Abandoned houses

[user64332]

I pass an abandoned house everyday on the school run and I'm so curious about how it came to be left. someone's life just frozen in time. It has a Lexus parked outside that is growing weeds and moss around the wheels, inside is spotlessly clean, no trace or belongings but part of the interior is now sun faded. The window frames are rotting, the front and back garden has very tall weeds, but you can tell it was once neat and well kept. It is a shame to see such a solid period house rotting needlessly. It is semi detached and the house next door, and all the others on the street are in perfect condition.

I can't help wonder how on earth this happened? If someone owed money they surely would have their property and car repossessed. If they died with no next of kin, doesn't the state claim the property? What happens? Has anyone ever lived next to a house like this and found out the story?

I see plenty of dilapidated and falling down houses with boarded up windows and rubbish filled gardens and assume they were worth very little and hard to sellnand further deterioted, but this one with the expensive car parked outside obviously has a different story.

Isn't there an neighbour around or out in their garden who you could ask when you're walking by?

It could have been left to a family member who doesn’t want it or not in a position to sort or sell. They could be in long term care home and while they have enough money to pay for it the state isn’t going sell the house to fund. Does make you want to go have a poke around though.

Prison.

I've not seen a neighbour close enough to ask yet but hope I will eventually!

Yes I'd love to look inside!

Ooh prison is a good guess, hadn't thought of that one. I wonder how long it takes the windows to decay when noone lives there? I expect everything happens much more quickly when noone is there ventilating and heating it.

There’s an odd one near my aunt's that I’d love to know about. It’s in the posh bit of our town on the main road, but like yours has rotting window frames and curtains that are completely shredded. Weirdly though, the garden is immaculate - lawn mown regularly, beds weeded and hedges trimmed. It’s been like that for over a decade. My aunt thinks it could maybe a probate dispute but we’ve never seen anyone around to ask so the mystery continues!

Our local one is empty as the woman was killed by her partner and he can't have the house as it would be proceeds of crime (?) so it just sits. It's really sad as it was a nice home and every time we go past you can't help but think of the poor woman and life she should have had in her house.

There's an abandoned bungalow near where I live. It's probably been empty for at least 20 years, there's even a vintage car that is now covered in foliage, the weeds are out of control and foxes live there. Who is in charge of these things I wonder. Do the council care about the state of it, I've often been tempted to ring them out of curiosity.

Are you sure there’s no-one living in it?
In our village there is a massive old house that is so run down and falling to bits - missing windows, roof caving in etc thatyou would never know there an elderly person living in 2 rooms round the back!!
I think they died and then the council compulsory purchased it as a building of interest and it’s currently being renovated - basically stripped back and and I’d be surprised if there was much of the original house left by the time they have replaced/repaired everything!!!

I wonder who sorts if you are in prison? I mean say I get arrested don’t get bail and go jail for 20y. But your fridge is full of food the bin is full and you don’t Have enough money to cover bills for next 20y? Do you cut off everything and hope the roof doesn’t cave in by the time you get out?

I find abandoned buildings that nature is reclaiming both eerie and beautiful.

There is a house that my father in law’s aunt used to live in that is now abandoned. She went into a home and no one ever did anything with the house. It was about 50 year ago. It’s a tiny two room cottage. It’s now completely covered with ivy, you’d never know there was a house there.

Could be an inherited property that had a LTM attached to it which is sitting in negative equity? There is a house like that on our street and they come and keep the garden maintained but it is the most dated and unloved house on the street sadly 🙁

I live next to one. Even weirder, some lady moved in for couple of weeks about 2 years ago and then disappeared.
I think it maybe family dispute, when siblings inherit, one doesnt want to sell, but has no money to pay off the other one?

I love abandoned places. This is one I've been to several times and adore, it is so beautiful and I find them fascinating

I lived next to one for years when I was a child. All of the furniture was covered in sheets. My brother and I used to make up spooky stories about the place. I found out when I was older that it was part of a long running probate dispute. Sad, because it was a beautiful house.

I went to uni with a guy whose parents died young leaving him the sole owner of a big house in a very posh part of town. He abandoned it to live abroad and it's still decaying now decades later. I think there's even a car on the drive.

Gossip is that he was about to be arrested for a particularly horrible offence and he's in Thailand or somewhere like that.

He was a creep tbh. The house would be worth millions if it was liveable.

My dad lives in a terrace. The house next door to him was rented for awhile and then empty for a year.

It was then occupied by squatters exactly a year to the day it was empty. They broke in to the property. The owner was abroad and apparently oblivious to the fact that it hadn't been rented for a year.

The squatters were noisy, playing drums at 3.00am etc, fighting with each other. Fortunately my father guessed one day that they were all out and managed to get in and change the locks.

There was one near us that intrigued me. A really big modern mansion - gated, with weeds sprouting through the drive. Was abandoned for years. One day I was walking past and there were builders knocking it down. Two women stopped to ask if they could salvage anything from the mansion and I overheard the builder say that as they were dismantling the bathrooms one of the other builders said he recognised them but didn't know how then realised he'd seen them in porn movies.

The house l used to babysit in 30 years ago is abandoned, for approximately 25 years now. Every time l go past l always wonder what happened there, were are those two lovely children now. I don’t think l have any links to anyone to ask and l drive by l don’t live in the area anymore. I might try and have a google actually.

There is one near a house I let out....quite a nice area....its 3 mins walk to the underground....all windows / roof collapsed and weeds everywhere...I suspect some one may live in it as sometimes see a light bulb on in one of the rooms...its a 5 bed with a huge garden...odd as no body has ever seen anyone in the house or mentioned it....

Report it by contacting your local council's Empty Homes Officers, every council must have them by order of parliament. Most appear to do nothing, but councils are forced to have them on the payroll.

(I discovered my local councillor, chair of planning, had no idea such a law, and such council staff, existed "Well, you can't possibly tell people what to do with their own property, can you?" Yes, you can, and compulsory purchase has been around since before you were born. You are,. in theory, legally obliged to do exactly that, instead of leaving empty property degenerating at a time when it is needed for housing stock )

Decades ago an all party housing group decided unused housing should be brought into use, therefore every local authority must have staff dedicated to tracing owners or going through legal process to enforce bringing abandoned or merely empty property into good repair (the councils can carry out work themselves if the owner fails, and put the cost as a charge against the property at the Land Registry) then ensuring it is occupied. The preference was to be persuasion if force and even compulsory purchase could be avoided, but the powers were given.

Unused living space above shops is another aspect they could, if they chose, take action about.

That’s useful information @alwayslucky. There’s a house down the road from me that I’ve wondered about for years, so I will ask.

We have one in our area. All the houses and gardens around are maintained and immaculate and then you get to this house that is really run down and covered in ivy. Originally I thought it might be an older person who just couldn’t cope with the upkeep but it’s definitely empty. It’s a semidetached and I feel sorry for the neighbours. It could make it very difficult to sell as it’s such an eyesore.

There was a house being built on the route I take to work. I loved seeing it progress and it ended up being beautiful.

But no one ever moved in. The garden and drive were never finished, it's a shell inside.

My husband thinks it was a case of the people building it ran out of money.

There's another one, it's an older detached house on a busy road. It got all new windows put in and someone clearly lived there bit after a couple of months a window was broken and not replaced, curtains were flapping in that room. Now the garden is overgrown and there is grass in the gutters, everything looks unloved.

I often think I'd love to restore a house like that.