A somewhat boring house with a disgusting fridge.

This 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom bungalow sits on prime land along a busy road with large subdivisions behind it. The address comes back to Cadet Cleaners, a dry cleaning service. Based on the interior of the house, it was most certainly a residence but may have operated as a drop off location for clothing.

Most of the furniture has been left behind in the living room, as well as the kitchen appliances. Given the area in which the house is located, it’s been well visited by those seeking destruction. The fridge was toppled over, the stairs ripped out, and most of the glass throughout the house has been smashed.

The owner of the property had been trying as far back as 1998 to have the property rezoned for new housing. The initial application called for a 4-storey building with 30 units. After a review, it was changed to 3-storeys and 28 apartment units.

It wasn’t until 2012 that the owners submitted an appeal. In 2015 the Ontario Municipal Board issued an order permitting a new construction height of 5-storeys and almost 90 apartment units. By the time the condos are built, it will have been over 24 years of submitting applications.

As of summer 2022, no progress has been made on the property.

Thanks to Lucas for the location!

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This house contains 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and is located in the City of Toronto. It was last owned in by a Chinese family. During our exploration, we noted several Chinese vases left on the kitchen countertop. The owner wrote software for Android devices.

The highlight of this property is the wooden stairs, intricately carved doors and the large porthole window above the main entrance. The electricity is still functioning.

The familiar orange fencing surrounding the trees indicates to me that the property is destined to be demolished and the trees will be spared. I could find no mention online of any development taking place at this address.

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The Guyitt House is said to be Canada’s most photographed house. The house is located along the Talbot Trail (now known as Highway 3) in Palmyra, Ontario. Talbot Trail was named after Colonel Thomas Talbot, who during the 1820s, constructed the corduroy road to allow settlers and military personnel access to the land.

The Guyitt house was built in 1842 with additions added to it in 1920 and the 1940’s. It was purchased in 1908 by Roy Guyitt and Ethel Humphrey. Marriage records for the couple indicate that they were married on February 23, 1910 in Kent, Ontario. Roy came from a large family, he had twelve siblings.

The property is currently owned by Peter Anderson who lives down the road and who is the grandson of the Guyitts. Peter used to visit the house on weekends where his grandparents would give him a haircut and a bath (1).

The Guyitt home used to have a brick exterior however over the years the bricks began to fall off and were eventually removed for safety. The original design included a front porch and two exterior barns (burned down). If you venture close enough, you’ll notice that the window frames have hearts, circles and diamonds cut into them.

Anderson is not able to financially maintain the property but does keep the grass cut, and enjoys that other people are able to appreciate the property. Visitors should not enter the building, which has now begun to collapse on the right portion.

Roy passed away in 1965.

The house was demolished during the week of June 18th, 2023.

August 2014 Photos (not the greatest quality)

August 2022 Photo

Source:
1) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/most-photographed-home-southwestern-ontario-chatham-kent-1.4750368

 

 

This location was known as The Drug Dealer’s House. I could find no evidence of drug dealing and the house was pretty much a mess. However the house next door was a little better.

It had a very old stove/oven built into the basement wall, in an inexplicable location. There was a calendar dated 1977 and written in the cement was “Dino Accettone Oct. 22, 1978”.

Dino is still kicking around and operates a funeral home.

We found two model helicopters inside the house, the type that you control with a remote control. You can see a similar helicopter demonstration here.

The Aladdin House as it’s often referred to as, belonged to Max Heiduczek. Max bought the home, located at 110 Maybourne in Scarborough, in 1970. Max traveled the world and inspiration for his home’s design came from his worldly travels. The house features turrets, minarets, columns, and statues.

The house is sometimes referred to as “the castle” and the city’s “weirdest” home.” In September of 2018 as Max’s health was fading, he sold the house to a builder for $760,000 and moved into a retirement home.

The buyer intended to demolish the house and build a new home. It’s now been 4 years and still nothing has materialized. The present owner has applied to subdivide the property into pieces.  In August of 2021 conditional consent was given by the city for this severance.

Max passed away later in 2018.

This was a random find along the roads in Adjala-Tosorontio. The main floor had a kitchen, living room and bathroom. The upper floor contained a bedroom and hot tub room with a skylight. There was little of interest to be found inside.

We returned to this area in April 2022 after having previously explored a house next to it in the winter. This one was difficult to tell if there was anyone living inside, it looked like it could go either way. I walked up to the front door and peered inside. I observed some Harvey’s fast food leftovers on the kitchen table. With that, we noped right out of there.

A short while later I decided I wanted to have another look at this house. I walked around the back and looked inside. There was an absence of furniture and the basement was empty. All the doors were locked. I then tried the garage door, which opened. I crawled underneath and moments later was inside!

I was expecting someone to appear at any moment but when they didn’t, I grew more couragious and ventured further in the house. There were boxes of cereal and cooking supplies on the kitchen counter. The kitchen had something puddled on the floor by the fridge, which indicated there was nobody around to clean it up. To clarify whether someone was living here or not, I opened the fridge. The putrid smell that permeated the immediate area, told me that the food was rotten. The smell lingered for the duration of our visit.

The house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The highlight of the house is the wooden staircase and the French doors. The last listed asking price was $1.5 million.

Kelly’s Story

Meet 50 year old Kelly. Kelly is a realtor.

In July of 2018 Kelly met a man named Peter and they began dating. As they got to know one another, Peter eventually told Kelly that he’d been in prison but explained that it had been a miscommunication with an ex-girlfriend over a credit card. He also had a son that he was attempting to get custody of.

In September of 2020, Kelly and Peter moved out of her condo and signed a two-year lease on a new home. Kelly paid first and last month’s rent because Peter said his money was tied up in the child custody case.

(TWP: This house was their new home. I was able to match photos of the home decor business with photos that I took inside the house.)

Things began to disappear over the next couple of years including a friend’s Rolex watch during a cottage weekend. Kelly’s parents were missing a thousand dollars in U.S. money, a Tiffany necklace and two wedding rings. The cleaning lady was initially suspected, and when confronted, she became insulted and quit.

Eventually a friend of Kelly’s informed her that she’d found Peter’s photos on a dating website. The name on the profile belonged to a man who had a court judgement against him for two children. Kelly only knew about Peter’s one child. Kelly hadn’t even met Peter’s child yet because he kept prolonging it, saying he wanted the custody case to be finalized first. Peter said that he knew nothing about these judgements and that if they were his children, he’d certainly be fighting to see them – Kelly believed him.

Peter knew people who were selling a home decor business which had closed during the pandemic. Because Kelly was a realtor, she knew home design and how to sell. Their home had a large basement with a separate entrance that could serve as a showroom. Kelly bought the home decor business for $10,000 plus the company’s $40,000 loan. She made Peter the director. The business was operated out of the basement.

Peter began using the company debit card for personal purchases but explained that he’d lost his own company card and would reimburse Kelly the funds.

By summer of 2021, Kelly was suspecting that her partner was cheating. Peter had begun to withdraw and refuse to attend family gatherings together. He claimed to be exhaused when he arrived home. By August of 2021 Peter was disappearing for days at a time. He agreed to couple’s therapy but showed up sporadically.

Kelly was eventually able to use a password to log into his email account. What Kelly found shocked her! There were years worth of dating profiles from various dating websites created under a variety of false names. She found an old Kijiji listing for her mother’s missing rings. By Googling one of the names that Peter had used, Kelly found that there’d been a news article written about him 10 years prior with regards to him being a romance scammer.

Kelly moved into her parent’s condo. She attempted to have the lease broken but Peter wouldn’t sign the paperwork. Eventually her landlord contacted her to say that he hadn’t been paying rent and was going to be evicted.

Kelly sat down and created a speadsheet of the finances. She learned that Peter had owed thousands in utilities and hundreds of dollars in phone bills and credit card charges. It’s estimated that her family is out $200,000. When she sold the bed she’d purchased for his son’s bedroom, she discovered social assistance receipts and documents that indicated the custody case had been settled two years prior.

Peter had left the house saying that he needed space. In reality, he had moved in with another woman. Peter hacked Kelly’s business website, which explains why the home decor website is offline today. He disabled and threw away the alarm system that protected the house. In fact, while exploring this house I found parts of the alarm in an upstairs bedroom. Peter also allegedly stole from her home business and sold the items online.

Kelly’s company’s website is now offline and her last business Facebook post was December of 2021. It would be around this time that the woman moved what remained of her home business and put it into storage. I was able to find her Facebook profile where I watched a particularly heartbreaking video of her crying.

As for Peter, it turns out he had been married in 2003, had two children (2004 and 2006). In 2007 his wife asked for a divorce and Peter punched his fist through a wall. His wife fled with the children. He sent his wife messages that he was going to kill himself. He even drank bleach and turpentine in front of his wife. Police took him on a 48-hour hold. She filed a restraining order and sought sole custody. Peter in turn contacted CAS and claimed that she’d left a giant bruise on his son’s neck. The photo turned out to be doctored.

Peter never did gain custody of his children. In 2012 he was sentenced to 30 months in jail. When he was released in 2014, he found another woman on a dating website. They had a son together. Credit cards, jewelry and money went missing. He was kicked out. The woman found a receipt for a pawn shop ring, which turned out to be her grandmothers. It had been missing for a year. She gained sole custody of their son.

Please don’t ask the real names of those in this story. This is one of those explorations where I think the privacy of the individuals trumps our own curiosity.

Explored in April of 2022.

While searching for another abandoned house, we passed by this one. This house had ‘the look’ and so we stopped to take a closer look. The driveway had weeds, the grass was overgrown, and the roof was in rough shape. I walked around doing a cursory inspection and made my way to the back. The door opened!

The kitchen countertop had used utensils on it. A garbage can was filled with food. The fridge was working and inside were pizza boxes and a case of Heinekin. I didn’t check for any expiry dates. In an adjacant room were several liquor bottles. This could have gone either way… the house looked like maybe someone lived here but it also looked like it could be in use as a ‘hang out’ for youth.

Another room had a virtual golf simulator. The appearance could either be that of a lived in home, or a vacant house. There was really only one way for me to be certain…

I walked slowly upstairs. I wanted to see if there were any beds and clothing. I discovered a mattress but no bed sheets and very little furniture. I surmised that the house was vacant and only being used by kids or squatter.