Urban exploration - Jean's derelict house

We received a traveler's photos and his narrative within the forsaken walls, and we have compiled a historical summary from them.

This dwelling highlights the profound hesitation one can feel when visiting a place with empathy. Many people wouldn’t care at all, entering without shame. But while visiting this site, I asked myself: is it truly abandoned?

All the signs suggest so. I found the house by chance; I was driving through this remote rural area when my eye was caught by the dilapidated building. What did I find on-site? It is wide open everywhere, the courtyard is a jungle, the building is a ruin, and there is no power or sign of life. There is a "Linky" meter—yet more proof that they’ve installed them in ruins, barns, and abandoned factories; I’ve seen it all.

And yet, in this small hamlet where life seems built on the solidarity of a few families, could it be an old family home, an ancestor's house kept because no one knows what to do with it—some fabulous joint ownership or who knows what? In short, a place not as abandoned as it seems? Doubt will exist in almost every location, anyway; what drives me to speak of it is the absence of family records (photos, letters) and the fact that it is ruined and wide open.

It was once a family home, clearly belonging to farmers. A few fragments of paper were found in the name of Auguste, an ancestor of the house. Closer to our time, there were Jean’s school notebooks. It is a building that was once beautiful, large, and bold. Today, it wavers, with some areas ready to collapse. The ravages of time—it is suffering deeply.

The family is buried in a beautiful family vault in the town cemetery, far from the hamlet.