Cats had taken over this home. The litter box had been abandoned long ago, and the cats made their foul mark in every room. The previous owner smoked indoors. Garbage festered in ripped bags. Rancid food slowly decayed on the counters. … Continue reading
My musing about inhabitants past began here. During a backpacking trip some twelve years ago, I passed through the city of Antigua, in Guatemala. The city is a spectacular collection of Spanish colonial buildings, replete with cool internal courtyards, terra … Continue reading
I find myself drawn to hidden corners. Here, a large cabinet blocks direct access to the piano. From the side, though, I see the row of ivory keys, a century old, highlighted by a window at the end of the … Continue reading
Bags of crushed beer cans, empty wine bottles, and sticky mixers waited in the living room of this home. With current prices for recycled aluminum cans at around $0.52 a pound, there isn’t a fortune in these bags, but still … Continue reading
Atop the filing cabinets, an old flight log sat. The last entries are from the late 1970s, and other than this single book, there were no other evident indicators that this was a flying household.
I often wonder about the food left behind in foreclosed homes. Why is this jar of home-style, sweet pickled beets standing cleanly amid all of the rubbish and dust that has settled around it? Were these beets left behind at … Continue reading
In 1978, United Artists released Kenny Roger’s album “The Gambler.” It went on to sell millions of copies, and solidified the country singer’s position as a major artist of the late ’70s and early ’80s. This copy rested on a … Continue reading
In the basement, I had to climb over the musty remnants of decades of discarded household acquisitions: lamps, old winter coats, boxes of books, broken chairs. Upstairs wasn’t much better. The kitchen was ransacked, and the bedrooms looked like a … Continue reading
The Encyclopaedia Britannica ceased its printed book in 2010, but it lives on online. This collection, from 1967, was strewn about in a cluttered home out in the suburbs. I can understand not taking these heavy tomes along to the … Continue reading
We all have a little something different decorating our walls. Covering the blank spaces around us is a basic human trait that started with cave painting (check here for a history of wall coverings) and today includes posters, paintings, textiles, … Continue reading
