While there are no exteriors of the house I’ll be showing you, it’s evident that the house dates back to at least the 1970’s. The deck at the rear of the property is now quite rotten. There are several holes in the deck so you have to be cautious walking on it. I cautiously navigated it, keeping close to the walls. By the shed are two old rotary dial phones. They are a prelude to the past way of life to be found inside this house.

We were the first explorers ever to set foot inside this house. Upon making our way inside the house, the first room we discovered was the living room. I remember exclaiming, “This place is awesome!” Indeed it was, a perfectly preserved time capsule. So very rare.

The living room is perfectly preserved. A couch faces an older model television, a VCR and DVD player are connected to the set. On a table next to the television are some assorted DVD’s. A coffee table in front of the couch is covered by cloth, a box of Kleenex and bowl set upon it.

There was a very small amount of dust on the furniture. I ran my finger along the wood as if to prove that there was dust, and therefore the house is abandoned. (Our social media following likes to believe that no dust means a house is occupied)

There’s a hutch in the corner of the living room. I remember opening it but can’t recall what was inside. At the other end of the living room is a fireplace with assorted clocks and knicknacks on the mantle. The more I looked around, the more I noticed the clocks. Two were mounted on the wall just behind the couch. They were on the mantle. They were on shelves. They were… everywhere.

Magazines are sitting underneath the coffee table. There are cobwebs in the corners of the walls. The place looks completely lived in, yet it’s been vacant for many years.

On the table by the window rests a photo of Jesus. Whomever had lived here was religious. In today’s society if Facebook goes down, it becomes international news. I respect people who practice religion of the non-internet faith. There was a lack of family photographs which I found puzzling. On a chest in the living room I observed two framed photographs taken at a wedding. I believe that one of the photos is of the couple’s son while the other is of the entire family.

I moved on to the kitchen where I immediately noticed two things of interest: One was that the power was working. The microwave showed the incorrect time. The other thing was that there were three calendars (1999, 2006 and 2008). There was a religious Psalm hung on the kitchen wall.

One of the kitchen drawers had been removed and placed on the kitchen table. Various utensils were in the box underneath it. The dish cloths hung on the stove. The stove clock showed the incorrect time, likely due to power outage some time ago. The fridge doors were open, the contents had been removed and the fridge’s power disconnected. One of the bedrooms contained boxes of food from the cupboards. The water had been disconnected long ago which would prevent broken pipes. Besides the empty fridge there was other evidence that the home had not been lived in for quite some time – cobwebs. At some point after the owner passed away, I believe the children came to empty the fridge and turn off the water but left most of the personal effects behind.

We noticed an unusal device at the end of the hallway by the bedrooms, a box with a red light and a siren mounted on it. It appeared to be some sort of an alarm system.

Cobwebs were in the doorways to the bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the corners of the living room, everywhere! If someone had been caring for this property, they’d have disturbed the cobwebs. By the time we left this house, our clothes and hair had accumulated most of the cobwebs.

I made my way into the the master bedroom. AMAZING! The bed was still made and slippers were at the foot of the bed. The closets had clothing stull hung up inside. I noticed something that struck me as odd – a bell on the night stand. It was at this point that I wondered if perhaps the former occupant of this house had been bedridden or ill.

Factoring the calendars and cobwebs, I estimated that this house has been vacant for at least eight years, probably longer. What particularly impresses me is that in that time nobody had broken in to steal. The dresser drawers are all in place, and the clothes haven’t been tossed about. How is this possible in a society that steals and damages vacant properties?

The exterior of the house has bars on all the ground level windows. I first found this to be mildly disturbing and while I explored the upper levels of the house I really wanted to know what was downstairs. At the same time I intentionally avoided the venture into the basement, because it offered excitement and anticipation. What would we find down there?

We ventured down into the basement where I really lost my mind. There was a retro basement bar with liquor bottles still on the shelf. Along one wall was an assortment of antique clocks of various designs. Along the back wall were shelves with several more clocks, many with price tags on them. The man who lived here operated a watch and clock repair shop out of one of the rooms in the basement. In one of my photos you’ll see his workshop which is just inside from the garage where the car remains gathering dust.

The bars on the basement windows were now explained. The owner of this home wanted to protect his investment of clocks.

By now I was beginning to feel an emotional attachment to this house and to whomever had lived here. I pictured the elderly man as he tinkered in the basement on his latest project. I saw him growing older over the years until the time came where he would be moved into a long-term care facility.

The recreation room served as a makeshift showroom. It saddened me because althought we’d only been inside the house for less than an hour, I could already forsee the inevitable shitbaggery that would come when people would come to steal these. On the fireplace mantle were several candle lanterns (those too have largely disappeared).

As we were leaving, I remembering saying to my partner that I hated to leave because I knew what was to come… and it did. It always does.

It started with a few explorers learning the address from word of mouth. Then it spread to the explorers who saw it only as “baseball trading card” material. They gave it to those who were known to steal, to those who cared more about their view count than protecting the location itself.

Then the big name American 100K+ follower explorers had to come visit it. They posted exterior photos, nobody gave a shit about keeping this one off the radar. With each passing video, I noticed fewer and fewer clocks on the wall. In one video from 2012, there was just one clock. In another video, there are none. All stolen.

Monetization of online content has killed the hobby.

It disgusts me what we as a society do to these houses, it disgusts me what we as explorers do to exploit, rapidly share and think of our own social following before preservation.

Hypocritical? Maybe, but consider this: I’ve never posted a single identifying piece of information about who owned this house or any exterior images. But I digress, in a way yes, I too am responsible for what happened here.

And yes it disgusts me.

Update 1: The best locations are the ones that stay in your mind for days afterward. I found myself wondering who this man was and what happened to him? If he was in long-term care then what would happen to his collection?

I spent the next several days scouring the internet for information. I discovered that the clocks had originally been part of another man’s collection. I made some inquiries and learned that the couple who owned this house passed away several years ago. This seemed to coincide with additional information that the house had been transferred to the son for an amount of $2 in 2006. 2006 is also the time when the homeowner’s purchases of clocks ceased.

Why wasn’t the son tending to the property? This is where things get even more interesting. I found a man with the same name as the son, who grew up in the same area, now living in another large Ontario city. The man is ocnfirmed to be the son but seems to have no interest in this house.

In my research I heard from a neighbour who claimed he used to hire the son (the man in the wedding photos) during the 70’s and 80’s. He confirmed that both the husband and wife have passed away.

There is a somewhat happy end to this story though. The neighbour mentioned that the property is regularly checked on. I hope that whoever is caring for it can fix the damage before it’s too late.

Update 2: Sadly as of 2022, most of the clocks have disappeared. The oil lamps on the mantle have also disappeared. This is what happens as word spreads of these untouched houses. The son has no apparent interest in securing the house.

Living room and kitchen