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UER Forum > Archived Rookie Forum > This abandoned, or are you just a total slob? (Viewed 1230 times)
Tristan Brink 


Location: Banks of the Miskatonic, MA
Gender: Male


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This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
< on 8/22/2013 6:57 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
I understand that we go into buildings we're not supposed to. That's a huge part of the hobby for me. I love (unoccupied) residences, as the perverse feeling of snooping around other people's things is just delightful. This brings me to something that happened last week.

There's this house we drive by nearly 15-20 times per week. It's hidden by the trees, but what is visible just looks dilapidated as hell. I think I saw a few broken windows, and the siding is quite literally falling off. I thought I struck gold. Upon a more stealthy approach I saw two cars in the driveway. They've probably always been there but hidden by trees. Had I gone ahead with my instincts earlier (perhaps a day when they were out to work), this could have been really problematic.

I think others may wonder at the same thing:

What signs does everyone look for to ensure abandonment as opposed to merely shitty housekeeping? I know the obvious: broken windows, dilapidated siding, no activity, empty driveway, all that. Are there any subtle ones?

The only thing worse than getting caught in someone's home is having the only explanation be "Sorry, you're such a miserable handyman that I thought it was fair game." Besides the legal and safety ramifications, I certainly don't want to put someone through a perceived home invasion.
[last edit 8/22/2013 7:07 PM by Tristan Brink - edited 2 times]

The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
relik 


Location: 44.26126°,-88.41502° (Appleton, WI)
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 1 on 8/22/2013 7:58 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Drive by in the evening/at night and see if there are any lights on. Check the meter for any activity.
Otherwise, just knock on the door and see if someone answers. If so, just ask if someone (random name) is available. When they say "no", just apologize and say you must have the wrong house.

"When it rains, just find bigger drains."
Tristan Brink 


Location: Banks of the Miskatonic, MA
Gender: Male


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 2 on 8/22/2013 8:03 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
*smacks head*

That was pretty obvious. Good thinking.

The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
relik 


Location: 44.26126°,-88.41502° (Appleton, WI)
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 3 on 8/22/2013 8:48 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Tristan Brink
*smacks head*

That was pretty obvious. Good thinking.


Haha. Quit overthinking it!

"When it rains, just find bigger drains."
Ricky_from_TV 


Location: Peterborough, Ontario
Gender: Male


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 4 on 8/22/2013 10:59 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Tristan Brink
*smacks head*

That was pretty obvious. Good thinking.


Whenever i enter any building i alway make a knocking sound and Say 'Hello'

Same with entering each room with a door, -With obvious accept ions to these two points.

When Caught Always, Always Use the Jim trick.
dirtyw0rld 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 5 on 8/23/2013 2:13 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Ricky_from_TV
Whenever i enter any building i alway make a knocking sound and Say 'Hello'

Same with entering each room with a door, -With obvious accept ions to these two points.

I'm always knocking as I go, unless of course I'm trying to be really quiet. But other than that, I don't like being snuck up on so I would assume neither does anyone else. At least with a knock I can give them a heads up




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Ricky_from_TV 


Location: Peterborough, Ontario
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I'm going to try and refuckulate it

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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 6 on 8/23/2013 3:52 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by dirtyw0rld

I'm always knocking as I go, unless of course I'm trying to be really quiet. But other than that, I don't like being snuck up on so I would assume neither does anyone else. At least with a knock I can give them a heads up





Exactly, I knock the door as i open it, and call hello.

Especially since a lot of the places i go are REALLY far away from civilization. People get bored in the woods....

When Caught Always, Always Use the Jim trick.
/-/ooligan 


Location: Las Vegas area
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 7 on 8/23/2013 5:04 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
This was really a challenge when I lived in Detroit & was a fun game to play when my honky friends from the suburbs would come visit.


There, the best way to tell was to look for a newish looking satellite TV antenna on the crib (seems like Dish & DirecTV must have been less picky with credit reports than Comcast) or to listen for howling kids. At night, you look for the glow of a TV set or someone heating-up their crack pipe.

'Abandoned' or not, it's always small to knock & announce your presence before walking-in, just in-case there are squatters, scrap-metal parasites, rapists, other UE'ers or feral dogs inside.

/-/ooligan

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
/-/ooligan 


Location: Las Vegas area
Gender: Male


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 8 on 8/23/2013 5:17 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
BTW, two good announcements to try after knocking on the door of a potentially abandoned structure -- especially in Detroit -- are:

1. Hello, we're two Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints missionaries, here to save your soul!

2. Hello, Detroit Police Department Special Response Team, here to sell you tickets to the annual police fund-raiser!

Even if the structure is legally occupied, either of those announcements is bound to cause any & all sane parties inside to flee out the back door & head for the hills.



If someone actually comes to the door after hearing one of those announcements, YOU should run away because the occupant is obviously crazy.


/-/oolie

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
Tristan Brink 


Location: Banks of the Miskatonic, MA
Gender: Male


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 9 on 8/23/2013 2:20 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Awesome suggestions. I think pretending to be a Joho or LDS missionary works well with my wife's and my approach. We tend to dress rather nice/professional for this, figuring it'll lend credence to "Oh, we just came out with our cameras cuz it looks cool and got curious". It'd be awesome to be like "Hi, we were wondering, do you have time to discuss the book of Ephesians?"

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OwlsFlight 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 10 on 8/23/2013 4:25 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
There's a couple of houses near me that fit that exact description. The one house is completely covered in trees and vines and looks a little rough on the outside. No car in the driveway, or what's left of a driveway. The only tip I got it was occupied is the trash can is out for every other pickup. Otherwise you'd think it was vacant. Another house has a grown in driveway, yard full of crap, house is a mess. The porch light is on for several hours every night and then turns off. It's either on a timer, or someone is indeed living there. There was another house right down the street from where I live that had timers on the lights. I'm guessing it was for sale and owned by the bank and the lights were set to try to keep the scrappers out. It's been like that for 2 years now. Scrapping vacant (and even occupied!) houses has been something that has been really bad around here.

I'm always paranoid the person living in a beat to hell home is a nut and for a couple of ok shots of an abandoned house, I'd rather not have a shotgun/broken beer bottle/dead cat thrown into my face upon walking up.

I'll usually try a spot if the windows or a window is broken, and left open for a while.

Exploring the distance between points A & B.
Durdan 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 11 on 8/24/2013 1:21 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
i ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS check the power meters to see if theyre going.

next, i always announce myself (mostly in case of squatters/homeless folks) and always yell out, "hello..? anyone here? i'm only here to take photos! i'm not here to touch anything"

that's gotten the response of a few homeless in the past. when they approach me, i typically offer them cigarettes and old playboys (essential items to pack in your explore bag)

[20:58:22] <3mpolack> i realise that i am the scum of society
Trackrunner 




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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 12 on 8/27/2013 7:14 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by relik
Drive by in the evening/at night and see if there are any lights on. Check the meter for any activity.
Otherwise, just knock on the door and see if someone answers. If so, just ask if someone (random name) is available. When they say "no", just apologize and say you must have the wrong house.


With my luck, the person WOULD be there. Then I would have to stand there awkwardly for a moment until someone pulls a shotgun on me and I get the hell out.

fiftyone_eggs 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 13 on 8/27/2013 9:21 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
This is why I don't do houses.

Radical_Ed 


Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 14 on 8/29/2013 10:47 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Yeah, I'm not really a "house" guy either. If I do, I knock like a pissed-off cop and shout "alright, who lives here?" in a menacing tone. All that ever happened to me is some black dude named Elroy came out of the darkness and asked me if I had a disposable lighter for his crack stem. He made a pipe from a busted car radio antennae but ran out of lighter fluid.

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Kurt 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 15 on 9/13/2013 4:01 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Radical_Ed
Yeah, I'm not really a "house" guy either. If I do, I knock like a pissed-off cop and shout "alright, who lives here?" in a menacing tone. All that ever happened to me is some black dude named Elroy came out of the darkness and asked me if I had a disposable lighter for his crack stem. He made a pipe from a busted car radio antennae but ran out of lighter fluid.


did you help Elroy out?

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Harvestman 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 16 on 9/13/2013 10:24 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Radical_Ed
He made a pipe from a busted car radio antennae but ran out of lighter fluid.


Genius.

Oh good, my slow clap processor made it into this thing.
seanblaze 


Location: philadelaware
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 17 on 9/17/2013 2:04 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Radical_Ed
All that ever happened to me is some black dude named Elroy came out of the darkness and asked me if I had a disposable lighter for his crack stem. He made a pipe from a busted car radio antennae but ran out of lighter fluid.


Did that happen in Philly? I'm pretty sure I met the same Elroy inside the door that used to be open on the side of RPS in 2006 - 2007. He was there scraping. We scared the shit out of him when we walked in. After a quick appology he asked if either of us had a lighter. We handed him one, and he proceded to pull out a crack pipe and suck down a massive hit right in front of us. Horrible smelling stuff. He told us his life story in about 45 seconds afterwards. He sure was a fast talker. I love Philadelphia.

esslemont 


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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 18 on 10/16/2013 2:54 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by relik
Drive by in the evening/at night and see if there are any lights on. Check the meter for any activity.
Otherwise, just knock on the door and see if someone answers. If so, just ask if someone (random name) is available. When they say "no", just apologize and say you must have the wrong house.


This is perfect. I'm so glad I read this before trying anything rash. There's a house less than a block away from me that I've been dying to get into, but I saw a light on upstairs when I drove past today. Didn't even think of checking an electricity meter or knocking. Of course. Thanks!

My go-to method while exploring is to scout ahead with a map, write down an address that could easily be misspelled, and carry that slip of "proof" with me. So far, I haven't had cause to use it, but it definitely comes in handy, if only due to researching the area with a map.

"And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out."
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Re: This abandoned, or are you just a total slob?
<Reply # 19 on 10/16/2013 1:38 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by esslemont
My go-to method while exploring is to scout ahead with a map, write down an address that could easily be misspelled, and carry that slip of "proof" with me. So far, I haven't had cause to use it, but it definitely comes in handy, if only due to researching the area with a map.

?

I don't get it.


UER Forum > Archived Rookie Forum > This abandoned, or are you just a total slob? (Viewed 1230 times)
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