If I Could Save Time In A Bottle The day began with some fellow explorers and I meeting at a carpool lot on a nice Saturday morning. It was going to be a humid day, a heat warning had been issued for the day. We packed our camera gear, a roll of toilet paper (you never know) and sunscreen into one car and began our journey.
As we neared our primary destination, the adrenaline flow increased - our hearts beat a little bit quicker in anticipation of what to expect. We debated on where to park so as not to be seen by passers by and after debating the best approach, parked and made our way down the overgrown driveway. The house was clearly not lived in, the hydro meter had been removed and the grass overgrown. We attempted the front door, locked. We attempted the side door, locked. We were beginning to feel worried, when one of our fellow explorers walked around the other side of the house through overgrown and prickly bushes. After a few suspenseful moments she announced that there was a way inside.
The first room that we entered was the dining room. The table was filled with assorted items dumped on top of it and I felt a pang of disappointment: this was going to be one of those cluttered houses where you'd have to wade through piles of junk. The hutch contained china, old bottles and figurines - all neatly arranged. An antique radio sat at the far left of the hutch, with a revolving pendulum clock atop of it.
We then proceeded around the corner and into the main living room. Our jaws dropped!
Every...room...was...immaculate.
Now I'll leave it up to you to determine what the classification of a 'time capsule' house is. Is it a house that's been preserved for decades, or is it also applicable to a home that's been vacant for under ten years? Whatever your definition is - this house is perfectly preserved, nobody lives here, and their entire life has been left behind. I'll also leave it to you to opine if the occupants just stepped out for groceries, and if the house was dusted the day before.
The living room was immaculate, the only item appearing out of place was a wall painting that had been placed in the corner. There were exclamations of excitement from our group at being inside such a pristine house despite the initial appearance in the dining room. The pillows on the couch were neatly arranged, the floor was clean. There was absolutely no sign nor scent of animals. Numerous photos of family members were hung on the walls. There was no sign of water damage anywhere.
"Life's like an hour glass glued to the table" - Anna Nalik The hourglass sands appeared to have run out on this house sometime during a Christmas season. We observed Christmas lights on the counter, ready to be hung up. A nativity scene was set up by the front window in the living room. Proceeding into the next room revealed just how serious a Christmas fanatic Laura was. A grandfather clock was wearing a Christmas hat in expectation of the pendulum swing that would coincide with Santa's arrival down the chimney. The fireplace had no less than twelve nutcrackers keeping guard over Santa's entry point. Another twenty nutcrackers took up nearby positions on a nearby cabinet.
A small Christmas tree had been set up in a corner of the secondary living room. The smaller tree was perhaps an indication that there were no children living here. Certainly Laura was in her late 80's by this time.
A telescope aimed out the main window perhaps served as a grandchild's means to scrutinize the sky on Christmas Eve.
Walking into the basement, we found towels and shirts hanging on a clothes line as if they'd just been taken out of the washer.
The upstairs portion of the house was a time capsule unto itself. Laura's two children Stewart and Margaret each had their own bedrooms. One of my companions comments that the bedroom looked like someone had just gotten out of bed.
Indeed, the comforter was neatly in place except for the upper portion which appeared like someone had woken up and lifted it off of them. A stuffed animal still in the bed. There was a VHS tape player in one bedroom giving an indication that the bedrooms were used sometime in the late 80's and into the 90's. The calendar on the wall indicated 1994.
What happened to this family, where did they go? Isn't that what we always ask ourselves?
Some of the pieces of the puzzle will inevitably have to be found during a future visit as we had other places to be on this day. What I can establish is that this was Laura's home and that the children are well into their 60's today. Laura passed away over ten years ago, almost a year after her 90th birthday in which the scrapbook was given to her.
The Pirates of The Caribbean poster is from 2003 which surpasses the year that Laura passed away. Did her grandchildren stay here occasionally? The National Geographic magazine in the living room is from July 2010.
I've always said that the houses that leave you with lingering questions for days, weeks even months are the best locations of them all. Each one of us is a scrapbook, a story in the making and one day we'll also be memories in other people's minds.
As explorers, we're sometimes fortunate enough to encounter houses where time has stopped ticking - and everything inside remaining frozen in time. This house is one of those houses except that we're able to see it in it's initial stages - approximately a decade and a half after the owner passed away, and five years being the last known time someone stepped through the front door.
Will it be around in another 10 years for the next generation to explore and ponder what those black cassette things are marked "VHS tapes"? It's difficult to say - I suspect that this location will eventually end up like so many others : picked over, vandalized and robbed. For this reason, identifying information has been sanitized. There used to be a day where people were willing to share with one another, but the hobby dynamics are always changing.
Thank you for looking and please try to keep the comments constructive be it appreciation or criticism.
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