HELL HOUSE

I had the misfortune of living in Greenville, PA for five years. To cut a long story short, it is a run-down, boarded up shell of industrial blight and abandonment.The town is a metaphor for the people who live there, or vice versa. If you ever visited Greenville, you know exactly what I mean. Many towns and cities in Ohio and PA are rundown old industrial towns, but many retain some charm and character. Greenville is not one of them. What follows is the tale of one house in the middle of this nightmare. I call it HELL HOUSE. Read on and see why.

HELL HOUSE was around the corner from where I lived on Park Avenue. Don't let the uptown-sounding address fool you, it bordered the railroad tracks and was a stone's throw from an abandoned factory. An African-American church sat at the end of the road but, according to neighborhood lore, burned down mysteriously in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, the yard for this unsightly house bordered my back yard. I hurriedly constructed a fence shortly after moving in. You might think this house was abandoned, but it was not. The occupants were a very strange guy in his 50's and his odd teenage son.

Two weeks before I left Greenville in the summer of 2004, the man and his son got in a van and drove away for good. They sold their house and piece of land to my landlord for $1,500 (yes, you read that correctly). No one wanted to enter this house and my landlord said he was planning to tear it down. He would not go in, and he now owned the place. He called the natural gas company and told them they could go in and get their gas meter out of the basement of the house. They refused. The meter reader from the gas company said he hadn't been in the house in years and would never go in again. When I heard these stories, I developed a foolish ambition to be the one who would go where no other man would trod. I have been in hundreds of old, abandoned buildings and houses in my time, so I figured this would be no big deal. After conquering an 11-story abandoned train terminal in Buffalo, NY, how bad could this little house be? I even convinced a friend to come along for the tour. His name is Mark Newara and his outlook on life was altered the day we set foot in HELL HOUSE! See Mark's sworn testimony below the photos.

Here are the photos beginning with the exterior. Remember someone lived in this house just one week earlier!

This closeup of the back door shows that trees/weeds were growing on the roof.

Hellhouse is the one in the background completely covered in ivy on the back side.

This was the floor of the "living"room. A very odd assortment of items including a
bottle of Jim Beam, road construction flasher and pink teddy bear.

A corner of the living room. The ceiling fan featured only two blades.

One can only speculate.

There were three couches in the house. Apparently when one
got full of trash they moved to another.

This is the kitchen sink. I would have maybe expected this
sort of scene in a house abandoned 20 years earlier,
not abandoned one week earlier.

Another shot of the kitchen sink which featured a medicine cabinet above.

 

Apparently this is what you do when the kitchen sink fills up.

Another view of the kitchen. Notice dust covered vacuum in background.

You gotta love the curtains right next to the stove!

I often heard the song "Convoy" by C.W. McCall coming from the house,
but surprisingly it is not a track on "Southern Fried Rock."

What do a stereo and bag of flour have in common? I don't know either.

This is the hallway on the second story. The dust is evidence that these books
were not just dumped there recently.

This was the only bathroom in the house.

After the 15-minute trip through the house, my leg was covered in fleas.
The flea bites irritated me for two weeks after, but my mind was scarred for life

And now the sworn testimony of Mark Newara about the Hell House incident...

With nothing much to do in the dilapidated and socially impoverished area of Greenville, exploring this niche of humanity was almost as bad as reaching your arm down a snake hole in the ground.  If you can remember, this trip resulted in a visit to the hospital. 
 
Let me elaborate.  One thing to remember is that there wasn't any functioning electricity in the building.  The only light source that was available for us was either natural sunlight shining through the debris and ivy on the side of the building, flashlights, or the flash from your digital camera.  Upon entering the doorway, there was a 30 lb bag of dog food ripped open.  The previous owners had dog that was saved by the Animal Rescue League.  The previous owners never poured the food in the bowl.  The dog just ripped it open any time he/she needed to eat. 
 
It was at this time that you and I noticed some prickling feeling on our legs but you told me to ignore it.  I did and so we trudged on.  From there, we explored all the key facets of the house depicted in your photos. One thing to point out is the bath tub. 
 
Inside the bathtub was their laundry.  Apparently the family had taken a "depression era" style of washing their clothes in the bath tub with a wash board.  Naturally, however, the family didn't follow through with the process as they left all the clothes in the bath tub to dry.  The problem is that they also didn't drain the water.  On top of being discolored, the top layer of water was scabbed over with algae.  Mosquitoes buzzed around the layer: possibly birthed within the crusty layer of water.  Floating around the water were Gatorade bottles filled cigarette butts.  Surrounding the tub were full bottles of soap and shampoo.  Never opened.  Never used.  Not surprised.
 
It was at this time where both you and I continued to feel the prickling feeling on our legs.  We disregarded it and moved on: not thinking that it could be anything serious.  We climbed the steps which was a feat in and of itself being that the boards were warped from the leaky room and wet trash compacted down on each step.
 
On the second floor, we had found boxes of VHS tapes and an assorted electronics that were taken apart: 8 track and cassette players.  There was also tall stuffed animals covered with a assorted crusted stains.  Only a CSI DNA test would have proven what they were and where they had come from. 
 
Again the prickling feeling on our legs had moved up to our torsos.  We finally decided to put the flashlights on us only to see that our legs were covered in fleas and moving their way up.  The dog apparently had fleas and we ran out of the house because we couldn't take it any more.
 
Now back to the beginning of the story where I mentioned going to the hospital.  "You're screwed!": these words were used by you West to describe my state of being.  Never before in my life have I ever wished that I was bald.  My hair was longer at the time and apparently the fleas decided to nest themselves in my scalp.  After hours of compulsive itching, I went to the doctor.  His prescription: a shaved head and a shampoo called "Elmina-mite". 
 
Anyone can venture to guess what this shampoo was designed to do.  Think of a as a flea bomb for the scalp that is designed to kill flea larva nested in one's scalp.  Yes.  I had fleas in my scalp.  It was prescribed that I washed, rinsed and repeat for 2 1/2 weeks with this god awful shampoo.  At a time where my post collegiate job search had hit full throttle, I was required to have a shaved head that smelled like rotted feet.

--Mark Newara