It always sounds like a fun idea to explore abandoned buildings with friends at first. Then you start hearing strange noises or start getting that gut feeling that maybe this was the wisest decision. These explorers share their insane experience when at an abandoned building that made them not want to go back.
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Hidden Trap
“My friends and I were exploring an abandoned military housing complex at night. It was in pretty bad shape but there were lots of interesting things to see. We almost peed ourselves a couple of times because of mannequins behind doors and stuff. There was also a neat art installation with records hanging from the ceiling. Anyway, we climbed up some stairs to the tallest part of the building. We saw some faint light coming from under a door. We wanted to investigate, so we got closer to the door.
Somehow the door had a hidden trap on it because as soon as my friend opened it there was a crash – and a cinderblock on a rope came swinging out the open door and just missed us. I got a split second look inside where I saw a small fire, a mattress on the ground, and then a man moving quickly toward us. He was silhouetted by the light so I couldn’t make out what he looked like or what exactly he was holding, but I wasn’t about to stick around to find out.
I yelled to my friends, ‘Run!’
And we bolted out of there as fast as our legs could carry us.”
No One Was Near The Doll
“When I was in high school, a bunch of my friends and I piled into another friend’s car and drove up to some abandoned houses near our town. The houses were bought by a big company to tear them down to build more office space, but the project was abandoned and the houses were never torn down. They had been empty for about 20 years at that point. I really didn’t want to go, but I had just gotten into the ‘cool’ crowd and I wanted to fit in, so I went along.
The houses were falling apart, covered in graffiti and trash, and it was dead silent and pitch dark out. The only light we had was our cell phone flashlights. Most of us were terrified, but a few of the older boys were being rowdy and making a lot of noise. I told them to shut up because I didn’t want the cops to come, and I knew this was also a hot spot for squatters and I didn’t want us to get robbed and/or murdered. The whole time I kept feeling like I was hearing noises behind me, but I tried to brush it off thinking it was just my imagination.
About the third house we went to, I found an old Victorian doll covered in dust and cobwebs on the staircase. I don’t know why, but I picked it up to look at it. It was creepy, one of the eyes was missing, and it had matted hair and torn clothing. I quickly put it down and walked away to continue exploring.
A few minutes later, in dead silence besides our footsteps creaking on the old wooden floors, we heard, ‘Mama!’ It was in a soft child’s voice, coming from the doll.
I looked at my friends. They looked at me. We high-tailed it back to the car and sped away. Never went back after that.”
Creepy Man
“I was exploring an abandoned manor with some friends. We had been drinking and smoking and thought it would be cool to explore the abandoned manor. The first floor entrances were covered with bricks, so we had to enter through the first floor (it was about eight feet tall) using an improvised ladder made of old trash and wood pieces. It was quite unstable and hard to climb, and we were five or six people. Being the only way out, and knowing how slow it was, I was on edge the whole time.
When we were exploring the floor, we noticed the cool glass ceiling and the tons of debris everywhere, but suddenly we found a room filled with plastic containers with pink and brown liquids. Some friends decided to explore the first floor, which was pitch black and involved going down a broken staircase missing several steps.
They heard someone coughing in the dark and felt several people moving in the darkness as their eyes got used to it. At this point I was also hearing someone slowly walking in a room on the first floor, carefully stepping over the broken glass on the floor (to not make noise) which was creepy.
We got away and on our way out we saw a roughed-up man with bloodshot eyes leaving a shack outside the house and staring at us. I still shiver when I remember his look. Probably just some junkies living there, but for overly high 15-year-olds it was scary as heck. “
“Man, Don’t Ever Be A Repo Dude”
“I used to deliver and repo furniture in my town. Repos were mainly from the poor sections of town, the projects, and whatnot. The number of roaches and spiders I’ve had upon my person would blow your mind, I bet. It doesn’t even faze me anymore.
Once we had to replace a refrigerator that had broken down in an old lady’s shed behind her house. The whole place was rotten and smelled horrible. When we lifted the fridge, an incredible number of roaches streamed out of it, I still have a hard time believing how many roaches were in the thing. They were everywhere. I think my head and face was the only spot I didn’t have a roach crawling on.
Another time we went to someone’s house because they’d bought a stereo and something was wrong. We went out there to look at it. The house was way out in the woods, a ramshackle shack that didn’t even have a front door. Kids were running in and out of the house the entire time, and the walls and furniture and everything else was covered with roaches. And the smell was horrendous. The adults there showed us the issue with the stereo – it was tripping the breaker. They had the volume cranked so loud that the lights everywhere were dimming in time to the beat.
Like, I’m a metal guy and I’ve been to concerts that weren’t this loud. We had to just leave eventually because there was no way to get through to them that it was just ‘too darn loud,’ as Huey says.
Man, don’t ever be a repo dude.”
Dead Body Found
“Several years ago, a man was murdered in the city I was working in, and parts of his body were turning up at various locations. I think his hand and foot had been first found. Then a week had passed and no other body parts had been reported.
I’m an architectural designer and I was surveying an abandoned chapel that was slated to be renovated into condos. It was apparent that homeless people had been squatting in the chapel but I wasn’t sure how recently they had been there. When I went into the basement though, it was clear someone was either there or had just left based on the smell. There were no lights due to the power being cut off and I didn’t stick around long enough to see if anyone was currently occupying the space.
Two days later someone reported that they found the torso and head of the murdered man in a building attached to the chapel. I had been too freaked out by the smell in the basement to continue to the attached building. But I’m almost certain I would have been the one to find the body.”
She Had To Hire A Professional
“I’m a property manager and I have seen some insane things in apartments. One apartment with one bedroom was occupied by a family of five. They broke their lease and moved out. I had the displeasure of supervising this move-out. Their furniture was dropping roaches all over as they went through the hall and into the elevator. Again, they were dropping from the mattresses.
But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was when a tenant moved out, she always lived a little weirdly, she kept the blinds closed, it was so dark in the unit. When she left we found tons of bedbugs. But that’s not it.
My bug guy came in to inspect and showed me how to identify their nests. There are blood trails on every corner of every ceiling wall. There was even blood in the sockets etc. These bugs had been feeding on this woman so often and so long there were fresh trails everywhere. This was not a small unit. It was 800 square feet. He took a comb and brushed the carpet and up came a hive of those red bugs.
I never wore those shoes again. I took off my clothes in the hall where no one could see. I burned them. I took a shower. I have never seen anything as nasty as that carpet and all the blood. And I have seen some insane things.”
It Was No Longer Fun
“My friends and I would always mess around in the town storm drain. It was this huge water runoff that ran the entire length of our town. It was located in Southern California so there was never any water in it. There was a section that was about a half-mile or so that went under the main roads and houses. This stretch was pitch black and you could not even see your hand in front of your face. We would build makeshift torches and run through to the other side for fun but it was scary as heck.
One time we were walking down and noticed some graffiti on the wall. It was at a point in the tunnel that the sunlight was still showing but it was getting dark. It was a portion of the ‘Raven’ poem by Edgar Allen Poe. And in large blue painted words was:
‘While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.’
My buddy and I read it at the same time out loud for some reason and as soon as we finished the last word we heard a loud knocking coming from the darkness in the middle of the tunnel. We looked at each other and quickly ran for the daylight end of the tunnel and never went back.”
They Couldn’t Bare The Pain
“I helped a girl friend once break into the former home that she had been kicked out of and left abandoned by the landlord for a year.
We were inside on the carpet for about 60 seconds when our ankles felt like we were standing on fire. We looked down and fleas had coated our legs and ankles so thick it looked like we had spilled paint on them. You could see them jumping on and falling off in waves.
She screamed and we ran out of the house. In the front yard, we sprayed our legs down with a hose and scraped them off with our hands. I think I burned my clothes when I got home that day.
My lower legs were covered in flea bites, it looked like I had chickenpox on top of chickenpox. Fortunately, I didn’t get sick beyond that though, thank god. I was worried we might have gotten the plague after that.”
What Happened To The Knob?
“My friends and I were exploring an old abandoned Tuberculosis hospital that was later a hospital for mentally ill youth. It was located kind of on a hill, in a wooded area removed from the nearby main roads and we had to slip under a fence to access the property.
Everything went pretty well most of our exploration. There were some eerie remnants of its former life, like empty rooms with lone rocking horses, an old stage/theater, and those weird metal bed things used for embalming or perhaps just washing patients down.
On the third or fourth floor, there was a room labeled ‘morgue’ in spray paint. One of my buddies and I decided to check it out, and upon entry, it looked to be some sort of power control room with big fuses arrayed across a bunch of big control boards. We walked in for a closer look with our flashlights when suddenly the big steel door slammed shut behind us. The door no longer had a knob or handle on our side, so there was no way for us to get out. We started pounding somewhat anxiously on the door to get our other friend’s attention when I started hearing movement and fuses popping out of their sockets and clattering to the ground.
Not long after, our friends heard and were able to get the door open from the other side. That was kind of our cue to wrap things up since that situation could have been pretty ugly if we didn’t have other people in the place to hear us.”
They Were Almost On The News
“My friends and I used to explore a lot of abandoned places many years back (still do from time to time), and our favorite place to visit was Woodville State Hospital in Pittsburgh. For a couple of years, we would make frequent trips up there and sneak in and explore. It was so massive, there was always something different to check out.
Well, one evening we go up there and we heard noises, like someone breaking things. We figured it was a couple of other kids just being troublemakers and vandalizing things. But when we tried to find who was responsible, we couldn’t find anyone around. Apparently, they noticed us and decided to sneak away before we got too close to the main building. We didn’t think too much of it until we got inside the main building, the one with the giant bell tower and chapel and such.
The entire main room had been filled with debris and this was a huge room. There were broken pianos and tables and chairs and pallets etc. It had all been dragged into this giant main room and scattered all around into a giant pile. This freaked us out quite a bit, as we recognized most of the items in the pile, and it would have taken a lot of effort. Most definitely more than one person to gather all of these items up from around the grounds and place them all in here. We didn’t understand why people would do this and it freaked us out so we ran out of there.
The next day, shortly after sundown, I get a call from my best friend all in a panic, yelling for me to turn on the news. So I tune in and see live coverage of Woodville burning to the ground. All of the big buildings had been set ablaze. The debris we saw getting piled up was used as fuel to commit arson. Apparently, we interrupted them that day so they fled and then did it the next day.”
Abandoned Hospital
“I’ve been to many places in the TriState Area and have experienced floors that were decaying. Once I almost fell, thankfully it was a very small drop. But these floors had needles, animal corpses, etc.
One time at a prison in New Jersey, I saw a cell that was decked out with a decorated dollhouse and you could tell someone was staying there.
The creepiest experience I ever had was about six years ago. I was in an abandoned hospital in a residential part of New York City, which had been abandoned less than a decade before our visit. Despite this, it was not a well-known location. We went at night and were exploring the second, third, and fourth floors all without issue and in total silence. There was little to no graffiti and everything was left such as patient records, tissue samples, medicines, and medical equipment.
As we reached the fourth floor, we passed a random room that said, ‘No Explosive Gases Can Be Used In This Room.’
I read the sound aloud and we immediately heard a huge thud coming from inside that exact room. My blood ran cold and I froze because I felt that someone in that room was making themselves known. We ran out of there and heard slamming doors as we went down all the stairs. I have not been back there since and it’s now been sold and is being renovated into a housing complex.
I still wonder what would’ve happened if we went into the room.”
It Was Painted In Red
“In downtown Columbia, South Carolina, there used to be a condemned asylum. It hadn’t been in use since the 1980s and truly became creepy over time.
The main building and its supporting wings were five floors and created a complex. The long, narrow, and sometimes dirt-floored basements were linking all the buildings. The dilapidation and decay inside the building were creating gaping holes in the floor that would sometimes go several floors down into the dark. Doors fallen from hinges, graffiti, glass strewn over the floors, and half-full filing cabinets filled the place.
With that image set, some friends and I were exploring the fourth floor of the main building not far from the central bell tower. It was probably after one am and all we had were our phone flashlights that barely showed more than ten feet in front of you.
We came into an open room and in the slight light, there was a glint in the middle of the room. We moved in closer to get a good look at what was there. It was an old patient’s chair complete with leather wrist straps. Under it, a pentagram was painted onto the floor in red paint. Three feet in front of it, the petrified carcass of a cat. This room was covered in graffiti referencing the devil, death, and screaming. It was a freaky find.
Everyone in the group but me and another guy pretty much bailed at that point. I overcame the fear long enough to sit in the chair for a picture then we starting making our way out. Not long after leaving the room we heard some thumping noise from the floor above us and being we were spooked already we got out of there in a half run, just fast enough to not fall through the floor in the massive holes.
I never went back to that room ever again. Despite going back to the asylum a few times after that room is the scariest thing I ever experienced.”
Sketchy Neighborhood
“This happened about six or seven years ago when I was at home with a roommate (female) who was upstairs asleep. We had a house in a semi sketchy neighborhood but nothing directly had happened to me (a weapon pulled once but that was years earlier). There was a guy who had come by once and asked if he could walk my dog but other than that there wasn’t any interaction.
Then one day there was a knock on the door and this guy and his friend were there and asked if they could walk my dog. I said ‘No.’
Then they asked if they could use my bathroom. I started to get a weird feeling but I wanted to be nice so I let them use the bathroom in my basement. When they came up they asked how much a couple of things were worth in my house.
Now I’m starting to get this feeling in my gut that screamed, ‘Danger, Danger,’ but again I figured they were being polite but I was now trying to get them out of my house.
We started towards the door and right at the door, the one guy put his hand out to shake my hand and when I did, he gripped it hard. I remember looking up in confusion and his face was just hard. Then I got rocked by his friend who punched me in the face and neck. I stumbled into my living room and got punched again and I fell.
I started to scream for my roommate, absolutely convinced that she wouldn’t come downstairs because she’s not that type of person. They wailed on me and kicked me in the face once before they realized someone might be in the house and took off. I was able to stumble to the door and lock it before my memory gets a bit fuzzy.
I was okay-ish and correct that my roommate said she heard the commotion downstairs but she locked her door and hid. Cops came, I don’t know if I called or not, eventually caught one of the guys and the judge gave him a super light sentence.
I didn’t listen to the voice and became the victim of a violent home invasion.”
She Ended Up In Tears
“I went into a boarded-up, condemned building in southside Chicago. There were three stories, kind of like a townhouse architecture but freestanding. It had been abandoned for a long time; there was a very, very tiny lawn, super over-grown, and the whole lot was surrounded by a chainlink fence covered in warnings to stay out.
It was surprisingly not a trap house; it smelled like pee and had that dusty, cobwebby, uncleaned feel that empty houses do, and there was graffiti all over the walls, but no needles or anything. Honestly was a pretty fun place for exploring. No idea why it was condemned.
The third room I poked into it was occupied. The occupant wasn’t there. But on the ground, there was a lumpy, dirty futon mattress with some sheets, some various personal items strewn around (clothes, et cetera). The two things that hit me were this:
There were two cups beside the bed. One was a disposable paper fast food cup (like you’d get at KFC or whatever for the soda fountain), and the other was the red, hard, semi-opaque plastic kind from old pizza places. One was half-full of water and the other had a toothbrush in it. The idea of someone having separate cups for these was humanizing, and heartbreaking to me.
There was a teddy bear in the bed. It was a cheap, generic blue knock-off carebear, super old and well-worn. Again, weirdly humanizing. Whoever resided here had a whole history with that bear. It was a well-loved object (albeit filthy, but so was the rest of the ‘nest’ on the futon).
I did not meet the occupant, but I left after going into that room. It was no longer an exploration, but an intrusion; the person who lived there was suddenly a real person. Not just some random but someone who cared about brushing their teeth and rinsing, and slept with a stuffed animal, and who had fallen on hard times. It was sobering and sad.”
