Abandoned Cleveland

[music] Jerry: ***' raze this entire ***' area Me: Well i guess we should go for a walk, then. Jerry: It's so crazy too, because... if you go... if you go into most yards... they all look like this... whether there's somebody here or not, you know what I'm sayin'? Me: [laugh] right Jerry: it's actually hard to tell Me: Apparently they left around the fourth of July. Yeah, but you gotta remember too, people left-- Oh this is my favorite house in the whole neighborhood, because here come on... just listen... These steps are safe... I traverse them regularly... Me: Okay, oh man, there's no light. Me: I got no light. Jerry: No, no, no, it's all about sound right now... You just gotta hear it. Me: Wow, these are mushy steps. Jerry: Nah, they're good though, I've been up and down them a couple times... It's Old Faithful... Six months now. Me: from the water? Jerry: Yeah, that pipe has been doing that for six months Me: So they didn't turn the water off? Jerry: the water company hasn't even come out... I've called them four times about it. They don't even *** care. For six months. Me: Wow Jerry: Yeah Me: Can't even see you Jerry: Nah, no, no. Yeah for six *** months now. Me: So this house is just gonna sink Jerry: Eeeh, pretty much. [crosstalk] Jerry: What's crazy is if you look at these houses structurally, they're not bad houses. Me: Well, these are, these are old, old houses. Jerry: These are Polish-built houses. These dudes built houses with nails they made themselves. Me: Dude... This, wait, wait. These basement stairs are just like 126th. Jerry: Yeah Me: They open the closet... then they cut a hole... then they build stairs. Jerry: Yeah, there is no--yeah, they just-- Me: Toilet in the kitchen Jerry: Yeah, well everything gets dragged out and... scavenged... Yeah. Me: Just random family pictures. Me: Wow, you can hear it up here too. Jerry: Yeah. Me: Yeah, they left in July. Jerry: Oh, is that what the calendar says? Me: Yeah Me: July '08 Jerry: So this house has been vacant for three and a half years. Me: Yup Me: Plus or minus whoever-- Jerry: There's been people in and out just like squattin', I'm sure. Me: Oh yeah. Jerry: See, I think the big difference is though, houses like these, dude... People who're squattin' in these, they're not squattin' like punk-rock squattin' er... you know what I'm sayin', like, people are straight living in these. Me: Yeah. Jerry: [unintelligible] firewood Me: There's some over there too... already chopped up. Jerry: *** yeah... Those are too big... I gotta get an axe. Me: Yeah Jerry: This one they just boarded up again Me: Oh yeah? Again? Jerry: Yeah. Me: The Google Street View-- Jerry: The first time, the first time they boarded it up... was when I was fixing my roof Me: Yeah Jerry: and I ran out of sheeting for my roof... so I came over and got sheeting off of the house. The boards that--the board--I needed two more sheets... they're covered up now, you can't see them, but... yeah, that door and... the window on the side is up on my roof. Me: Wow Jerry: I haven't even shingled it yet... It doesn't need to be... I put 3 layers of various types of underlayment Me: [laughing] Jerry: I think I put, yeah, yeah, it's pretty well covered. Me: Yeah. Jerry: This house is crazy though. I actually-- Jerry: This is the wasteland, okay... Like, there's no ***'... Like, there's nothing, dude... Like, no one, no one to care. Me: No one to care Jerry: No, there isn't, dude... like, you call people and tell them something's happening here and... they never show up... You know what I'm sayin', they'll show up, like, a couple days later... Like, my garage burned... to the ground... before they even got there. All they did was come and, like, poke it. Me: [laughs] Me: Wow. Jerry: Yeah... The dude, okay, the dude who lived in here... was, uh, this old guy. Me: He's on Google Street View. Jerry: Yeah! He's on the street like... Me: [laughs] Jerry: he's crazy. But when they finally, like, the state had to come and take him... he was naked... in February... Me: Okay Jerry: walkin' around outside just like in his boxers or drawers or somethin'. Me: Yeah, yeah Jerry: Just walkin' around outside.. and, uh, his buddy came over-- Me: Hey, some tiles. Jerry: Huh? Oh yeah, there's [unintelligible] of *** like that... He's an old Polish guy, but his buddy came over the other day... and, uh, was looking at the house--he was real upset because the house is destroyed... but uh-- Me: That calendar still says 1990. Jerry: Yeah, well, this dude... he was pretty [glass breaking]--ooh, careful on the glass, dude Me: Yeah, dude... Good solution. Jerry: Nah, yeah. Constantly having to create new leap pads... cause other people... come through... Everybody's curious though, it's weird... to look at how somebody else lived, you know? Me: Or how somebody else vacated. Jerry: Well, no, because this is from other people destroying it. Me: That's true. Jerry: If you looked at a couple of months ago... like, it gets more and more... It's almost gotten to the point where I actually... came in here one time and I wanted to just start... cleaning *** out and putting it on the lawn... because I know the dude's in a nursing home, he's still alive. Me: Mmmhmm. Jerry: You know what I'm sayin', he's still lucid... but nobody's told him his house is like this, and I'm like, God forbid he ever has the opportunity to come back. Me: Yeah Jerry: Like, that'd be horrible to see your home like this. Me: Yeah. Jerry: Like, I was talking to his friend the other day, I was like, "oh that's..." I was like, "Don't tell him"-- I was like, "Don't tell him his *** looks like this." Me: Yeah Jerry: I mean, people were squattin' here and... Me: Right Jerry: and they were just going through things... and then... months later you have this. Me: Yeah. Jerry: But yeah, I do want this giant mirror out of here, dude. It's huge. Did somebody break it? Me: Probably. That's probably what we just walked on. Jerry: Nah, nah, nah. It's still there. It's on the wall here. It's a huge ***' mirror... The upstairs is crazy, though. Me: Yeah? Jerry: Yeah, the upstairs is--oh look. Me: Knockout Kings. Jerry: But, the upstairs is just piled with ***. Me: Yeah. Jerry: It's crazy amounts of ***... It's amazing how much *** this dude amassed. Me: Well, you know, over so much time. Jerry: Yeah, but I mean... *** dude, it's all... and that's what's so weird because for us we won't have stacks of paper. Me: mhm yeah Jerry: We'll have old hard drives. [laughter] Jerry: You know what I'm sayin' Me: Oh yeah, we've already started that. Jerry: Yeah, I have boxes of old hard drives that I have yet to transfer to larger hard drives. Me: In, like, sixty years... people won't even be able to use those... You won't even be able to plug them into anything. Jerry: Yeah, exactly, like my stacks of disks... Those are the best ones. Me: Oh? We're going up there? Jerry: Oh *** yeah. Me: Oh man. Jerry: You can't get in there... You can get to the top of the stairs... You know what I'm sayin', and like... [unintelligible] Me: Crap Jerry: You know what I'm sayin'? Jerry: This is where it stops. Unless you want to wade through the possibility of broken glass. Me: No. Jerry: I usually opt out. Me: Right... Wow. Jerry: Yeah, a lot of ***, dude... I mean You gotta think, this dude, he's old, man... There's only so much he was doing. Me: Right. Jerry: Look how good this ***' attic is insulated. Me: [laughs] Yeah. Jerry: This dude had no heat loss... Like, done an awesome job. Me: Yeah. Jerry: Whole house is re-sheeted. Me: If that window wasn't open-- if that window wasn't broken I'm sure it'd be warmer in here. Jerry: Yeah... I mean, this house is very well maintained. It's insane Me: Yeah. This is what happens when you leave a house alone out here. Jerry: Yeah, I mean dude it's the ***'-- It's like, sometimes dude, I look out my window... and I feel like I'm in Mad Max... or some crazy post-apocalyptic movie set. Me: Holy crap Jerry: You didn't see the stack? Me: No Jerry: There's a whole stack over-- Me: The Cleveland Press hasn't published in years. Jerry: There's stacks and stacks. Me: My battery's gettin' low... Wow, 1977, June sixteenth Jerry: They didn't throw that *** away. Me: No... A reel tape. Me: So is this still active? Jerry: Yeah, it's only active in sections Me: I see. Jerry: That's Mark. He's our resident, uh, shopping cart guy. Me: Oh, cool. Jerry: But he's cool though, you know what I'm sayin'? He's actually like our neighborhood watchman. Me: Oh? Jerry: Because he just paces around... He's a little off... He's not a bad dude though... He just--he looks scary at first [laughs]... But, yeah I mean, there's ***' three houses on this street that are occupied. Me: Including yours? Jerry: Yeah. Including mine... You know what I'm sayin'? That one, that one's actually well maintained. Somebody comes by and takes care of the lawn, you know what I'm sayin'? Me: Is that 6605? Jerry: The blue one here. And the one next to it has people in it... Me: Okay Jerry: even though it doesn't look like it... and then the two after that have no one in it, and then-- Me: I'm surprised nobody came for those satelite dishes. Jerry: They're harder to get off... You can't just muscle them off. You actually have to ratchet them off. Me: Oh. Jerry: I learned that the hard way because I have one on the side of my house, and I don't have a ratchet... It's like... but yeah... It's pretty crazy, especially--and what makes it the worst is... there's nothing in front of us, so the wind whips across here... and it gives it this crazy eerie feeling all night long because of the amount of wind and how strong the wind is. It shakes. Me: Wow Jerry: Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Me: Oh hey, at least you've got a fire hydrant right there. Too bad they never got around for the garage fire. Jerry: Well there's one on the side too, right in front of where the garage was... Like, directly in front. Me: Wow... that's... wow. Jerry: Yeah, I know, whatever. Me: That's terrible. Jerry: Yeah, whatever. Jerry: Just burn down my garage. Me: You'll just build one out of brick. Jerry: Yeah, I'm not salty. I'll build a new one... I'll unbuild someone else's garage... and carry all the bricks here... [laughter] and build my garage. Me: Well, it's vacant... So how many on the other side are occupied? Jerry: The other street? Me: Yeah. Jerry: The other street is a little more, but not many more. Me: Yeah. Jerry: This street is just the *** child of streets... It's all the way at the end, you know what I'm sayin'? Me: Faces the uh-- Jerry: Faces the factories and stuff. You know what I'm sayin'? Me: Factory or warehouse? Jerry: Warehouse, factory, there's a bunch of stuff over there... It's actually, it's weird. That's like a huge industrial complex... Like old as ***. Me: So it was probably one at one point it time and now it's-- Jerry: No, no. The street, the next street over dead ends into it, and if you look at it on Google maps... it's just this massive, like, complex of buildings... You know what I'm sayin'? Like an industrial park or something... and then all this is woods, dude we have-- Me: Dude, it's like you live in Fight Club, on Paper Street. [laughter] Jerry: I do. It really is. Me: You just need to start golfing. Jerry: Yeah. Dude, I got it all right there... But, yeah, all that over there is deer... There's a ***' buck that is huge and scary... He comes out and he just stands like right over there, or sometimes he gets as close as to this corner over here by this pole... and he'll just be over there, on the other side of the fence though, and he just stands there and the dog tries to chase him... He's huge, huge... I was like is that for real? It looks like he's out of Bambi the first time I saw it... It was standing there it was just like...all chest out huge horns. I'm like, "Is that for real?"... And then there's pack of dogs too... The packs of dogs are really crazy. Me: Wow. Jerry: Because you'll see like four of them... and then like two puppies... and you know, it's like a family. You know what I'm sayin'? It's like an actual family in a pack... and they're just like, they walk across this, and it's great to watch... Straight nature show ***... [laughter] Sometimes. It's fun though. Me: Yeah, yeah. [music]