While on the surface, these are mostly just decrepit old buildings, there are some psychological factors in play that make them fascinating to us. First and foremost, we do have an innate curiosity about abandoned places, as some part of our brain wants to confirm if it’s truly abandoned. Perhaps we think we can find something interesting or find answers to why people left.
It’s also worth noting that in most cases, the places we live in are not abandoned, so it’s a unique chance to see just what age does to a home, something we don’t see every day. Add in the fact that many of these houses are built in an “older” era and it’s easy to see why the average person might find such a building interesting.
We aren’t the only people who think that old “ruins” are interesting, there is some evidence that in the 18th and 19th centuries, Medieval castles, no longer necessary as fortifications, were purposefully allowed to crumble and fall apart, as they would yield “aesthetically pleasing” ruins. While modern historians might grumble at this, the logic is sound.
In cases where there weren’t readily available ruins, people would simply fake them. Architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg designed a set of “Roman ruins” for the garden of the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. The Hapsburg rulers of the time, like many fashionable people, had a passing interest in the ancient world and didn’t think fake ruins were weird at all.
And before you judge, consider that modern humans regularly erect haunted houses, horror escape rooms and take tours of places associated with death. There is a thrill associated with a location, while the houses in this list also might be just spooky enough to titillate a real horror fan.
For some, an abandoned house isn’t enough, they need a whole street or even a region. This is why some companies make a profit by offering tours of Pripyat, near Chornobyl, still mostly restricted since its nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic failure in 1986. People have a chance to explore a ghost town, plus see a relatively untouched Soviet town, as long as they don’t care about a little exposure to radiation.
Others might go to Hashima Island, Japan, where mines have been abandoned since the 1970s. While not really dangerous, These locations are still “wild” enough that visitors feel like they may stumble across something new or unexpected. The presence of a tour guide would suggest otherwise, but most prefer an interesting delusion to reality.
This is perhaps the same psychology that drives people to explore the most uncomfortable caves known to man, even if it means risking life and limb to see a bit of rock that no one else has. Of course, by definition, an abandoned house can’t be “unseen” since it had to have been at least built.