A beautiful summer day was turning towards the evening, the sun was setting, and the shadows were getting longer. I had found out that a small abandoned house lay in a very remote location, and decided to go have a look, if it was still around.
Not only was the location very remote, it was extremely difficult to access. The cottage was at the end of a road, and the road was closed for good. It was very difficult crossing this makeshift bridge with a bike.
The tip was true: there was a cottage at the end of the road. The road was overgrown, the forest was dense and dark, and the early summer mosquitos were everywhere. I and my friend were bitten and itching by the time we got there.
It wasn’t just open doors. It was broken doors. Someone was taking care of the property, though, as the broken porch window had been boarded shut.
Inside was a mess of cardboard boxes, very old newspapers and china. Other explorers hadn’t been as gentle as we were.
The insides looked a bit like a mixture of abandoned housing and storage. Dishes were still in the cupboard, but unless the boxes were torn from a cupboard, the place had been reduced to a storage facility later on.
The newest layer of wallpaper was coming off.
There were some very old beer bottles, but no food packages.
The Anttila boxes are very old. The company started as a mail order company in the 1950’s. It later opened a large network of department stores before going bankrupt in 2016. The boxes are from a time, when the emphasis was still on selling via mail.
This box has a different slogan, but it’s still from the era, when the emphasis was on mail deliveries.
Water had found its way in from next to the chimney. The house would collapse in a few years.
The place included not only schoolbooks but also school report cards of two children. There was also a lot of other personal artifacts like postcards, tax reports and a contract of sale concerning a moped.
The book is older than the early 1970’s, as that was when Finland moved to an elementary school system. In fact all the things in the house were from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I’ve never before seen so old stuff in an abandoned place.
This was a rather strange find. We are nowhere near the city of Lahti, yet an old phonebook from there has found its way in.
Apparently the vandalism had been going on for some time and was pretty extensive, as most of the windows were boarded shut. That’s why the pictures are so dark and shady: there was very little light inside.
This find was somewhat creepy. I don’t know why, it just is.
In between the letters and stuff was a math’s assignment notebook. This, too, was from the late 60’s or early 1970’s.
Edit 29.8.2023. The cottage has since burned down and the city has demolished the ruins.