My favorite find along these lines was the morgue cooler at Preakness that still had power. It was so cold you could leave some drinks in there, come back, and they would be ice cold.

http://flic.kr/p/puVAMn

Been in plenty of places with working power and lights though the most awesome were two places in particular:

an abandoned hotel downtown that had been abandoned for at least 5 years. a portion of the office area still had power, plumbing, a residential size furnace for heating a handful of offices and a still working DSL internet and phone line. used to go in there in the winter to hang out, drink beers, whatever and enjoy the warmth and electricity. the owners caught onto it after a year or so since we'd been moving things around and sucking up the power and they shut it off on us and moved the furniture out. was great while it lasted.

a mothballed steel mill that still had basically everything in working condition. lighting, plumbing, security systems including video surveillance. even some of the large machines for rolling the steel appeared to be in working condition, but we didn't try using any of them since they were fucking huge and a malfunction could have gone really bad. we did play around with the PA system for the entire building, using it to scare the shit out of new people.

I'm always nervous about turning on any working electronics in abandonments. Knowing my luck it would alert the owner or the police and I would be found while exploring lol.

Posted by TheSwanStation As you can tell by my username I am a huge Lost fan. All the Dharma stations and the other old buildings on the island is one of my favorite parts of that show. I had been interested in abandoned places and old buildings for years, but Lost really helped along my curiosity about Urbex.

Nice. Yah It makes you think there could easily be old military bunkers and such out there on islands or in the mountains just waiting to be found. I'm not expecting countdown timers that discharge pockets electromagnetism but hey, what do I know? lol.

My first explore was in an old senior living home. When I first went by there was this high pitched beeping going on. I thought that maybe it was a security alarm (I was really new to alarms and such) so I left and came back the next day and it was still going.

Come to find out it was just a "System Trouble" alarm going off trying to get some attention. That's probably the only power I've come across exploring.

Recently came across a location with the direct opposite of this. There were lots of electronics (phones, computers) and computer accessories (computer mice, wall warts) left over, but everything had the cord cut off. There was not a single item, no matter how small, left in that building that still had a full electrical cord attached to it.

Unusual in that there was still plenty of wiring left in the building - some of it cut but not taken.

I recently explored a juvenile detention center or training school as it was named in northern Florida and it still had full power and water in the newer prison style complex at the rear of the campus including the control room which still allowed you to lock and unlock the doors of the cells and had a computer that fires up. The older more dilapidated buildings on the campus still had a few lights on and exit signs. And one building had the air on and a large generator running. The church at the front had complete electrical functionality including spot lights and stage lights.

A friend and I explored an overgrown house with the front door unlocked. There was an overgrown tree with vines and spanish moss all over it so I wasn't worried that anyone would see us. So we walk in to see that the ceiling fan was on. We went into the kitchen and the fridge was on. This was getting strange, we checked around for any sign if anyone had been there recently. we looked through the entire house and found no sign that anyone has been there or squatted there. The floors had dust on them from sitting so long, our foot prints were the only thing that disturbed it.

Pretty cool, but its not like the houses that some people find that are in perfect condition from the 60's or 70's. The previous people must have moved out or were in the middle of renovating. There were a few cans of paint with the receipt dated from early 2007. The soda and the christmas ham in the fridge best by date was for December of 2006 (We tried the soda, flat, no sugar, but still cold). Yes, the ham is still projected to be there. Ill try to go back soon to get pictures.