Exploring an abandoned farm

Yesterday I stumbled upon a really interesting website, urbex.nl. The website is dedicated to ‘urban exploring’, something I honestly never heard of before. Urbex activists explore abandoned places all over the globe: old castles, to-be-demolished industry zones, abandoned train stations and much more. This “hobby” raised my attention especially after looking at some pictures on that website (especially the residential ones, like the ‘ghost’ castles in Namur). Wouldn’t it be great to explore such a huge place, without anybody interrupting your adventure?

So I had to try it myself. There is a little abandoned farm just over the bridge where I live, approx. 1km from my home. I used to cycle in that area when I went to high school, and the building always got my attention when passing by. I decided to grab some quick pictures, hopefully without disturbing any temporary inhabitants. The result? The photo on the left.

As you can see, there are fences in front of the building, recently added, I suspect to keep falling parts off the road. A lot of rich people (meaning huge penthouses) live in that area, they wouldn’t like to have a little scratch on their big Mercedes SUV, wouldn’t they. This farm was built near (but now you can say in) the woods, not in the residential area. Problem: entering the building without damaging anything. The fences are closed, climbing would raise suspicion (and might tear my clothes, heh). Luckily I found a way through the trees at the back of the house.

It seemed like the farm has been used as a “hideout”, as the mattress was dragged outside and appearantly used as a seat. Hopefully I woun’t encounter anything unusual like a body! And yet I did, but luckily the carcass of a pidgin, and not some crazy murder scene. Stepping inside revealed the following:

Utter Decay. Torn apart wallpaper, broken pieces of wood, and a lot of rubbish. No useful piece of equipment or furniture. (Except that strange mattress of course). I was surprised to find out some windows were still in one piece, as pretty much nothing seemed to be. Carefully continuing my little “adventure” into the other room, guided by an arrow on the wall, I encountered a big hole in the outer wall. It must have been the front door, years and years ago. Or maybe some punk kids came here by night, breaking stuff. I did notice some used flasks and cigarettes on the floor, which seemed to be recent. Or at least more decent than this house.

That round “thing” on the bottom of the last photo looks like a tablet for a dinner table. Or maybe not, as it was not complete at all and there was so much stuff lying around I had no idea. You can see the fences from the other side and the road now. At some points in the house, I had the idea the ceilling was going to collapse… There is a second floor, but I’m not going there… You’ll understand this after looking at this photo:

Yes that is wood, mostly rotten. I didn’t even notice the arrow pointing upwards, but wasn’t ready to take the risk of falling through. I wasn’t alone but breaking a leg just to see more garbage isn’t a decent tradeoff. The farm is in really bad shape and I can’t even remember it being in a good shape, all these years nobody bought the property. I can understand why, judging from the inside… At the entrance, near a couple of trees, there’s a little shack - probably used as a hideout.