The worst fear of an urban explorer
entry by sentry
4/20/2014 10:06 PM
| This article used to be part of a series of blog entries on my old website
As dramatic as this may sound, every urban explorer has to face a plethora of fears when visiting decayed buildings. For some people, it could be the fear of being arrested and charged with trespassing. You may have heard other people say, they are afraid of seeing ghosts (everybody knows spirits like to hang out in abandoned buildings, right?) or other products of their imagination and of...digital photography. As for me, my ever-growing concern about doing what I like the most is to find out that a particular building I was about to visit has been torn down before I could document it. The very thought of it gives me the shivers. It's not a tragedy per se compared to falling down a 30-foot-deep pit and realizing you didn't tell anyone where you were going...Nevertheless, it is what keeps me awake at night.
When I first started exploring, I was reluctant to go alone. I suppose I was irrationally scared of the dark. Anyone who has spent enough time in abandoned places can tell you: it is among the safest places on earth. That is to say, if you follow some basic safety rules. Otherwise, it can very well be your first and last exploration ever. After all, no one would like to die from cutting his femoral artery on a piece of broken glass while entering through a broken window...Personally, I have come close to hurting myself badly countless times by being complacent...
Many of us who live in major cities have run across homeless people on more than one occasion. Fortunately for me, none of those encounters were with crackheads, junkies or other potentially dangerous persons. But I must admit that, a couple of times in the last few years, I have felt that I was REALLY trespassing on someone's property and I did not like that feeling at all: there were people living there and I was an intruder. Not cool.
Despite all those nasty things that scare us, we have to remember that the only real danger we are facing when exploring abandoned buildings is the occasional raccoon living in the basement and the very annoying (and extremely stupid) pigeons that will fly away in panic when we poke our head into the attic.
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