Posted by Leopard18 I may be completely alone on this, but I am paranoid about falling through a rotten floor. More often than not I am deterred from a place if the floors look especially unsafe, rusty, rotten, etc, or if parts of a building are unstable or bowing. I am actually more likely to check out a partially collapsed house than one that has a seemingly rotten or unstable section, even if rationally A:a partial collapse can be arguably more stable and B: chances are a bowing wall has been that way for years without problem, and one explore most likely wouldnt crumble it. Either way, it's just one of those weird things that turns me away when my paranoia gets ahold of me, and it usually does because nobody wants to fall through a floor or crushed by a roof.

I'm more concerned about someone else falling through the roof.

Posted by Leopard18 I may be completely alone on this, but I am paranoid about falling through a rotten floor.

This has kept me from a few floors in locations.

I had that happen recently. Went twice and there was a cop sitting there. Came a different time and used different parking spot and got in easy enough.

This happened to me a couple weeks ago. The cop made a point of following me, taking my license plate number, and telling me to stay away. Still went in though.

For me, I was out biking, and both times it was just a cop pulling up to the traffic light to turn into a complex with a bank (this is on a rather busy stretch of road). They never stopped, but I know they've seen me stop, and are just around the corner.

Came upon a site with a biohazard warning sign on it...was enough for me. Pass!

I stay away if there are people on the property, if I see that there are security cameras. And if I get that gut feeling where I should not enter the place for what ever reason. I like to be as safe as possible and not get in trouble by the law. That has happen before was not a fun thing.

This is usually a bad sign, but I kept going anyway. I only left when i heard movement in the damn walls in the attic.

Watching coyotes come and go from a building is usually a turn off

At night, hearing a raspy voice from the bushes telling me aggressively to go back into a very run down abandonment and that there "aren't gonna be any big guys waiting for ya, don't worry" in a not so good neighborhood (well after 10pm)...I had already been in to show a friend the building, however had specifically not taken him into the one room in the back where it would be very easy to be ambushed/cornered.
The guy spent about 5 minutes trying to get us to go back in, and when we would try to walk away, he would get extremely angry. We ended up just leaving and hoping he wouldn't chase us, but we never did see him since he stayed in his bush. (also he must have watched us go in and not said anything, since there was no one around when we went in, and we only spent 5 or so minutes in there)

Age.
Can't climb like I once did.

Also, my brain has started with the... "Excuse me... we are NOT walking across THIS to enter THAT!"

horrific spider orgies

Places where you have to walk across very old wood. National Treasure flashbacks

Guard dogs, police activity, gang activity, gas and explosives.

Posted by Astro They aren't required to have the signs up, FYI. Castle Doctrine is so wide open that if you're on someone else's property for any impermissible purpose then there is nothing stopping the owner of the property from using fire arms against the person on the property.

Kind of wrong there.

Read the law, there are a fair bit of caveats on what can be done, in what context, and how. Not to mention that you'll still probably get cuffed n stuffed and have a fun time with a prosecutor until they do or don't decide to charge you.

That's already been discussed. Disregard.

Big thing for me is fresh animal tracks. Considering a lot of the abandonments are in the woods up here, the last thing I want to do is run into a pissed off bear/wolf/wolverine/etc with help being miles and miles away.

That or finding out that one of my favorite spots to poke around/pick blueberries (old military area south of me) had UXO (unexploded ordnance) everywhere and you now need a permit to go there.

Can you get shot? Yes. Will you get shot and tied up with dualing banjos? Probably not. Just fucking be smart about it and chances are you will walk away with a slap on the wrist. But remember, 95% of the time when exploring YOU are the one breaking the law here....

I've passed many a tres at various high-risk places over the decades, but at least after getting older & wiser, the one type of signage that will stop me cold, with minimal thought of ignoring it, are the signs indicating the land is now an off-limits nature preserve!

The reason is because (IMHO) if you're caught, it is very easy for the authorities to claim your mere presence in the off-limits area has annoyed/molested a litany of rare & endangered wildlife that lives there -- altering it's breeding, etc. & there's really not much of a legitimate counter-argument anyone could make. Fines are often in the thousands of dollars.

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/-/ooligan

Has anyone said "Seph Lawless" yet?

Ummm I'm not a huge adrenaline junkie so if a site is heavily guarded then I won't really care to venture in there. I explore more for the atmospheric feeling and the ambiance and I would rather enjoy said ambiance without having to worry about security guards. But I judge if a location is worth the risk more on a case to case basis instead of having a set standard.

One time, many years ago I was exploring the unused top floor of a still-active horse barn, it was a big old barn the horses were kept down in the building's foundations the top floor must have had a ceiling of about 25 feet

I don't recall if there was anyway to access the top floor from the outside it may have had a ramp but if it did it would have certainly have had blocked off doors. The only way I could find to access it was a very narrow set of steps behind the door at the rear of the tack room.

The stairs felt sturdy enough and soon I emerged head first into the large open space of the top floor sunlight brightly streaming in from all around, just then I noticed something whizzing past my face. I turned to get a better look around...

Then I froze in horror.

I had heard a buzzing sound coming up the steps but foolishly dismissed it as wind or possibly a piece of electrical equipment and was neither of those things,

The air was absolutely thick with wasps and hornets, and possibly yellow jackets I don't know but they were everywhere, both mud and paper nests lined the walls and ceilings all shapes and sizes all seemingly active. To say that there were easily a thousand nests doesn't seem like it could be an exaggeration.

I slowly started back down the stairs with some of them buzzing only inches by my head as I did.

When I reached the door in the tack room I closed it quickly behind me, left the barn and vowed never to return.

I never did.

Posted by Darthbindy Only 2 things that I've encountered so far: No possible way in with breaking something. People (cops, thugs, random people I don't know)...security not so much.

I'm with you an that.

The biggest thing I avoid is anyplace that looks like it is a major hang-out. Tons of graffiti, stripped out metals, tons of vandalism= Nah.

Not even because of the conflict factor, mostly because it means there will be nothing there worth finding.

I'd say real police, but only until I found a better way in. Was walking in one abandoned building and felt the 2nd level floor sink with each step, that was sketchy, but I kept walking.

Barbed wire fencing with those yellow attachments every few feet. They terrify me. Sometimes you can actually hear them hum, that keeps me away unless I find a gate or other section that doesn't sound like it'll take down an elephant.