Nevertheless, such properties can become a cause for many problems in an area. A house or a mansion that has been left in an abandoned state can have some undesirable effects on others. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the problems that an abandoned property can cause:

1. Problems for the homes nearby

An empty house can affect the value of its neighboring homes. It can also adversely affect the value of the entire street in some cases. This will come to light when a person next door is trying to sell a house. The empty house, some rusting vehicle, and an overgrown garden can be some of the dangerous signs.

They can significantly reduce the market value of surrounding homes. In worst cases, the homes in the neighborhood won’t sell at all!

2. Crime

Criminals have the tendency to store their stolen goods or commercially grown cannabis in abandoned homes. An empty house will some day or the other become a target of such criminals or burglars. Some even use such properties as places for selling drugs.

Burglars can easily enter an abandoned mansion or house and steal anything. They then sell the stolen items such as pipes, radiators, and other items made of metal.

3. Illegal occupation

Some individuals, especially those who are homeless, can make an abandoned property their home illegally. The likelihood increases when such a property is located in areas of high demand. One of the examples of such areas is a central city location. The illegal occupants are sometimes well meaning people who can’t afford a decent home.

Many of them might do some repairs and upkeep the property at their own cost. The illegal occupants who pose a threat to others in the neighborhood are usually the criminals on the run. Such people just need a place to live somewhere and most of them damage the property before moving on.

4. Arson

Homes that are abandoned become an easy target for arsonists. These individuals are often teens or mischievous kids who won’t be quite aware of what they’re doing. They can cause gas pipes to leak, resulting in an accidental fire. They might play with faulty electric wiring, leading to fatal accidents.

5. Rodents and harmful creatures

With no one living in an abandoned house, rodents or other harmful creatures can get an easy access. They can cause a lot of damage to the property and also become a nuisance to the homes nearby. Lack of cleaning and flushing of toilets can affect the sewers from the house. The bathrooms begin to emit unpleasant smells and allow vermin to enter the property.

Vegetation can also become a threat to the house with trees and bushes growing into the rafters. Trees can become a threat to the foundations owing to their roots. Such a situation of a house is often referred to as ‘reclaimed by nature’.

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With some negotiations, efforts, and patience, it can be turned into prime real estate. You’ll certainly have to go through a few legal hurdles while buying such houses. This in no way means that these issues can’t be sorted out. Besides, you must also be prepared to invest a certain amount of time and money for the property’s renovation.

Advantages

When you buy an abandoned house, you’ll mostly deal directly with the bank. The local realtors usually partner with banks to sell such properties way below the market rate. As a result, it becomes quite easy to secure such properties. You’ll mostly end up getting a great deal when you buy an abandoned house.

One doesn’t have to go through the trouble of finding an owner, because there won’t be one in most cases. Investors would prefer working with the banks rather than dealing with homeowners. The greatest benefit of working with the bank is that it has no emotional attachment to the property.

The banks, in fact, are more interested in the potential of selling the property for a profit. Your profit will greatly depend on the amount of time for which you’ll hold the property. It will also depend on the amount of money you’ll invest into its repairs.

Things to consider before buying

There can be various reasons why someone would abandon a house. One of them could be the previous property owner’s inability to make the mortgage payments. This results in the bank foreclosing on the house. Another reason could be that the home went way below the local standard of resident properties. If it’s the second case, you’ll need to look at certain things to avoid making huge losses.

It’s illegal to use asbestos in new construction, but older homes might have this material. Asbestos was once used commonly as an insulating material, which also caused mesothelioma. So, if you wish to buy an abandoned property, make sure that there’s no presence of asbestos. If the material exists, you can have it removed safely.

Another important point to consider is that abandoned homes don’t have any caretakers. It is, therefore, important to check such properties for minor or major structural damages. Another cause of concern with these properties is plumbing and wiring. Electrical wiring that’s faulty is extremely dangerous and can lead to fires.

You must be absolutely clear about your intention for buying the abandoned house. The amount of money that you invest into the repairs and renovation work matters a lot. If it’s more than the amount you’re willing to pay, then you might not buy it. All these things must be considered before you putting forth your offer.

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Most of the abandoned places in this state once thrived largely because of their proximity to these water bodies. If you wish to explore such places in Minnesota, make sure you know the basics of the local trespassing laws. Now, let’s take a look at some of the famous abandoned places in the state:

1. Banning Sandstone Quarry

The Banning Sandstone Quarry was once a source of livelihood for hundreds of residents. It was founded in the late 19th century and employed more than 500 workers. They created blocks out of sandstone to be used in the construction industry.

You can see this abandoned quarry’s remains from the Quarry Loop Trail, which follows an old railroad bed. When the quarry business was booming, an increasing number of people opted to settle nearby permanently. This considerable growth in population led to the incorporation of Banning town in 1896.

Within a few years, the use of sandstone declined owing to the new trends in construction. Stronger building materials were being used for construction and the quarry had to shut down completely in 1905. Today, the remains of the abandoned quarry can still be seen.

2. Tanner Hospital

Tanner Hospital lies in a state of disrepair in the city of Ely today. Many of its windows are boarded up or broken out. The ‘For Sale’ signs have been subject to damage over the years and now dangles from the siding. This hospital came up at the beginning of the 20th century. The intention was to combat the rising cases of disease in northern Minnesota.

They were largely the result of the sanitation systems that were inadequate in the mining boomtowns. These towns had quickly sprung up in the area called ‘Iron Range’. Tanner Hospital was a private, for-profit hospital. It had an architecture that was quite unusual for a healthcare facility. It looked more like a fairytale castle with its elaborate masonry and four-story turrets.

The dormers along the roofline and bay windows offered excellent views of the Shagawa Lake for the recovering patients. It got its name in the honor of Anterro Tanner, a pioneering Finnish doctor. A few years later, the hospital got the name Carpenter’s Hospital in the honor of Dr. Carroll Carpenter.

3. ADM Mill

The Dinkytown neighborhood in Minneapolis is home to the shuttered Archer-Daniels-Midland mill or ADM mill. On the side of the concrete towers, you’ll find the faded ‘ADM’ initials. Now they don’t seem important owing to the work of some daring graffiti artists. At the top of the urban monoliths, these artists have painted the words ‘United Crushers’. They’re visible from I-94 and this is the reason why the facility became an unlikely icon.

In recent times, this mill has been under threat from the expansion plans of the University of Minnesota. The structure still stands as a popular destination for curious visitors and adventurers. It is off-limits technically owing to safety concerns. Despite this, people still breach the barriers regularly to explore the interiors of this old facility.

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One also considers the difficulties that an individual has to go through in recent times to own a home. However, there are people throughout recorded history who have abandoned such properties. Some were abandoned because of tales associated with ghosts and mysterious sightings. Others had no one to pass the property to after the owner’s death.

As a result, there are many eerie abandoned homes in different parts of the world. Over the years, these properties have become quite mysterious and are often seen as haunted houses. Here, we’ve presented some of the abandoned properties from different parts of the world.

1. Wyndclyffe Castle

Wyndclyffe Castle is an abandoned mansion located in Rhinebeck, New York. It was once a vacation home owned by a socialite named Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones. She was the aunt of Edith Wharton, a novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner. Wharton had written classics, such as Ethan Frome. Jones had the home constructed in the mid-19th century.

The home had a total area of 7,500 square feet and had five bathrooms, nine bedrooms, and four fireplaces. The overall area of the estate was more than 80 acres. After the death of Jones, the house had various owners at different points in time. Later, it was abandoned. If you visit the property today, you’ll see the mansion in a state of complete disrepair.

Entire sections of the home have collapsed inwards. The mansion now faces an uncertain future. In 2016, it was sold at an auction for $120,000. Since then, no one has heard anything on its renovation or redevelopment from its present owners.

2. Villa De Vecchi

This mansion was once the summer home of the head of the Italian National Guard, Count Felix de Vecchi. It is located in the Cortenova commune of Italy. The mansion is close to Lake Como, which has been a resort destination for long. There are numerous homes costing millions of euros in this area. Villa De Vecchi is popular in Italy as the most haunted house.

This is the reason why it has been in an abandoned state for over 80 years. It appears as quite a unique home featuring Classical Eastern and Baroque styles. Modern conveniences such as a huge fountain and indoor heating pipes have also been provided. Tragedy struck just a few years after its completion. Count Felix came home only to see a brutal sight.

His wife was murdered and his daughter was nowhere to be seen. He searched hard for his daughter and committed suicide a few months later when she was not found. The house went to new owners, but was later abandoned.

There have been reports about music coming from the damaged piano in the mansion. The locals have also heard rumors of murders, suicides, and sacrifices at the site. An avalanche wiped out several homes nearby, but it mysteriously avoided this mansion.

3. Lennox Castle

This castle is located in Lennoxtown, Scotland. It was purchased by Glasgow Corporation in the 19th century. The buyers had planned to convert this castle into a large psychiatric hospital. After the inauguration of the new medical facility, the buyers were happy to witness the fulfillment of their dream.

It ran for nearly 40 years without much problems. Later on, troubles began to surface when it became increasingly difficult to staff over a thousand patients. The medical director of the hospital thought that he had landed in a pit. He was sick about the pains of the poor people that came there.

A significant number of patients who arrived were malnourished and underweight. They were forced to go through some harsh punishments. The patients hat to eat only bread and milk and had to run barefoot while they beat them using baseball bats. The hospital continued to function until 2002, when it finally closed.

A demolition happened two years later. What remained was the original building, but even that suffered damage from a fire that occurred in 2008. Since that incident, this castle has continued to deteriorate. It now lies abandoned, with crumbling brick and overgrown greens on it.

4. The Pineheath House

According to the Daily Mirror, this 40-room mansion was once a vacation home of Sir Dhunjibhoy and Lady Bomanji. It is located in Harrogate, England. Sir Dhunjibhoy was a shipping magnate. Nearly half a century after the death of her husband, Lady Bomanji died in the year 1986. Nevertheless, the Pineheath House had been sitting right there, untouched.

This mansion is not like many of the other abandoned homes. It has not been subject to vandalism or graffiti. Instead, the beds are still made here, keys are kept in a drawer, and bathrooms have soap in them. In 2013, Jason Shaw purchased the Pineheath House. He had plans of restoring this mansion.

The businessman had even submitted his planning application to convert the property into 16 luxury apartments. After the denial of his planning application, he had plans to sell the Pineheath House. There has been no update on this so far.

5. Liu Family Mansion

There have been several theories around the abandonment of this colossal brick mansion. In the mid-20th century, the wealthy Liu family simply left their home, never to return. People say that this mansion located in New Taipei City, Taiwan, is infested by ghosts.

According to one of the popular myths, the family patriarch had an affair with the maid. She was later unable to cope with the shame that it brought her and committed suicide. They say, her spirit never left the Liu household. After many nights of sightings of her ghost in the house, the Liu family left their three-story mansion.

The Taipei Times had reports of other ghostly myths. One of them said that a Japanese soldier had committed suicide there. Today, the mansion lies in a dilapidated state with vines and tree roots on it.

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You may perhaps love to hear an interesting, scary ghost story. Of course, there are many individuals in the world just like you who would like to hear one. Despite this, many of us would certainly not want to live in such properties. So, here we present some of the scary ghost stories of abandoned homes:

1. Dundas Castle

This property located in Roscoe, New York, is also known as Craig-E-Claire Castle. When it was constructed by Bradford Lee Gilbert in the late 19th century, it was a small lodge-like structure. It was in 1915 that its new owner, Ralph Wurts-Dundas decided to rebuild it like a castle. He passed away a year before it was completed.

Even his wife didn’t have the good fortune to live in the finished castle. Shortly after her husband’s death, Josephine was committed to a mental institution. Muriel, their daughter, became the new owner of this property. This was not what the greedy caretakers wanted. They stripped Muriel of her inheritance and stole the property from her. She later married and left the house.

It got sold a few times and eventually went to a local Masonic chapter. While the property still rests in the hands of the Masonic ownership, it has been abandoned. Locals say that the ghost of Josephine still haunts this castle.

2. Lynnewood Hall

Built in the late 1800s, Lynnewood Hall is located in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. It has a Neo-classical architecture. This lavish mansion of limestone was constructed shortly after the death of the wife of Peter A. B. Widener. He was a tycoon and art collector who commissioned the mansion from the renowned architect, Horace Trumbauer. The mansion had 110 rooms with 55 bedrooms.

The eldest son of Widener was to inherit this property, but he was on the maiden voyage of Titanic. Eleanor, his wife, survived on a lifeboat. The Wideners were one of the biggest investors in the RMS Titanic. Joseph, the younger son of Widener managed the property until he died in the year 1943. Later the house was left unclaimed and abandoned. A few ghost stories about the house have survived to this day.

3. Odd Fellows Home

Old Fellows Home was well-known for its secret rituals throughout the 19th century. This mansion is located in Liberty, Missouri. It was constructed for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), an organization founded in 1819. The mansion acted as a central hub for this organization in Missouri.

The goals of the fraternal organization was similar to that of the Masons. They were promoting community outreach, brotherhood, and loyalty. As the rituals continued to be performed in the Odd Fellows Home, they didn’t take care of the at-risk members.

The complex of Odd Fellows Home spanned 200 acres. It comprised a hospital, school, nursing home, and orphanage. The subject of the ghost stories today is a skeleton of George, who was one of their members. It was used in the strange initiation rituals and was left behind when the mansion was abandoned.

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