In the backyard of a quiet regional hospital sits an even quieter area of old residential buildings from different ages. Its story goes something like the following.
To attract staff from other cities and towns, apartments were built close to nearly every single public institution. Schools, hospitals, sometimes even churches, received their own residential buildings located nearby.
That’s how this area came to be and grow. Judging by the buildings, the apartments were much needed up until the early 1980’s, as the newest ones seem to be from that era.
But those are bygone times. Salaries have risen so that cheap living next to the workplace is no longer needed. The apartments were often small and provided little comfort, many of them were also not renovated for decades. There was no demand.
Several of them around Finland have been sold to private investors, who have renovated the apartments and found new use for them. The fate of this area has been different.
These row houses are the latest addition in the area. It looks like they have been vandalized and boarded up.
The older houses were intact, but the closed curtains and empty windows indicate, that they are no longer in use
A walk around the newer row houses reveals uncut grass and blocked entrances.
The belongings of the last inhabitants have been thrown on the doorway along with something, which looks a little like kitchen equipment.
The backside indicates, these have been rather spacious two-storey apartments. Seem strange, that nobody has wanted them.
There was a slightly older block of flats, which was in desperate need of new paint to the yellow parts. This building actually looked like it might still have had some inhabitants, but we weren’t quite sure about it.
A rowhouse from the 1950’s or 1960’s. We saw no life, nor did we find any points of entry.
Like I said, this summer seemed like a big failure. So many spotted abandonements, so little entries.