You know this story, right. You’re cruising on a road in a place you’ve rarely visited, when you spot something interesting in the woods. Maybe it’s broken or boarded up windows, maybe an overgrown yard. You just catch a glimpse of it before it is behind trees again, so you take the next crossing, turn the car and head back to have a closer look.
Well this is right what happened to me on the outskirts of a small town. When I had turned around and left the large road, I ended up to the yard of this.
What on earth, I wondered. A nice, vintage block of flats, which just sits abandoned behind a forest, I thought at first. But then I realized there were more.
Actually there were three of them, all built in the 1940’s or 1950’s and all boarded up. I was busy trying to reach the last ferry on my tour later on, so I didn’t have time to explore further. But later in the evening during the long ferry ride I had time for some research.
The buildings were indeed built in the 1940’s and 1950’s by a nearby factory for their workers. They were in this use all the way to the early 2000’s when they were made available to be hired by anyone.
The local paper states, that the houses were very primitive. The toilets and showers were shared until the 1980’s, when each apartment got their own. Not much was done to keep them in good shape and they were finally abandoned and closed in 2011.
There was a fire in one of the basements and after that the owner wanted to demolish them. They are however listed as regionally important buildings, and permission wasn’t granted.
So they wait.