Falling Down and Ramshackle

This is a bit of a departure from my usual kind of post, but the other day while reading Tieka`s post on an old creepy house I was reminded about my fascination with old, abandoned, falling down houses that are left on their own to decay and deteriorate. Ramshackle houses, if you will (aside: I can`t help thinking that `ramshackle` is a totally fun word to say, and while writing this post I have actually been saying it out loud a few times and utterly enjoying myself).

I`m not sure what it is about them that interests me so much, I think it`s curiosity mostly. I wonder about lives lived and happenings, events, loves, losses, celebrations and tragedies that happened in these old houses, and also about the circumstances that led to their current decay and neglect. Was it a major family tragedy? Did the family move away and just forget about the old property? Was there not enough money to keep up the old place? Was it simply abandoned, and if so, why?

I think this fascination with abandoned houses and buildings found in isolated rural places like these sparked not only my curiosity but also my imagination. When I was growing up, there was a house very much like the ones pictured here (these photos for the most part were all taken on PEI, my lovely home province), with very similar Island settings.

It was abandoned as well, and was left to grey and age and rot. There was also a barn and several sheds on the property and it was the source of much wonder and interest for me when I was younger. The basement and floor of the old house had rotted away leaving a large hole in the ground which my parents were careful to ensure I knew to stay away from, so I never was able to go into the house like I so desperately wanted to to explore and see what had been there before.

 But what fired up my imagination the most was the discovery that the gentleman who had lived there last had had a hook for a hand - and this led to many imaginings of what this fellow was like. Truth be told, according to those who knew a little more about him, he was a kindly farmer who had suffered an accident and before the time of prosthetic hands had gotten a hook instead. But no one cooks up good ghost stories about kindly farmers right? In any case he and his house were certainly fodder for my imagination as a child and I think probably a large part of what keeps me intrigued by these old abandoned homes that sometimes speckle the countryside even still.  The old farmhouse I longed to explore was burned down by controlled fire, with firetrucks surrounding, since it was deemed a fire hazard, and I was sad to see it go, but the memories are as strong as ever.

I think a dream come true for me would be to explore an old ghost town, much like Elizabeth just did, although like her, I think I'd appreciate more the ghost town that hasn't yet been turned into a tourist attraction but has been left as it was, more or less, and ready for me to discover.