeing that dark figure.

Hey Mark, after you told me about this thread the other day, I read it - too bad I didn't see it earlier, I would have gone in there with you and checked out the house - if you plan to go back, let me know!

I know I'm nuts but this time I'm bringing my Mag light to see what's in the second half of the basement or crawl space, I really couldn't see before and I wasn't going in the dark. The first half seems to be an addition ( the kitchen ) The older part is all stone, I would date the house at around 1900. I'll take pictures down there too if something don't eat me alive. The house is located appx. 1 mi north of county road Q (or 104th street) on 120th ave (frontage road for I 94). on the right in Pleasant Prairie WI. If I don't post anything else in a few days, come look for me. No one I know has the balls (or stupidity) to go with me to these places, that's why I've always done it alone.

It was really spooky looking out the front windows on the porch, the only ones with glass pretty much. Just looking at the cars going by thinking, what the hell is behind me??, it was like someone was hovering over my shoulder looking with me, maybe my imagination but I don't know...... I really wish one of you guys could come out there with me. Any takers????

This thread reminded me of a Website that I came across several years ago, that was built by a young lady in Russia (now Ukraine). She has/had access to the "dead zone" around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant that was caused by the meltdown and documented her motorcycle tour of it. Here is the link: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ She has added much more material since I first found the site, but I think it is a fasinating work in photo jouralism. The other stuff is just as interesting as the Chernobyl material. Start by clicking on the links in her toolbar on the left. The original Chernobyl material is the second link down; "Ghost Town and the Land of the Wolves". It'll creep you out big time.

I still haven't taken that set apart yet or gotten the other ones, I will next week after the ETF convention. I'm still working on who actually owns the place too...updates later.
Joe, I'll get ahold of you then too, you are welcome to come with.
Very cool site thunderroad.

This thread reminded me of a Website that I came across several years ago, that was built by a young lady in Russia (now Ukraine). She has/had access to the "dead zone" around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant that was caused by the meltdown and documented her motorcycle tour of it. Here is the link: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ She has added much more material since I first found the site, but I think it is a fasinating work in photo jouralism. The other stuff is just as interesting as the Chernobyl material. Start by clicking on the links in her toolbar on the left. The original Chernobyl material is the second link down; "Ghost Town and the Land of the Wolves". It'll creep you out big time.
I was equally impressed with this elena and her pictures until I found out it is a sham..
sorry,

http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread_archive.asp?fid=1&threadid=8951&currpage=4
sorry for the Hj.

check out these photos!
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/04/inside-chernobyl/audio-interactive
tal

I kinda been missing this thread and since there's been no postings for more than a month I thought I'd ask if there were any updates on either information on the farm, the Evil Motorola, or either of the other two sets (not sure if they are evil or not but the MGA might be possesed!!) I've been hanging for a month, It's almost as bad as the summer I spent hanging waiting to find out who shot JR!!

I was enjoying this thread also but looks like it finally fizzled :(
-Tony

Don't worry, there are many other sets abandoned out in the wild, possibly having some type of spirit lurking deep within the vacuum of their CRTs...

It didn't fizzle yet, I have an update to post but have been busy. I'll get to it soon.

Any updates?

:scratch2:

Well, one of the guys from The Chicago Paranormal Society met me out there to look around. He felt a weird presence as well and sent me a very cool picture of an orb that looks like it has motion streaks behind it as if it were moving very fast. Right now, it looks like the I 94 rebuild project is going to be the end of the whole place. The frontage road is now gone and is ready to be moved over, right through the middle of the house. I will sneak out there one more time in the next week and save the last two sets just for the hell of it and maybe take a few more pics. It'll be the last time anyone cares about the place most likely.

heh, browsed that site with the galleries of abandonments, found this
http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/d/8387-2/c15_JPG.jpg

I dont think I could have left all that gear there.

I used to explore abandoned houses myself, never got creeped out by anything though.

I've got a Sylvania console that came from a similar place. My landlord owns a block of very old store buildings in the center of town. He bought them for next to nothing from the heirs when the owner passed away. One of the buildings was once the largest hardware store in this area and is packed full of everything imaginable. Well, I got permission to go there and rummage to my heart's delight and I've brought a lot of stuff home as well as the TV. Every time I'm there, I get the feeling of being watched. Nothing malevolent, but as Sandy said, just "under Observation". Next to the hardware store is an old junk shop, also packed to the rafters. I've moved a lot of nice Victorian furniture from there, as well as some old radios and a Reel-to-reel tape recorder. The TV was in the original owner's old office in the hardware store and I've got a funny vibe about it since I first saw it. I still brought it home though, it's out in the shop. It seems like I was led to it somehow, and when I'm in the buildings looking around, I feel like someone's guiding me to all the neat stuff that needs to be saved. This place sat untouched for 13 years till I came along. When I first turned the key in the front door, I felt like I was stepping into a time capsule. I also can feel a bit of sadness in the place as well,but I think I was brought there for the purpose of saving this stuff.

I've got a Sylvania console that came from a similar place. My landlord owns a block of very old store buildings in the center of town. He bought them for next to nothing from the heirs when the owner passed away. One of the buildings was once the largest hardware store in this area and is packed full of everything imaginable. Well, I got permission to go there and rummage to my heart's delight and I've brought a lot of stuff home as well as the TV. Every time I'm there, I get the feeling of being watched. Nothing malevolent, but as Sandy said, just "under Observation". Next to the hardware store is an old junk shop, also packed to the rafters. I've moved a lot of nice Victorian furniture from there, as well as some old radios and a Reel-to-reel tape recorder. The TV was in the original owner's old office in the hardware store and I've got a funny vibe about it since I first saw it. I still brought it home though, it's out in the shop. It seems like I was led to it somehow, and when I'm in the buildings looking around, I feel like someone's guiding me to all the neat stuff that needs to be saved. This place sat untouched for 13 years till I came along. When I first turned the key in the front door, I felt like I was stepping into a time capsule. I also can feel a bit of sadness in the place as well,but I think I was brought there for the purpose of saving this stuff.

and I wasn't invited? :(

heh, browsed that site with the galleries of abandonments, found this
http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/d/8387-2/c15_JPG.jpg

I dont think I could have left all that gear there.

I used to explore abandoned houses myself, never got creeped out by anything though.

Also found on that site...
http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/p-ave/IMG_1570.JPG.html

How about this one? Think someone is smoking or is there a visitor in that picture? Looks like smoke but who knows....
http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery2/v/abandonments/p-ave/IMG_1560.JPG.html

There are some very interesting stories here. I had experiences with odd happenings with electricity just after my mother passed away in 2000. It didn't necessarily scare me but it made me feel that some sort of inexplicable communication was occuring. Then after one of my beloved dogs passed away in 2001, I decided I needed to contact someone who might be more in the know on this subject. I found the name of a lady in Wisconsin who was very helpful to me and she explained the mysteries of after life communication to me and the possibility that there is a connection with electricity, as it is a source of immense energy. Too much to go into here in this forum but it did help me to understand a lot. The universe is much more awesome and powerful than we can even imagine. Many things are possible. I can say this...I love to collect old things from my growing up years, the 1960s. Sometimes these items, such as TV sets or clock radios, were owned by other people. Is their "energy" still on them? I don't think so, unless they had a very special attachment to that particular electronic item. If you get a bad vibe from a previously owned item, give the item away. If you get a vibe that is just kind of neutral and you feel good about saving that vintage item then it's probably a good thing for you to own.

As far as the house, with weird vibes, I would not go back. Houses are built from organic matter and there is (or was) life in all organic matter (such as a tree that grows until the day it dies). I would never rent a house or buy a house or renovate a house that I walked into and got a weird feeling from the get go, or if the hair on my arms stood on end or if your "sixth sense" tells you that this place is NOT for you - I'd politely leave on the double. Who knows what happened in some of these places. No use in stirring up what may be better to be left as it is. Places that are clean of bad vibes are always the best places to be in.

blank

About ten or twelve years ago I was rummaging around in an abandoned house. A friend of mine and I were there to do some HVAC repairs (which I used to do on the side) for the landlord who was fixing the place up. The previous tenant had skipped and left a lot of stuff. Landlord said take what you want, the rest is going to the dump. One thing was a small 35mm camera which I took and used until getting a digital. Then there was a big box of books and letters etc. that I became fascinated with. It was the entire life, it would seem, of a lady who was a nurse. There were letters etc. in there from the 1920's on. Envelopes full of black and white pictures and negatives. In one she and some other women were standing as if Sunday dressed next to a beautiful '38 Buick, parked on the beach somewhere, I had to believe in New England as there were other references to that region. The wind was blowing their long dresses, they were holding onto their hats. She collected Chrismas Seals, there were bunches of them there and a letter to the Christmas Seal Society asking for more. Letters back and forth from some institution where her brother was being taken care of; he was somehow disabled. The more I read her letters, her drycleaning bills, her drugstore invoices, she became real to me.

I tried on the internet, via searches, checks on genealogical sites, to connect with someone who might be her relative and might want this wealth of information, but to no avail. I couldn't just throw it out, the lifetime of a person. She was apparently what we used to call a maiden lady. Finally on a lead found on the cardboard box I found a name and searched and contacted a man. He came back to me and said that he had given this box of stuff to another person (the one who skipped the house) to try to help that guy out, to see if he could sell some of the old photographs and such on that auction site. Apparently there is a market for these. However nothing came of that effort. He said that he had acquired the box at an auction along with much other stuff, and that the family auctioning it did not want it any more.

I could not imagine a family throwing away part of its history like that but there are uncaring people in the world. I asked if I could and I finally sent it back to the man that I had contacted. At least I didn't have it any more, and I wasn't the one to throw it out. I really felt bad about having it around and felt bad for the maiden lady whose entire presence in this world was contained in that dusty cardboard box. Sic transit gloria mundi.

When I was around 9 years old, my dad bought some property and built a small barn for our horses. It came with a small abandoned house on the edge of the lot. I was told to stay out of the house. So, when I was looking around in the house, I found a bunch of old radios from the 1920's thru the 1950's, just sitting around on cabinets, etc. The windows were busted out, and the roof was collapsing. I shouldn't have been in the place. I was a tube scavenger even then, so I got lots of old tubes. This was during my 'rip and destroy' period before I began to conserve antique electronics.

There was a large collie that lived close to this property. This dog used to bark at grass growing, and its owner liked it that way.

One day, we came to feed the horses, and there was no dog barking. This went on for several weeks. No dog.

I was doing one of my walks thru the abandoned house, when I noticed that something had been moved in the floor. It was an old mattress. I moved the mattress and found the dead collie. I ran. I never went back in the house. About a week later, the house burned. It was arson. My dad was called by the fire department, and we went to the scene. It was collapsing as we arrived. I told the firemen about finding the dog inside a few days before this. I caught hell from my parents about disobeying them. BUT, I still have a bunch of the globe type tubes found in the radios in that house. Lots of DeForest, and Cunningham tubes.

I still think that someone was covering up something done wrong in that house.

We still own the property. There is no barn and no horses there anymore. There is a nice car repair building on the site now. My dad is gone, now, so this belongs to me and my mom.

How did I miss this topic? It's very interesting!!

I've been reading this thread from the very start and have enjoyed all the stories so far, ZenithFan1 you must be quite a sensitive soul to have picked up on the energy residue and the presence in that house. I am also very in tune with this sort of thing and can easily detect vibes/energies from houses and even places that I visit.

Something that happened to me along similar lines to this thread, I knew this old chap who used to make TVs & radios right up until the 1960's. He died in 2007 leaving a whole lifetime of stuff in his house including NOS parts/tubes/CRTs/Cabinets as he manufactured right out of his house and lived amongst it all, this guy was an obessive hoarder and never threw anything away, not even rubbish or newspapers so you can imagine what the inside was like. He left it all to his one and only daugther who promptly when in and started to clean the place out literally.....About the 7th or 8th skip bin later I found out through contacts that he had died so went to the house to see what was going on and luckily she was there sorting stuff out that day. She knew who I was and said she tried to contact me but misplaced my phone number that her father had given before he died. It was all quite sad really, but his presence in that house was literally everywhere. It was like he was there but you couldn't see him just a real strong energy in the place. You'd be like in a room and like turn around because you'd swear he was standing beside you or just in the room. I ended up getting quite a bit of stuff from there, of course a few dealers had been right through the place a few weeks before and picked through everything and taken more than their fair share while ripping her off in the process, I heard a rumor that one dealer managed to come across a huge box full of NOS 6L6's and sold them for a small fortune on ebay, like thousands of dollars etc, this annoyed me as she was struggling financially and had no help with what do with all his stuff initially, probably explains why she first just started dumping stuff and what she got paid by this dealer for what he took was pittance compared to what profit he would have made out of it.

Anyway back to the story when I got back home my wife who is very in tune said to me, you've brought him home with you and she was right, for the next few weeks he kept us awake at night by making noises/trying to talk, (in life he could talk for hours and was hard to get away from at times) and you'd go into the hallway and catch a glimpse of him standing there, this is no bull by the way I'm not making this up, this really happened and no I'm not crazy either so it was all a bit unnerving really.
I went back to the house a few times after that and got more stuff from there and paid her a fair price for what I took, like NOS radio cabinets and CRTs/components/speakers/output transformers,and about 10 Tektronix tube scopes, including a very rare TV which he made himself out of radio parts and local components/hardware. I must get around to taking some photos of this set and posting it on here, its quite unique in the sense that he used two of his radio chassis and stuck those together and built up the chassis on that.
Eventually over the next few months his presence just weakened and now pretty much don't feel him around at all, I do occasionally still but not often these days.

So there's my story sorry for being a bit long winded and sorry if I've freaked anyone out, but from what I've read from other posters in this thread it sounds like we're all got a that sixth sense in some form or another. I guess it comes with being intuitive and curious as this hobby pretty much is like that!

Cheers
Glen.

What a cool thread. I dont know how I missed it a year ago....

I love exploring abandon dwellings, amusement parks, mines, fallout shelters whatever. There used to be ton of that stuff around when I was a kid and it has all been pushed over and rebuilt. Property values are to high now for there to be any cool stuff to explore.
Seems like lately I have been finding mostly mines that were converted to fallout shelters in the 60s. A few still stocked with supplies.
I remember finding houses like this that were a total mystery as to what caused the inhabitants to just 'flee' leaving all their positions behind. That is one creepy feeling.
Reading through this thread brought back memorys of the Mira Loma turkey Ranch and Marine Land Sea Park as well as several others.

Zenithfan, found anything new lately??

Louisiana State University and the Veterans Administration are evicting about 26 blocks of homes and businesses near the New Orleans CBD for their new hospital complex. (Not that there wasn't adequate empty space elsewhere.) Anyway, demolition and moving of buildings has been occurring for some weeks now. Today, I saw a pile of stuff in front of a small 50's or 60's office building - and the back of a console TV. For a moment I was excited - - - oh well, made a u-turn and it was an early-80's System 3 Zenith.

26 Blocks?!? I mean I know we are a sick lot and healthcare is big money but how big a hospital do yall need? Maybe its time to cut down on the fried foods?

Hope they build the durn thing on stilts, or at least REASONABLY close to sea level...

Hope they build the thing on stilts, or at least REASONABLY close to sea level...

Or at least put the emergency generators on a floor above sea level. Not in the basement of that hospital that got flooded out and no power...

Maybe its time to cut down on the fried foods?
But fried food is artery cloggin' good! Just ask Elvis! :yes::sing:

Pardon my general mulish, jaundiced outlook on things in general, but I still have a hard time feeling completely sorry for the "Victims" of Katrina-Or ANY hurricane anymore, for that matter. When Katrina paid her visit, for at least a week beforehand, virtually EVERY TV I saw had a picture of the storm's progress-a big, angry, ugly red blob drawing a bead on Da Bigg Ezy...Y'all live on the coast in a town that is basically built below sea level-And it kinda gets obliterated historically about oncet every 25 yrs or so...What part of "Git da funk OUT" DON'T you unnerstand ?!?

NOLA: and with hundreds of school buses available to take them....

I'll just day this without digging up that whole part of my life: 80% of the people you should feel sorry for never had their stories told the newspapers.

We had not had a storm of that magnitude hit this area in anyone's lifetime - 1915 was perhaps the closest.

The National Hurricane Center was calling for this storm to strike the Florida panhandle into Friday night/Sat morning. Also remember that it didn't "explode" in strength until Sunday morning. Up until then it was a 115mph storm, something we've dealt with before. Factor in the elderly, those who were too scared for their own safety to go to the Superdome (look up what happened in '98 when they opened it up for Georges.) On the other hand, many simply refused to leave or stayed behind to have free pickings after the storm. They had buses in the lower 9th ward to take evacuees Sunday - the NOPD combed the streets asking people to get on them - they didn't fill the first one. How about the grandmother who stayed and drowned with her handicapped immobile son because the ambulance who was supposed to transport him never came? They found her clung to him in his hospital bed. That was a few blocks from my house. Sorry I'm rambling, Katrina is way too deep and complicated of a subject to make blanket statements about.

And yeah, 26 blocks. Majority residential, lower-middle income, 100 year old houses, over 50% redone and occupied. More to do with LSU wanting a showpiece and nothing to do with fried foods. I know that's your obsession 17, but we don't need hospitals for that. :)

Was not Betsy (1965) similar in scope to Katrina?

I know that huge portions of N.O. were flooded, but that everybody quickly rebuilt - not as much red tape and no arguments over who was entitled to move back into their own neighborhoods.

Hey Mark,

Don't peruse the rectangular threads much and just this morning found your post and this thread. I spent two hours reading it non-stop. You mention the ETF. I recall attending my first ETF convention some years ago. When I ventured to the "back area" of the museum building. I experienced that "funny" feeling as I walked, with fellow VK'er Steve K., among the aisles and piles of old TV's stacked around me. It was late in the day and very dim. There was yet a couple of rooms, we explored, even futher back with old tv's & equipment that was quite spooky. We now hold the auctions in that area and soon the pix tube rebuilding equipment will go there. Thanks for this thread.

-Steve D.

This is an interesting thread. It reminds me of the "camp" I bought in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi a few years before Katrina. I bought it from the old mans son after he "bought" it from his father, the Colonel.
He handed me the keys to look at it before I decided to buy it. Even though it was packed with stuff (the family of the Colonel used it as a closet or storage area when the son moved back to New Orleans) When I walked in I felt extremely welcome and was happy to buy it. Once I got started I could feel the old Colonel's presence. He seemed to approve of all the work and I always felt welcome when I walked in.
Then came Katrina. The camp floated off it's four foot tall foundation piers landing a few feet away from them. Keep in mind my camp is around 25 feet above sea level! Water was nearly to the ceiling. I cleaned it out and started to repair it but it wasn't until the new foundation (the floors are now 10 feet off the ground) was finished and the camp anchored to it that I felt his presence again. He is back and seems happy that I put the place back together. I spend alot of time there now and can almost see him sitting on the couch sometimes. He was a ham operator and I guess my DXing must amuse him.

This thread reminded me of the attached site. Don't you wish you had walked in on this when it was in better condition? I surely hope our workshops don't end up like this guy's did. Food for much contemplation here. :scratch2: BTW Zenith26kc20, your camp looks idyllic, great place to hang out.

http://www.qsl.net/wa0jcv/Shop.htm

Yes (and thanks!) the camp is great! There is a Zenith roundie for the main TV and a 15 inch Emerson CRT for the "all day"" TV. A 20 inch LCD monitor for pictures of over the air DXing.
I hate to leave it to return home as it is so relaxing. I think a bit of the Colonel has rubbed off on me as I look for things discarded that can be useful there (like the 15 inch Emerson left in front of my shop) and the back door. According to the Colonel's son, the camp was built mostly from material he obtained from torn down houses.
I'm sure we lost plenty of old homes when Camille and Katrina finished here. Going north from the coast will still yield a old house now and then but like Audubon5425 said earlier, you have to be real careful because of the meth labs. I think the midwest and further north is probably better as the weather starts to discourage "activity " in an abandoned house.

My uncle still had his family home in Uptown New Orleans (on Jefferson & Laurel) - the carriage house was never rented as part of the deal and it was pretty much as his grandfather left it when he died in 1968. In the 1920's into the 1930's they used it as a radio shop. The back room (which had a floor) still had bunches of old parts in there. There were two large desks with drawers full of old capacitors, resistors etc. from well before WWII. I was actually using the carriage house for storage. When he put the house up for sale I salvaged some old meters, knobs, and some radio industry magazines & catalogs from 1946-47 I found in the attic. I wasn't into repairing radios then and had no place to store the rest of the stuff at the time. The house was renovated this year and the carriage house (which needed a lot of work) was gutted and turned into a carport.

Sorry to bring up an old post, but Did you ever restore that TV?

I have a tube portable plastic japanese radio, i would say it was made towards the end of the tube era for radios.

my great grandma gave it to me just before she died, and I get a weird feeling about it too sometimes. Plus it doesnt work. no matter how hard i try to get it fixed, recapped etc, it will not work. it tries really hard to work if i bring my finger almost laying on the ferrite core antenna.

weird....

Wow, I don't know how I missed a thread like this.....
My '29 Majestic radio has on occasion raised and lowered its volume, And I don't mean by capacitor or component failure. The vol. knob has been seen to turn on its own, One night I couldn't receive hardly any of the local stations, just old music that was not on any other radio in the house. My '53 Packard Bell has only done one thing and that was turn it's self on. Most people don't believe in this kind of thing, But I sure as hell do.

Here is a night shortly after my wife and I got married, I had a really uneasy feeling that night but went ahead and went to sleep. I had a nightmare that scared me so bad I jumped (literally) out of bed. I remembered an old trick I heard about television and spirits. This is what I encountered, And if you just look, You'll most likely see what I saw that night.

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp212/01silverado_2008/DSCF0816.jpg

It is more obvious in this one:
http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp212/01silverado_2008/DSCF0823.jpg

Both of those were taken on a digital television which is why it has "snow lines" 2 things should jump out and bite you on the bottom picture. There is something(s) in the first one as well. I have not yet caught anything on my '53 model.
Them 3 things combined, I couldn't sleep for 2 days. And when I did, It wasn't in my own house.
But on these old electronics, Spirits can and do attach themselves to them. Just think, That set you have in your house might be the same set a married couple both worked very hard for their whole life to buy and are now deceased and its in YOUR house and they are not happy with you....Not to mention, Spirits also attach themselves to vehicles. You don't even want the stories attached to my '89 F150.....

What are we supposed to be seeing in the digital snow? The static does not appear to be completely random but I am not sure what I am supposed to be looking at. I have never had any paranormal activity related to my vintage electronics but I do believe it can happen.

I dunno. In the first pic I spotted what sorta kinda appears to be a ghostly face flipping the bird, this is turned sideways and I put a red border around the area. In the second pic I roughly outlined what I'm talking about and rotated it upright for clarity (the borders are the exact same ones from the first pic).

Is that what you're talking about?

I don't want to offend anybody's beliefs, but those pictures are a bit like Rorschach ink blots. I can see all kinds of faces in both pictures, but heathkit tv's illustration shows me that we're not seeing the same things. We have pattern driven minds and if you present us with randomness we try to sort it out into something ordered. It's also hard to look at them and not see faces, after reading the whole thread about angry spirits and uneasy feelings around certain things and places. If we had just seen the pictures without any background to them, would we have seen faces or just seen a TV with static on it? I apologize for my skepticism, but I do find this a fascinating topic.

The original poster's story was quite spooky. If I didn't know he'd survived it I'd have gotten worried at the description of all the abandoned vehicles. It made me think about all the abandoned cars around the farmhouse in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I've outlined what I'm talking about in red.

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp212/01silverado_2008/DSCF0823-1.jpg

blank

Well, I guess they'll never bother me, because I can't make out a thing in all of that.

I'm a open minded person but, the only thing I can see on that TV is snow. My view is, if you have to use imagination to see something, than it's not really there...

I agree, But the same is for EVP's. Some hear it, Others just hear white noise.

I've caught several EVP's in my own house. I was the only one home at the time and when I played it back, I heard a weak and strained voice and there was tapping on the microphone after each question I asked. It was cool!


BTW, as an update on that house, I couldn't find out a whole lot about it and now I've seen people out there doing stuff and I think it's gonna get burned down soon, like several others that I used to like to hang out in.

I had a small portable B&W when I was in the Air Force. I forget the model. I discovered that if I tuned it to a blank channel and adjusted the brightness and contrast I'd see an infinite series intersecting rotating circles in the snow.

I thought that this had something to do with the way your eyes process information and planned on trying to understand it later. But, after I gave that set away, I was never able to repeat it with any other TV.

John

http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.php?p=2677480&postcount=57

I had one of those MGA TVs. It definitely had a nice picture. The tube had a very light blue tint, just as in the picture. If it is the same model I had, it's stereo with one a/v input and an audio output. The A/V interface, stereo decoder and amplifiers are on a large, vertically mounted board at the back and the circuit is quite convoluted. (It has its own power supply and uses optoisolators for the a/v jacks.) It looks like they took a mono TV without a/v inputs and designed the board as an add-on. This makes the TV very heavy for its size. In addition, the speakers are tiny and sound horrible. Mine developed problems in the audio and jungle sections so I ditched it a long time ago...

I've always been a fan of urban exploration but too much of a wuss to do it myself. One of my favorite sites is http://detroitfunk.com, lots of great history there. Here in Rochester there was a factory that was abandoned for about 20 years, Photech (http://www.flickr.com/photos/motionblur/sets/72157609036630481/). It was a popular urbex destination and there are lots of pics from the site. It was a former GAF factory and contaminated with photo chemicals. They finally got it torn down earlier this year.

What's come of this TV? Has it been revived?

Word of advice. Never read threads like this right before bedtime :para: