| 1 | [[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/{{Up}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Up-home_1761.jpg]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:300:Even after 20 years, there's not a plank out of place.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | In most fictional works, it's normal for an abandoned place to be left undisturbed until the protagonists need to utilize it. Sure, there might be a layer of dust everywhere, but the building can sit around for ''decades'' without anyone claiming it, renovating it, or outright demolishing it. If TheVoice instructs the heroes to find an AbandonedWarehouse from fifty years ago, they can rest easy knowing that it'll still be there — just break the lock, clear out the cobwebs, and continue advancing the plot. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | May be justified if the location is [[HauntedIndex haunted]]. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | How much of this is TruthInTelevision varies widely. In highly-populated areas with thriving economies, this will almost never occur; if an AbandonedHospital is sitting unused for any period of time, ''someone's'' going to exploit the local abandoned property laws to claim the land and build something (unless the costs of cleanup and demolition are exorbitant), even if that "something" is just a parking lot. On the other hand, structures in depressed economic areas, remote locations, or [[http://englishrussia.com/?p=293 disaster zones]] can lie untouched for years, simply because no one is around (or ''wants'' to be around) to care. But even in places where buildings do stand vacant for long periods of time, they're rarely truly ''vacant''. Squatters, trespassers, and the homeless will take up residence for a time, usually being driven off at semi-regular intervals by the local authorities. Urban explorers may find a way to get inside and snoop around, and there's always stray or free ranging dogs/cats, pigeons, raccoons, and other wild animals. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | A notable variation is having an abandoned ''room'' inside a frequently-used building. This one tends to be more fanciful than factual, as any reasonable maintenance or custodial staff would have access to blueprints and schematics showing where everything is. For a room to remain undisturbed for decades would normally require someone (or [[EldritchAbomination something...]]) actively protecting it, or perhaps hidden behind [[BookcasePassage a secret door]] that doesn't appear on the blueprints. If it's not protected or hidden it could still remain undisturbed for long periods of time if the people who know about it have no reason to go there (e.g. an unused attic or crawlspace, or a storage room that's not relevant at the current time). |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Note that this trope refers to abandoned areas that are '''untouched''' for long periods of time. Areas that are allowed to decay but are still frequented by the homeless, criminals, or local kids don't count. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | AbandonedWarehouse, AbandonedHospital, HauntedHouse, and GhostCity are popular subjects for this trope. See also AbandonedArea, RagnarokProofing, InWorkingOrder, and TheConstant. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Contrast RailroadPlot, ChildhoodMemoryDemolitionTeam. |
| 17 | ---- |
| 18 | !!Examples: |
| 19 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 20 | |
| 21 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 22 | * ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'': |
| 23 | ** The Avengers' mansion was left abandoned after the break-up of the team at ''ComicBook/AvengersDisassembled'', and stayed that way up to after ''ComicBook/{{Siege}}'', when it was given to Luke Cage and the ComicBook/NewAvengers. Justified, as the owner Tony Stark could no longer give financial support to the Avengers, but the mansion still belonged to him, so he decided to keep it that way. |
| 24 | ** Averted in the "All-New All-Different" era (2016-2017). Tony lost the mansion and the Avengers weren't using it, so it became a cheesy Avengers-themed resort hotel. Writer Gerry Duggan did a good job of pointing out the ''raging blizzard'' of bad ideas connected to this in his volume of ''Uncanny Avengers''. Villains with out-of-date info ''repeatedly'' busts up the place, putting civilians at risk, the basement is still full of S.H.I.E.L.D.-grade super-tech, and it turns out [[spoiler:the Red Skull was using the mansion as his secret base for months]] prior to ''Secret Empire''. |
| 25 | * ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'': In the 2020 run of ''[[ComicBook/StarWarsDarthVader Darth Vader]]'', it's revealed that the late Padmé Amidala's apartment, despite being prime real estate, has been sealed off and unoccupied for the over twenty years that have passed since her death. Since the seal includes a carving of her face, it's implied it was done as a memorial. |
| 26 | * ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'': Figures in Marv Wolfman's 1980's story ''ComicBook/WhoIsDonnaTroy''. Apparently a burnt-out building sat in that condition for about 16 years, and [[ComicBook/WonderGirl Donna]]'s childhood doll was ''still'' in a room of said burnt-out building and not carried off for nesting material. [[FridgeLogic And]] this is a key clue used by team detective ComicBook/{{Robin}} to track down Donna's origins, though Donna's [[Franchise/WonderWoman super-intelligent big sister]] apparently never did. |
| 27 | * ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': Weapon X abandoned their complex when Wolverine escaped. When he returned, he found it empty. Of course, they simply moved to a new one, to stay under the radar. |
| 28 | [[/folder]] |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 31 | * ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': After obtaining San's severed head with Vivienne inside it, Alan Jonah and his mercenaries have taken up residence in an ElaborateUndergroundBase isolated deep in the tundra of northern Russia, which was built nearly 100 years ago and was formerly an unofficial Monarch outpost but has been abandoned for decades. |
| 32 | * This is a plot point in Creator/AAPessimal's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation''. The Caltech gang, temporarily resident in the city of Ankh-Morpork as guests of Unseen University, use their collective skills to work out the secrets of bizarre housing block Empirical Crescent, a place abandoned for many years as it is too weird even for Ankh-Morpork. Sheldon Cooper's genius has worked out that there are lots of hidden corridors and rooms that run at right-angles to reality, but whose physical location can be worked out by applying higher mathematics as it pertains to quantum theory and multi-dimensional reality, as expounded by Einstein, Bosen, Heidleburg, Bohr and other luminaries. Meanwhile, Penny has worked out that if she walks confidently into a certain wall at a certain point, it very soon ceases to be a wall and becomes a hidden portal to these hidden rooms. She cites [[Franchise/HarryPotter Platform 9a]] and Professor J.K. Rowling as ''her'' primary academic reference. |
| 33 | * In ''Fanfic/IfIOnlyHadAHeart'', Izuku, Katsuki, and OriginalCharacter Mashi turn an abandoned and crumbling building on the outskirts of town into their unofficial "clubhouse", reasoning that since it was so out of the way, it would take forever for the city to actually follow through on their condemnation of it since it wasn't cost-efficient or time-efficient. Sure enough, the trio are still running around in the building years later with no repercussions in sight while renovating it in their free time. The trope ''is'' lampshaded though, with both Katsuki and Izuku balking at the thought of legally trespassing on the property, but they soon relent and haven't had an issue since. |
| 34 | [[/folder]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder:Films — Animation]] |
| 37 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' ahistorically portrays the Winter Palace as being abandoned and boarded up ten years after the events of UsefulNotes/RedOctober. In real life, the Winter Palace was by that time added to the Hermitage Museum, which it is still part of today. |
| 38 | * In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm'', the Gotham World's Fair grounds have been sitting abandoned since when Bruce and Andrea were dating. |
| 39 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'', Tiana's father sets his sights on an abandoned mill as the place to set up the restaurant he dreams of starting. Not only was the mill empty for some time before he announces this, it remains empty for another ten years or so, while Tiana grows up and saves the money so she can buy the mill for the same purpose after her father dies. One of the things that kicks off the plot is that as soon as she tells the men selling the mill that she's able to afford it, she's informed that someone else just happened to outbid her on it. Given how the men are jerks who suggest that Tiana couldn't handle running a restaurant because she's a poor black woman, many viewer take to the notion that Tiana was simply lied to about the competition. |
| 40 | * Carl and Ellie's house in Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}''. It appears to have been abandoned for quite some time when Carl and Ellie first meet inside as children, and it remains that way up until they buy and refurbish it after their marriage. This is especially unlikely given UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (and its accompanying dual housing shortages — one during the war, [[FromBadToWorse and one after]]) happened somewhere in between there. |
| 41 | [[/folder]] |
| 42 | |
| 43 | [[folder:Films — Live-Action]] |
| 44 | * ''Film/OurMissBrooks'': In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] the house across the street from Mrs. Davis' remains vacant and "For Sale" from the time Miss Brooks moves in. [[JustifiedTrope Explained in story]] by Mr. Webster, the realtor, as being due to the fact the owner is asking too much money. [[spoiler: From the start, Miss Brooks sees this as her future dream house where she will live in wedded bliss. At the end of the film, Mr. Boynton buys the house, and marries Miss Brooks.]] |
| 45 | * Disney's ''Film/TronLegacy'' begins when Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn, is spurred to investigate his father's disappearance decades ago. Sam's search takes him to Flynn's abandoned arcade, which has been sitting intact for the last 25 years on the outskirts of town. It makes sense that the building is still owned by the Flynn family, or at least Encomm, who have kept the taxes and utilities up to date (the power is still connected, for example). And the arcade was obviously shut down and dust-proofed in an orderly way. Why no-one has broken into it and stolen all the valuable arcade cabinets is another question. It's implied by ExpandedUniverse material that Alan has been paying for the upkeep for the same reason he kept the pager. Of course, this brings up the FridgeLogic of why he didn't investigate the place and find the improvised laser lab. Perhaps he felt this was something that Sam needed to do by himself? |
| 46 | * In ''Film/HighlanderEndgame'', a store in a busy city has been bombed and left abandoned for ten years without being condemned, repaired or renovated. |
| 47 | * In ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' George & Mary Bailey move into an old abandoned mansion which until then had been used for the local teens to throw rocks at. |
| 48 | * Inverted in ''Film/TheShadow'' (1994 film version): BigBad Shiwan Khan uses his MindControl powers to hide an entire skyscraper mega-hotel in plain sight by convincing everyone that it's a semi-active construction site. |
| 49 | * SlasherMovie ''Film/HellNight'' takes it place in a manor which has been abandoned for 12 years after its owner killed most of his family and himself. |
| 50 | * The Victorian mansion in ''Film/MouseHunt''. Justified as the mouse drove out everyone who tried to live in the house. Exactly how long is that mouse's life-span? Given how the portrait of their father changes to show various reactions throughout the film, it's safe to say there is some element of the supernatural in this universe, with the mouse being one such instance of this. |
| 51 | * The AbandonedHospital in ''Film/{{Accepted}}'' has just been sitting around for who knows how long, before the kids decide to turn it into a fake college. The possibility of squatters is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Schrader, who warns them to watch out for hobos. |
| 52 | * It hasn't been ''abandoned'', but the video-rental store that holds a vital clue in ''Film/MenInBlackII'' is still there after twenty-five years, even though most people moved on to [=DVDs=] years ago. Of course, the protagonists are part of an organisation who conduct passive MindRape on people, so this might explain why they never switched to DVD along with everyone else. They might also be the reason that place is still in business... |
| 53 | * The Blackwell Hotel in ''Film/SeeNoEvil''. Justified because it was just a hobby to its owners and after it almost burned to the ground, they lost interest in it. |
| 54 | * In ''Film/DoubleImpact'', after officially teaming up, Chad and Alex, as well as their "Uncle" Frank, set up in an abandoned villa... in Hong Kong, a city whose property shortage easily rivals New York City or London. |
| 55 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': The Rebels in ''Film/ANewHope'' set their base in a temple that was created thousands of years ago by a Sith who enslaved the world's population, then killed them all. The temple had been left fallow for all that time, and the traveler who rediscovered them suggested them as good locations for revolutionaries to put up a base. When ''they'' left, during the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse, the Imperials ransacked the base and then abandoned it themselves. In the ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'', Luke Skywalker decides to put his Jedi academy there, thoroughly averting this trope. |
| 56 | * In the pre-history of ''Film/TheMummyReturns'', the city of Thebes, jewel of the Pharoah's kingdom, is ransacked by the Scorpion King's undead army, two thousand years before the events of the first movie. 5,000 years later (current movie time), ruins of the city still lie in the exact same places, even though nothing was seen of the destruction prior to this. |
| 57 | * The bungalow in ''Film/{{Pizza}}'' has been sitting abandoned for four years, with all of the crime scene tape still up. |
| 58 | * In ''Film/Goosebumps2015'', the town of Madison, Delaware constructed an entire amusement park before running out of money to continue funding the project. Now it just sits abandoned in the middle of the woods, but it's still Hannah Stine's favorite part of the town and [[spoiler:the final battle between the protagonists and the ''Goosebumps'' monsters takes place in the area]]. |
| 59 | * Inverted in ''[[Film/{{AntMan1}} Ant-Man]]'' when Hank, Hope and Scott make plans to break into an old Stark warehouse in upstate New York to retrieve an old piece of tech that Hank left behind. Unfortunately, the Avengers just recently renovated the facility to be their new headquarters. |
| 60 | [[/folder]] |
| 61 | |
| 62 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 63 | * At the end of Creator/ArthurMachen's ''The Three Imposters'' (1895) the protagonists stumble upon a mansion that's been abandoned since at least the eighteenth century. It's within walking distance of London and completely accessible to passers-by yet is still untouched except for the natural processes of decay slowly corroding the furniture, tapestries, and other unlooted decor. |
| 64 | * After the Full Moon Garage in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' is abandoned due to the [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent lycanthrope biker gang]] that owned it being slaughtered, it is left relatively untouched... because other bad guys like its convenient location and run-down appearance for their own dirty work. Harry finds himself revisiting it. |
| 65 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 66 | ** The Riddle House is abandoned for the most part due to [[BigBad Voldemort]] killing the original owners, who were his own family. A few families try to live there but find the place [[HauntedHouse creepy]], so the current owner only keeps it for "tax reasons". |
| 67 | ** The entrance to St. Mungo's Hospital looks like this to Muggles -- an old mall no-one has ever seen open. |
| 68 | * In one of the early ''Literature/DirkPittAdventures'' novels, the heroes figure out how a massive drug-smuggling operation is being run and speculate as to where the drug hand-off will be made. One character invokes this trope. Another immediately shoots it down, pointing out that abandoned warehouses are hard to come by in major port cities. |
| 69 | * In ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'', the Auditors make use of a site that, against all odds, has remained unoccupied for years even in packed-to-the-rafters Ankh-Morpork. The space in question is a former alley that got roofed over at some point, then forgotten about because whoever did it passed away, and the owners of the adjacent properties now all believe it belongs to one of the others. Actually, they each own one wall. This is a running problem in the city; the loam foundation and frequent floods mean the whole thing sinks slowly over time, so that the plan of the city gradually shifts and some areas have three or four levels of forgotten floors below the cellars. During the course of the series it's eventually averted; all of that underground real estate gets cleared out and sold to dwarf immigrants. |
| 70 | * Justified in the ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' novels: while Nightingale's alma mater Casterbrook has been closed and vacant since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the estate's tenant farmers pay enough in rent to cover periodic upkeep and it's still being cleaned every month or so. |
| 71 | * ''Blackfish City'', by Creator/SamJMiller. There are rumors that the hidden business cartel who control [[CityOnTheWater Qaanaaq]] have unoccupied apartments set aside to drive the price up or as emergency boltholes. One such executive reveals that they do exist (though less than people think as space is at a premium) and stashes his grandson in one of them, but he finds it occupied by a squatter--turns out a crime boss has found out about the secret rooms and is moving his goons into them to put pressure on the executive. Fortunately neither person is aware of these machinations, or who the other is, so they end up having sex instead. |
| 72 | * The 1950s childrens' book ''Gone-Away Lake'' has a whole Victorian-era resort town that was (almost entirely) abandoned after the lake it was on the shore of turned into a marsh. The only two remaining residents are an elderly brother-and-sister who befriend the child protagonists & tell them its history. In the final chapter, the children end up breaking into one of the boarded-up houses to retrieve something. |
| 73 | [[/folder]] |
| 74 | |
| 75 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 76 | * ''Series/{{Angel}}'': |
| 77 | ** The Hyperion Hotel has been sitting abandoned for quite a long time until the title character rents it. Of course, the demon in residence there might have had something to do with it. |
| 78 | ** In the fourth season Connor also moves into what appears to be an abandoned natural history museum, full of dust and stuffed wildlife, complete with working electricity. |
| 79 | ** On parent show ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', it takes several years for the Sunnydale authorities to do anything with Sunnydale High after it's blown up in the season three finale. The ruins are just left standing there until the school is rebuilt in season seven. |
| 80 | * In ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', the MadScientist returns to his lab in the basement of a Harvard building after 17 years and just has to dust the place down before getting back to work; not only has the space been left unused, but all the equipment is still there. Considering what Walter and Bell get up to down there, that might have been the smartest thing to do. |
| 81 | * Another example of Never Recycle a Room can be found in the fifth season of the new ''Series/DoctorWho'' series. In this case, of course, there really ''is'' something protecting the room. |
| 82 | * Gotham City in the Adam West version of ''Series/Batman1966'' had some serious problems with abandoned factories and warehouses. It's almost like they ''wanted'' them to be taken over by criminals. |
| 83 | * ''Series/NashBridges'' and his elite police unit have usually claimed a building that the city of UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco had lying around unused. In the fourth season, this was a former floating cannery that was later converted to a nightclub and later seized in a drug raid. It proves to be a decent place to set up shop, being spacious and having a place for everything they need. The only downside is a [[RunningGag tendency]] to play "Disco Inferno" with no reason or explanation. |
| 84 | * The characters in ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' always find an empty warehouse nearby when they need to fight. While this is usually plausible, there is at least one case when they manage to find one close to the Seine in the center of Paris, in an area where it would need TARDIS-like features to fit. Additionally, mere space in a world city center is so prime, that every unused cube inch immediately gets seized upon by someone to do or start something, and the council will keep an eye on it too to keep tourist appeal intact. |
| 85 | * DoubleSubverted in ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Dot Com and Grizz try to take Tracy back to the apartment block he grew up in so he'll stop repressing the memories of his awful childhood... but it's been turned into a copy shop. However, the stairwell behind the office hasn't been changed, and serves to bring it all flooding back. |
| 86 | * Subverted in ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' episode "The Delivery". The team tries to retrieve some stolen diamonds buried by a friend just before he went to prison -- only to find that the burial spot is now underneath a shiny new police station... |
| 87 | * ''Series/{{The Umbrella Academy|2019}}'': In the episode "The Day that Wasn't", a flashback shows how Luther and Allison once sneaked out of their rooms at night to play in a secluded section of the Academy, where they had set up a tent and brought snacks. They got caught in the act by Sir Reginald who forbade them from ever coming to the room again. In the present day, Allison, in an attempt to cheer up Luther, takes him back to this room, and everything is still exactly how they left it all those years ago. Even the snacks are still there, though they've gone bad by now. |
| 88 | * ''Series/TheConners'' has a variation where the Wellman Plastics factory reopens after being closed for almost 30 years with minimal rebuilding needed, presumably only cleanup. |
| 89 | * ''Series/TheSandman2022''. A plot point in "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E06TheSoundOfHerWings The Sound of Her Wings]]". Dream has an agreement to meet with an immortal human Hob Gadling once a century in the same pub. However in the [=20th=] century, the land is bought up to build houses on, so it looks like Dream has missed his chance. The flashback where Hob learns that the land is being bought up is set in 1989, but three decades later the pub is still standing, the worse for neglect but visibly not demolished and replaced by new housing, for Morpheus to find when he comes looking for Hob. |
| 90 | * ''Series/StrangerThings'': The Creel house has been boarded up and abandoned for three decades by the time the kids break in to search for clues. Of course, its reputation as the site of several grisly (and supernatural) murders probably had something to do with that. |
| 91 | [[/folder]] |
| 92 | |
| 93 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 94 | * "House Where Nobody Lives" by Creator/TomWaits speculates that a house on the narrator's block has been standing empty for a long, long time primarily because the relationship between the inhabitants fell apart. |
| 95 | -->''There's a house on my block that's abandoned and cold\ |
| 96 | The folks moved out of it a long time ago\ |
| 97 | And they took all their things and they never came back\ |
| 98 | It looks like it's haunted with the windows all cracked\ |
| 99 | Everyone calls it the house, the house where nobody lives'' |
| 100 | [[/folder]] |
| 101 | |
| 102 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 103 | * ''VideoGame/SimCity2000'' takes this trope and makes it go as fast as lightning. The moment tenants move out of a building, it is instantaneously transformed into a dirty, run-down ghetto shack, regardless of what it was before. This is usually a sign of faulty city management. If citizens' needs are well-balanced, a new building will soon appear on the site; otherwise, it will gradually dilapidate until it becomes a fire hazard. On the bright side, most versions of the game give Mayors the option to make buildings "historical", so that they will never be demolished except by deliberate player action. |
| 104 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Constructor}}'' and its SpiritualSequel ''VideoGame/MobRule'', if a building is left without a tenant for a long time, it will be settled... by a six-foot cockroach. Needless to say, the neighbors are a little concerned about bad influence on their children (you know those roaches). |
| 105 | * Par for the course in the ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' series. In almost every game (3 and 4 being the exceptions), the hero's army takes over such a structure to serve as their headquarters. The [[VideoGame/SuikodenII second game]] even has the hero's army claim an entire GhostTown. |
| 106 | * The ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' version of the Penguin's hideout is in an abandoned natural history museum with many of the artifacts and displays still inside. It apparently wasn't abandoned very long between shutting down and the Penguin acquiring it, so there must have been no time for anyone to loot it, despite being in one of the bad parts of Gotham. |
| 107 | * ''VideoGame/Persona2'' has the Abandoned Factory, that's been abandoned for 10 years, though the power still works, as the lights and at least some conveyor belts still work. It was abandoned because [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve rumors come true]], and someone spread rumors of the place being on top of a toxic waste dump, and then that it was haunted by demons, the latter of which finally led to the executives closing the doors permanently. In the... questionably canonical spin-off manga, the factory ''doesn't'' count for this trope because it's being actively used by a band of squatting Persona-users as their hideout, mostly because the presence of the demons (which they can ward off) keeps others from chasing them down or pushing them out. |
| 108 | * In ''[[VideoGame/UltimaVIIPartII Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle]]'', both Shamino's old castle and the Castle of the White Dragon have outlived two civilisations, neither of which tried to make use of the buildings. The castles are also fully intact, with furniture and decorations fully functional and with only a little cobwebs. Shamino's castle is haunted by his old fiancee, which may have driven off potential squatters, but she seems to be only hostile towards Shamino himself. |
| 109 | * ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo'' has two abandoned hotels, one that despite the fact it's falling apart inside is still used all the time. |
| 110 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 111 | ** In the early games in the series, ruins/caves/tombs/etc. which contain NPC opponents will remain empty indefinitely after being cleared out by the player. Starting with ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'', these locations will "reset" after a certain amount of in-game time has passed, making it seem like a new set of bandits/necromancers/smugglers/etc. has set up their operation there. |
| 112 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'': |
| 113 | *** Each city has exactly one empty house available for the player to buy. No matter how long is spent in the game, they will remain empty until the player chooses to buy them. |
| 114 | *** The abandoned house in Markarth has apparently always been abandoned, with nobody trying to do anything about it until you show up. The fact that it houses a shrine to Molag Bal may have something to do with it... as one Vigilant of Stendarr learned the hard way. |
| 115 | * ''VideoGame/WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch'' displays the indoor variant. As members of the Finch family die (which is often, due to the [[HereditaryCurse family curse]] which [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be real]], though they certainly believe it is), family matriarch Edie refuses to let their bedrooms be cleaned up or repurposed, adding a memorial plaque but otherwise leaving everything completely untouched as a ShrineToTheFallen. This necessitated the construction of additional rooms for future generations of Finches, which is why the house [[{{Bizarrchitecture}} now looks like something]] Creator/TimBurton might make after smoking a lot of weed and binge-watching ''Series/TheRedGreenShow''. After the mysterious disappearance of Milton Finch, his mother Dawn (Edie's granddaughter) took it a step further by sealing the doors to all of the dead people's rooms so that nobody could go in them anymore in an effort to combat the curse. Edie didn't care for that, and installed peepholes on all the doors so that people could at least look in and see the rooms. |
| 116 | * ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'': |
| 117 | ** ZigzaggedTrope with one particular location: [[spoiler: The original Fredbear’s Family Diner location, after it was shut down when Henry Emily’s daughter was murdered right outside, is heavily implied to have been revitalized as Circus Baby’s Pizza World… for a single day, before William Afton’s own daughter was killed. Presumably [[JustifiedTrope nobody wanted to buy it]] for the next thirty years, considering the tragedies and supposed dangerous gas leaks there. It’s then rennovated again by Henry into a fake Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place to act as a honey-trap for rogue animatronics, before he burns the place down to unusability… Only for ''an entire Pizzeplex to be built on top of the remains.'']] |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 121 | * Averted with Heidi’s Bar in ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert''. After it closes, a new bar opens in its place. |
| 122 | [[/folder]] |
| 123 | |
| 124 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 125 | * Kesandru House from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''; [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since it's infested with ghosts. Luckily, our heroes are [[WeirdnessMagnet used to dealing with worse]]. |
| 126 | [[/folder]] |
| 127 | |
| 128 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 129 | * ''[[http://ravensblight.com/ Ravensblight]]'' features Bleak Estate, whose builder built it on top of a cemetery he was supposed to have restored. In the 1920s a rock was thrown through a window, causing all the windows to explode; the owners were not found inside, nor have they been seen since. Most other buildings have had a [[AvertedTrope succession of owners]], though the consequences of recycling the buildings are often catastrophic. Case in point: a Gothic chapel which was built by 17th-century monks escaping religious persecution in their homeland (never said what land or what religion), managing to be strange enough for locals to end up burning the place down with them all inside; then a priest bought the place in the 1920s, had plans drawn up and bought materials to turn the place back into a church again, only to fall totally and permanently insane upon attempting to enter the place; then a rock band in the '70s used it to record an album, said to be their most beautiful and sad, though this cannot be confirmed as it will destroy any device it is played upon. One night they all piled into their tour bus and disappeared with only a call to their manager that they were running for it. Most other buildings there avert this trope too, with successions of mysterious owners and tenants, doing acts of evil, going mad, or mysteriously dying. With rare exceptions, you just ''shouldn't'' recycle a building in Ravensblight County. |
| 130 | [[/folder]] |
| 131 | |
| 132 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 133 | * ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'': |
| 134 | ** The kids go to an abandoned factory every episode. There's never any presence of demolition crews, and the plot only revolves around saving the factory from destruction when it's some attack from XANA. At least in the animated series: the non-canon spin-off comics have one story with a demolition crew about to raze the Factory, before being thwarted by the kids.\ |
| 135 | The Factory is actually a fairly close reproduction of an [[http://www.lightningfield.com/04/07/050228.html abandoned]] [[http://aprslw.webs.com/realcodelyoko.htm Renault factory]] on Seguin Island in the Seine River, in Boulogne-Billancourt outside Paris. It was shut down in 1992 and demolished by 2005; the island awaits the construction of some sort of cultural project, probably a large art museum. (The show's factory mainly differs in color scheme; the original factory was mostly white on the outside, while the show's is more beige.) |
| 136 | ** There is also the Hermitage, a posh house in the woods that is left abandoned for 10 years. However, there are some hints of squatting (vandalism, tags on the wall...) and since the first time Team Lyoko visits it XANA is playing poltergeist, maybe this chased any squatter earlier and gave it an HauntedHouse reputation. |
| 137 | * Played with a couple of times on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 138 | ** DoubleSubverted in "O Brother, Where Art Thou"; Abe gives Homer the address of the orphanage his half-brother was sent to, only for Homer to discover it's now a gas station. He immediately gives up all hope of ever finding it, only to be told it moved across the street. |
| 139 | ** In "Burns, Baby Burns", Homer tries to hide in an AbandonedWarehouse only to find it's now no longer abandoned. |
| 140 | ---> '''Homer:''' Doh! Stupid revived economy! |
| 141 | * ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "Carpet Diem", Dipper and Mabel find a disused, boarded-up room in the Mystery Shack. Grunkle Stan claims to not know anything about it, but his reaction to finding an old pair of glasses seems to indicate he knows more than he lets on. In the season 2 episode "A Tale of Two Stans", we find out [[spoiler: Grunkle Stan lived in that room for a while after his twin brother Stanford, who originally owned the house, was trapped in AnotherDimension. He apparently boarded the room up because it held a lot of painful memories.]] |
| 142 | * ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': In episode 9, Gary and Quinn's mission takes them back to the bar in New York where they first met 5 years earlier. Back then, Gary [[MuggedForDisguise mugged an Infinity Guard soldier for his uniform]], and left him drugged in one of the bathroom stalls. Much to his surprise and horror, the man is still right where he left him, now thin like a skeleton and with a beard. Gary wonders why nobody checked the bathroom over the past 5 years. |
| 143 | * ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn'': Harley sets up her villain lair in an abandoned mall that's been sitting empty for decades but the stores still have inventory left on the shelves and the food court still has working ovens. Justified because the mall's owner, Sy Borgman, has been using it to [[DisposingOfABody dispose of inconvenient bodies]] [[spoiler: and had also hidden his sister underneath it back in the 80s when she was accidentally mutated into a giant tentacle monster by an experiment he asked her to perform]]. |
| 144 | [[/folder]] |
| 145 | |
| 146 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 147 | * As linked in the description, there's [[http://englishrussia.com/?p=293 the entire city of Pripyat, Ukraine,]] site of the famous UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} accident. However, the usual image of a ghost town is not fully accurate: Pripyat, while evacuated, was never truly abandoned. Because the power station continued to function for decades after the disaster (only one reactor out of four blew up), a new city for its workers, Slavutich, was built nearby, and Pripyat was (and is) still regularly patrolled by the local police and station workers. And the excursions there are now perfectly legal, as the radiation dropped to safe levels and authorities decided to allow visitors. Ironically, this influx of tourists brought forth the bizarre trade of ''maintaining'' the GhostCity atmosphere, with workers "touching up" the surrounding of tourist trails and buildings so they'd look recently abandoned, and not simply decayed beyond recognition. |
| 148 | * Numerous towns and cities which were already thrashed by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami were subsequently temporarily evacuated due to their proximity to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which entered meltdown following a direct hit by the wave. In the ensuing decade, a great deal of work has been done to decontaminate the area, but much of the destruction caused by the tremors and the surging waters were left more or less intact, being remarkably well-preserved asides from unkempt vegetation, some rusty metal as a result of exposure to salt in the sea air, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_boar#Presence_following_the_Fukushima_nuclear_disaster domestic-wild boar hybrid 'super-pigs']] smashing stuff up. As these towns are now being reopened, the time to finally repair, renovate or tear down the wreckage has finally come. |
| 149 | * Abandoned room example: The Crypt of Civilization, a giant airtight time capsule at Oglethorpe University, was forgotten about for thirty years after its sealing in 1940. As it's not supposed to be opened for another 6000 years, somebody'd parked some furniture in front of the door, hiding it from notice for decades. |
| 150 | * Some {{Abandoned Hospital}}s, where equipment that was left behind decades ago -- wheelchairs, bed frames, even iron lungs (read: pickup-truck-bed-sized loads of scrap metal, on casters for your convenience) have remained in place for decades. When such equipment contains dangerous chemicals or radiation sources, this sometimes led to disasters such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident Goiânia accident]] in Brazil, where a gamma-ray source wasn't removed (and safely disposed of) from an old radiation therapy machine when the hospital moved into the new premises. The hospital owners were prevented from doing so by the legal dispute with the owners of the original building, and a court injunction forbidding them from removing anything from there. Their warnings about the danger of the unsupervised source in the barely guarded building fell on deaf ears. The half-demolished building was then broken into when the sole guard took a sickie to go to the movies with his family. The machine was subsequently found by the intruders, a pair of scrap collectors and then stolen. The resultant collision of a lack of knowledge about radiation and sheer stupidity among the people who handled the caesium inside the machine contaminated the whole neighborhood. Four people died from acute radiation poisoning, and 249 more were found to be significantly contaminated. |
| 151 | * A notable variation is [[http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094492,00.html the city of Ordos]], in China's Kangbashi district. It's a "new" city, built by local officials to show a healthy annual GDP, but is almost completely abandoned because it's ''too expensive'' for people to live in and because it was literally built in the middle of nowhere (the middle of Inner Mongolia). |
| 152 | * In Mexico, when a drug dealer is arrested, all property in his name is "secured" until it can be proven it wasn't made with dirty money. Such is the case of one discotheque named "frankie oh", property of Benjamín Arellano Felix, which has been abandoned for years; at one point the entrances were blocked to stop people from going inside. In the later years publicity has been hung outside the place to prettify it a bit. More details (in Spanish) [[http://www.debate.com.mx/eldebate/articulos/ArticuloGeneral.asp?IdCat=6097&idart=10415598 here.]] |
| 153 | * In Evansville Indiana a couple discovered that an office building that they sought to buy had an entire second story that had been sealed off for over 70 years. Even with much of the furnishings removed it still contained several fireplace mantels, a stack of old canceled checks dated between June and December 1930 and other tidbits related to the hardware company that made use of the offices in the second story. |
| 154 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunland_Hospital Sunnyland]], an abandoned hospital in Tallahassee, Florida. It wasn't recycled for decades due to the expense of demolishing a building filled with asbestos. |
| 155 | %%* [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18271118 An article by the BBC]] about the abandoned buildings of Detroit and an author who has written a book documenting them. |
| 156 | * Although not an entire building, the lower levels of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_tunnels Columbia University's Pupin Hall]] were almost untouched from the end of WWII until Summer of 2003, with many documents and unfinished Project Manhattan-related experiments still left lying about. |
| 157 | * ''SS United States'' hasn't been able to move under her own power for decades. She's too cool for the scrap yard but also a daunting task to refurbish given that her interiors were removed and sold by a previous owner. She's not abandoned per se, but preserved until someone will find a use for her. |
| 158 | ** ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_2 Queen Elizabeth 2]]'' was feared to be consigned to this fate for years after her retirement in 2008, as she had simply been left in Dubai to rot, with numerous plans to turn her into a floating hotel going to waste. It wasn't until 2015 when a company finally announced plans to renovate and repair [=QE2=], with the ship opening as a luxury hotel and museum in 2018. |
| 159 | * Even large thriving cities may have Soviet-era buildings abandoned for decades because either reusing ''or'' demolishing them is too costly and/or dangerous. An egregious example would be an [[http://nsk.novosibdom.ru/node/2123 unfinished 22-story hotel]] towering over Marx Square in Novosibirsk, whose construction began in 1968 and which, in 2014, still stands in the same state it has been since the early [=1980s=]. |
| 160 | * [[http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/05/09/the-paris-time-capsule-apartment/ An apartment in Paris]] was abandoned shortly before World War II, but the tenant kept paying the rent. Seventy years later, the apartment was unlocked for the first time since its abandonment. |
| 161 | * [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/flint-hill/2148999120/ The Fair Department Store]] in the small Alabama town of Union Springs. According to a comment on that photo, the owners just closed the door on the department store one day in 1992 with everything left inside, because the store was getting outdated and their children didn't want to run it. It remains fully intact over 20 years later, with all the merchandise still in it! |
| 162 | * Townsville, Australia: |
| 163 | ** It is unclear how long the [[http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Sdc12196-407926758 Queen's Building]] (the dirtier of the two in the image) has been abandoned, and it is difficult to see inside; however, it appears that it, too, was boarded up decades ago, [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Queens-Building-695915200 complete with stock inside]]. |
| 164 | *** Has been renovated and is in use as an upmarket bar as of 2023. |
| 165 | ** In the same place, [[http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Keith-Thomsens-3-582723481 Keith Thompsens Furniture]] also appears to be unoccupied... |
| 166 | ** ...As have the old [[http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Bogies-at-the-old-workshops-474067840 Flinders Street Railway Workshops]]. They were intended to be used by a preservation group, but this fell through after a cyclone hit the city; the place rots and has no longer any connecting track, and homeless people don't seem to want to try it. It has been left with old rail bogies and [[http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Swing-of-dereliction-543970039 pieces of equipment laying around]]. |
| 167 | *** Averted: The railyards have now been redeveloped into North Queensland Stadium. [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2021_State_of_Origin_Game_1_Queensland_Country_Bank_Stadium_National_Anthem.jpg]] It took a lot of effort though; the captain of the North Queensland Cowboys literally had to mention it in his speech after winning the 2015 NRL grand final & Clive Churchill Medal (MVP award) for the state & federal governments to commit to at least an exploratory report before opening to tenders & issuing a construction budget. |
| 168 | *** Actually the stadium is on the other side of Ross Creek. The old Flinders Street shops remain rotting at the end of Flinders Street just after the Fletcher street intersection, near the new station. |
| 169 | ** Ingham may claim to have the original [[Creator/SlimDusty Pub With No Beer]], but that actually burned down some time ago and the replacement building most likely does have beer. Not so Townsville's [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/The-Cri-696106608 Criterion Tavern]], closed to sell for development but not available for such due to heritage status; the [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Great-Northern-Hotel-Flinders-Street-View-586155449 Great Northern Hotel]], abandoned in recent years due to a small fire and not touched since, despite cheery banners proclaiming otherwise, [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Pool-room-in-a-pub-with-no-beer-668719238 still furnished]]; and the sad [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Lonesome-morbid-and-drear-579277574 Republic Hotel]], out of business for over a decade as of late 2017 (purchased and being prepared for use again as of August 2021). |
| 170 | %%** And this [[https://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Old-mission-708801144 old]] [[https://t00.deviantart.net/2sSMv1ojRZ8r6orvZtHQSYvJSJ8=/fit-in/700x350/filters:fixed_height(100,100):origin()/pre00/5610/th/pre/i/2017/281/b/8/old_mission_by_thoughtengine-dbq02m2.jpg mission]]. |
| 171 | * In Eastern Germany, many large camps of Warsaw Pact troops were abandoned more or less from one day to another after the fall of the wall. Since demolishing them takes time and costs money, you can still find comparatively well-preserved places, including porn magazines from the 1980s and Lenin statues. |
| 172 | * In UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}, there are still many old and decaying "famine houses" around 200 years old, just left there after their occupants either perished in the Potato Famine or left Ireland for America to escape it. There are even full-on "famine villages", ghost towns where entire communities fell to either of the two options. |
| 173 | * There are a number of unused buildings and homes in California's San Francisco Bay Area that have been so for months if not years, simply because it's getting too expensive for most people to BUY them. |
| 174 | * Many urbexers on Youtube have found abandoned buildings that are massively difficult to re-purpose, such as military fortifications and specialist industrial facilities like blast furnaces and shipyards. Or a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL2-iz5W57o building with a giant]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxSK4HuPts worm embedded in one side]]. A recent (as of April 2020) road trip across Europe, as well a one trip to Japan, has shown [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTNdfPdLPsQkR45BSotGVzw/featured Exploring with Fighters]], [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3SSS1kVgB4SpEDRAUe3NJQ/feed Bucky's World]], [[https://www.youtube.com/user/sunsteprising Steve Ronin]], [[https://www.youtube.com/user/theartofrealitycrew Exploring with Josh]], [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxZYELcpwp9RdliPL8gsw1w Proving Demons]] and others a whole host of houses abandoned since at least the 70s with loads of people's stuff inside. Sometimes the places have been trashed, even by locals hoping to discourage urbexers by ruining anything worth seeing, but it is quite often left there after the last residents abandon the place or die by law. This leads to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ri0L4MAUI8 this sortie to a mansion in Japan]]. |
| 175 | ** In recent years, local governments in Japan have found themselves caretakers of a glut of Akiya (literally ‘empty house’) properties, which tend to be either houses abandoned after the owner died and their family didn’t want to continue looking after the property, or houses repossessed because their owner wasn’t paying taxes. These houses may be completely intact and fully furnished with everything inside, frozen in time. As a result, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism ([=MLIT=]) and Japan’s leading real estate chains have set up ‘Akiya Banks’, special real estate sections that collect listings of such property in the hopes that people (both from Japan and elsewhere) may purchase the houses and renovate them, live in them, modernise them, or at the very least demolish the property and build a new one on the land. |
| 176 | * Such sites are also found out in the middle of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM_Ye5AQwf0 American deserts]], often after a mining claim is revoked, or the town just runs out of reason to exist. Ghost towns have been known to be abandoned while full of stuff and never re-used until they have rotted to nothing. |
| 177 | * Irey House in Los Angeles. Fans of ''Series/Charmed1998'' might have noticed from the establishing shots for the Halliwell Manor that the house on the right looked quite dilapidated. In real life, several photos show it empty with boarded-up doors. Turns out it's been for sale since before the show started airing (1998), and stayed like that for years after it ended (2006). Only pictures as recent as mid-2020 show it scaffolded for renovation at last, meaning it might finally have finally found an owner. |
| 178 | * Fairly often, dwellings in which murders featured in the television show Cold Justice occurred have been abandoned and can be inspected by the investigators trying to solve the cases. Literally Truth in Television, and frequently justified in that these sites are usually located in rural areas and tend to already have been decrepit. Add the fact that an unsolved murder occurred there, meaning that there may be issues with who has the right to do anything with the property on top of unwillingness to reclaim a tainted site. |
| 179 | ** In Japan, such houses tend to be very difficult to sell, so they either tend to become Akiya properties (see above), or fall into the inventory of specialist real estate companies who work to renovate and clean up the area so they can be sold on the cheap to people who ''are'' willing to buy them. |
| 180 | * It is generally accepted by religious dogma for both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian faiths that an old Catholic or Orthodox church should never be re-used or re-purposed as anything but a Christian church. |
| 181 | * Similarly, the Islamic faith also believes that a mosque should never be re-purposed as anything but another mosque. |
| 182 | [[/folder]] |
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