Hey everyone, haven't been very active on here for awhile due to a chaotic work schedule. And apparently i'm rusty because my streak of luck finally ran out today.

It was my day off today and I wanted to get out and do something, so I texted a bunch of friends and found one who wanted to come exploring with me. We decided on an abandoned industrial plant. I've been there a few times in the past but not for a year or so. So we drove the hour away to get there. Parked the car on a nearby street that we parked on previous occasions, and walked into the woods to the facility.

We reached the first building and noticed the entry way had been cemented shut. In the past it had been a hit or miss getting in this way, but for the first time I've ever seen somebody had taken concrete cinder blocks and cemented the entrance shut. No big deal, the catwalks onto the roof were still accessible. So I snapped a few ground pictures and made my way onto the roof.



Now this facility is made up of several buildings surrounded by roadways not really accessible to the public. So it was a huge surprise to me when I glanced out and saw a white SUV slowly driving down one of the roads. I immediately told my friend hide to which he swears "it was just a blue car, they are probably just exploring." We stay covered for another 5 minutes and start making our way around the edge of the roof. Suddenly my friend goes "Oh shit, get down." We crouch down and he goes "He just pulled down another road, its a cop car." We return to our hiding spot and figure maybe he is just doing a routine patrol, we've only been here 15 minutes, they can't possibly be here for us. 10 minutes later we go to investigate again. I look over the edge and his car is sitting in park right next to our building. I decide he knows we are here somewhere, we need to leave.

We rush down the catwalks and back into the forest. We get within eyesight of my friend's car and find 3 random people standing out front of his car. I decide to wait it out to see if they would leave. Then the police car comes driving down the road, says something to the neighbors, and slowly drives by the forest we are hiding in. He drives away and by now I figure those people out front of my friends car undoubtably called the police on us. I thought we should wait them out, maybe since the police car left, they would get bored and leave. Stupid thinking.

About two minutes later the officer appears again, this time out of his vehicle and walking into the woods where we are. We decide he is going to find us, we might as well save him the trouble of walking through the brush so we walk out towards him. One of the nicest most respectful officers I've ever met. He asked us who owns the car and then after seeing my camera and tripod goes "You guys just out here taking pictures?" He explained to us they used to not care until kids started coming to the place and setting things on fire. The fire trucks have a difficult time reaching the place and the last fire a firefighter fell from a building and broke his ankle. Ever since the owner has been strict on people on the property. He told us we weren't in any trouble and normally he just lets photographers go. He ran our IDs and told us "I don't see why I need to get you guys in trouble, the area is posted no trespassing, please politely leave" with a smile on his face. We shook hands and I told him be safe and he said thank you and same to me.



So all in all we drove an hour for about 15 minutes of exploring and a few pictures. It was definitely an adrenaline filled experience but it proves if you treat the officer, property owner, security, etc with respect, they are willing to help you out. Feel free to share your recent explorations gone south.

Every police experience is different. One time I got detained an extra amount of time for apologising to a property owner. Another time a cop tried getting me to give him permission to search my office (I worked for a government propaganda agency at time time, and it was after midnight). I have literally had better luck with cops by getting angry at them and refusing to speak their language. To a cop, being polite is a good way to get you to comply but it could also be a good way to get you to slip and confess to something you shouldn't be saying.

I have also only had shitty experiences with cops. Between having a gun nearly pulled on us and the fact I'm polite but completely unemotional when they were arresting us (apparently women are supposed to ball their eyes out and plead to be forgiven or something?) probably bothered them more than anything.

I'm not too polite, just scary polite, but polite nonetheless.

I'm always polite and honest if it's mutual. Most cops will feel like they have bigger fish to catch. If it's apparent that the cop sees the innocence in my hobby and shows sympathy, I have no problem with being honest. It went like that most of the times. One of my exploring buddies is an ex policeman. He quit his job because he hated that he was sometimes tasked with giving tickets for petty crimes. Now he's exploring with me

Then again, there are always some that kick on fucking with people. You'll notice soon enough when you're talking. Is it gonna help you if you get mad? Probably not. I'm always in a calm but 'you're just a person too and I'm not very impressed by your uniform' mindset and it calms them down quickly in most cases. Throwing fuel on the fire by shouting back is only giving a cop like that a reason to show his powers. Try to get on a human-to-human level and expose the person under the uniform! I even think it's a fun challenge, part of the hobby.

They only time I got caught and had to pay (not a ticket) was while exploring in Germany last summer. We got caught by an annoying big talking guy on an old trainyard. He first offered us to pay him €100 per person, or call the German police who would charge us about €600 pp on site because we're foreigners. I know the German police can be quite hard but in this case I called bluff and decided to start the verbal fight. It must have looked quite funny, like in an old western movie, me against this guy and both with our posse standing behind us (actually because I was the only one speaking decent German). I'm pretty sure I gave him this look a couple of times:



He quickly lowered the price to €100 for the four of us. I still didn't want to just pay €25 to a stranger threatening us! After half an our telling him that I don't believe him and throwing in every possible argument (like "we don't even have any money on us!" and "come on just let us go man, we only took some photos because we really like your trains") it was clear that he wasn't going to give in. I was still not in the mood to just give up and was about to say "ok just call the cops then!" but decided to first ask my buddies what they thought of it. In Dutch of course, so the guy wouldn't understand. In unison they said "let's take our loss, we'll give him the money and go". Well, the most votes win. My last move was telling him that our money was in the car (it was actually in my pocket) just to buy some time to think and look up the German laws on my phone, but Google didn't give me anything useful. I gave up and gave him the €100. Suddenly everything was possible, he offered to continue photographing, but his colleague decided to give us an impassioned tour through the indoor workplaces full of trains you otherwise wouldn't see the urbex way. Appartently they were all volunteers restoring these old trains in their spare time and paying for it themselves. "Ah so we just sponsored €100 for a good cause it seems, promise me to buy some paint and a few beers of it" I said. We all joked and laughed after all, and stayed 3 hours longer than we had planned. I actually had to cut off our overly enthousiastic tour guide because we really had to go to the next location. Funny how things can turn around.

But still, I didn't believe that the German police would demand you to pay €600 on site! Back home I tried to look it up one more time but nada. Then three weeks later I heard that a few Dutch guys were caught next to (not even in! but the terrain was fenced off) a German power plant by security. The security guy immediately called the cops and they had to pay €300 on site! Later, a similar story from some other guys. Damn, must be a new policy or something. Be warned, exploring in Germany is becoming dangerous when you're a foreigner! I'm glad we went for the €25 per person option which turned out to be for a good cause too.

Glad to hear you were let off easy. Great few posts! Thanks for sharing your experiences. Ive only had a few minor encounters with the police (unrelated to urbex) but remaining polite and civil goes a long way, especially when you know you're in the wrong. At the same time get familiar with laws and your rights. You never know when it could help you out.

I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another.

Hmmm,let's see:

1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check

2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check

3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check

4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check

So much failure, lol.

Glad to hear you had a (relatively) good experience OP. Though I've never been caught, I do know a lot of cops who would like to power trip in a situation like this, at least one of whom has bragged about doing so. I've been lucky, but since luck runs out, stories like this are at least a little bit reassuring.

The trouble with locations near the suburbs is that there's always some neighbor that's on the lookout.

Posted by General Zod I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another. Hmmm,let's see: 1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check 3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check 4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check So much failure, lol.

this

Yeah bro, Linfield's not been a good idea for about a year now. You're not the first group I know to have recent difficulties there and the Limerick police are not usually all that friendly either. You got lucky, for sure. Usually it's a nice $450 ticket.

Posted by General Zod 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check

It's gone both ways for me and my reactions have always depended on the location. One time we climbed into an old school through a broken window in the courtyard. There was a huge no trespassing sign right next to the window but we didn't care. The cops show up to our broken window so we hide. They leave after about 10 minutes so we ran the fuck out of there without any issues. On the other hand, I was at a building earlier this week that didn't have any visible no trespassing signs (at least the way we went in). We heard security/police radios so we hid for a minute. I looked out the window and didn't see anyone so I jumped outside. My logic was that I could tell the police I was just looking at the outside of the building because there was no proof that I had been inside.

should have parked at the park across the street.

Posted by General Zod I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another. Hmmm,let's see: 1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check 3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check 4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check So much failure, lol.

5) Keep your tripod out of sight when during ingress.
Myhigh power sniper tripod cost me $1200. I'm good to all the LEOs I meet
Lol, the police chief even liked my images.

You never know what will happen when exploring.
People are trouble.
Hellholes are real.

first mistake was going exploring

never go exploring

I'm always curious as to when my luck is going to run out. It's only a matter of time I guess.

Posted by General Zod I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another. Hmmm,let's see: 1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check 3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check 4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check So much failure, lol.

Yeah I definitely admit I did a few things wrong especially parking in that spot haha. I became complacent since I've parked there several times in the past with no issues. However I don't regret leaving the property for the sole reason that they knew which car was ours. I knew the officer had somehow not seen us on the roof but I also knew he could simply sit by our car and wait while other officers began coming in to find us. I left the property for the reason that if he was going to find us, I wanted to make sure he didn't find us on the property. I feel like him not actually seeing us in the facility, but seeing us in the surrounding woods help contribute to us not getting a ticket. I made the decision under the impression its better he finds us around the property outside of the fence where in the eyes of the law "we may not have gone in," rather then catch us red handed standing on the roof.

Posted by sleeperspirit should have parked at the park across the street.

We really should have. I evem drove by that park thinking maybe it would be better. But decided against it thinking we'd look more suspicious trying to cross the road then parking near the woods where we could just jump to cover. Blew up in my face.

Posted by Radical_Ed Yeah bro, Linfield's not been a good idea for about a year now. You're not the first group I know to have recent difficulties there and the Limerick police are not usually all that friendly either. You got lucky, for sure. Usually it's a nice $450 ticket.

Well damn I am definitely happy how things worked out then. It's a shame the pyros have made it so difficult. They really stepped it up from the vandalism.

Posted by General Zod I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another. Hmmm,let's see: 1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check 3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check 4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check So much failure, lol.

Standing on active train tracks and taking photographs of a powerplant under construction that had been receiving bomb threats? Check

Stand on the wall of a bridge to shoot a factory and have cops called on you because people driving by thought you were a jumper? Check

Seems like a beautiful spot, I'd love to make a trip if things ever mellow out, or I guess if it hasn't been burned down within the next year. Congrats on getting a good cop

omg is this augusta? if so that guy will call the cops every time

dont park on the only side street to the entire property of course the neighbors know it was you, this spot has been set on fire probably 9 times in the past two years..

Posted by General Zod I think everyone has been guilty of the slip-ups in this story at one point or another. Hmmm,let's see: 1) Parking near the property in a visible spot? Check 2) Leaving the building instead of hiding while the authorities are still on site? Check 3) Poking your head up over the roofline of a building? Check 4) Camping out near people investigating your car? Check So much failure, lol.

haha Yep, everyone learns those eventually, and if they're lucky, not the hard way 1st hand. The only one I question is #2. That one can vary because it sometimes depends on location + situation. The rest I learned before I even hit puberty, lol. (due to there being a then-glorious abandonment at the end of my street)