I’m absolutely fascinated by abandoned buildings, ghost towns, and the like. Indeed, I wanted to do my Master’s thesis on the economic and geopolitical forces that contribute to the downfall of towns both big and small. My proposal wasn’t approved but I still love the subject.
Houses create a similar fascination in me. Once in a while someone out for a hike here in the PNW will come across the foundation or still-standing fireplace of a long-abandoned cabin or house and post the picture to Instagram or Facebook. Those pictures are so curious to me. I can’t help but wonder how many people lived in each of those particular houses, wonder if kids raised there, or how many warm nights were spent around the fireplace that now sits as an empty shell far from civilization, or how much laughter and sadness and the basic ups and down of life were experienced under a long-gone roof.
I have a long commute each day to work on a narrow backcountry county road. I pass a beautiful house that sits on the edge of a huge meadow that itself is on the rim of a large valley. The view is absolutely to die for and the house looks wonderful: two stories, big windows, a wrap-around porch facing the valley. There’s a small apple and peach orchard in the back yard and a small barn / shed on the edge of the property. It looks like the type of house I would love to live in… but it’s empty, boarded up. Some of the siding is missing and in the pre-dawn darkness as it slowly looms out of the fog it gives off a decidedly creepy vibe (kind of like the empty house at the end of The Blair Witch Project).
The house my mother grew up in sat abandoned for almost two decades, slowly being left to decay. I’m told a distant cousin of hers has recently bought the land and is slowly rehabilitating the house but I have not been back to see it for myself. In that case it was poor financial management that caused the family to lose the property. While there are a multitude of reasons, I’m sure, for houses to become old and decrepit and ultimately abandoned, money is likely at the root of most of those reasons.