I knew something was terribly odd with 14831 Ralls for years. This was one that, again, stood out in memory of times gone by as being rather odd beyond belief. There was the fact that it had some homespun additions done to it years ago, including a brick lamppost at the end of the driveway with a giant, round ball light atop. There was the overabundance of gardening evident in the vast types of plants in the front yard alone. But it was the fact that I never could quite tell, for YEARS, if someone was actually living there that threw me off the most. Given the condition it was in I had figured the place to be an abandoned dumping ground even before my mom left the area. I was wrong. For the past few years, the place had become, literally, a dump. More trash than needed to raise 15 kinds of hell were dumped across the driveway alone including appliances, planters, random machinery and of course, cars. The ball lightpost was on, but I honestly didn’t think anyone was home. On my original maps, I had written this house off as “unoccupied but standing.” I found out recently that this very house was THE last house occupied in Carrollton. The blue sticker on the door says November 27th, 2007 for final water tap closure. That means the owners could have resided there up to just a few weeks ago. NINE dumpsters were loaded with crap from just the OUTSIDE of the house. But, its when we got a closer look at the inside of the scary place that we realized that this guy was ready to fight the airport even after his eminent domain eviction. The front doorway had 5 kinds of locks. Inside the front door (side window was boarded up, had a hole broken in), one could see that the front door was nothing more than just the entrance to a interior mudroom, that there was yet another front door inside. In a room that could have been a living room (?) we could see hundreds, maybe in the thousands, products using flammable propellants.
The floor was covered with plastic milk crates filled with cans of spray paint and propane. At first, the locks and the cans seemed odd, but innocent enough from a person who was possibly a hoarder… until the side door… and of course, the windows. The windows were all boarded up… nothing unusual in Carrollton… until you realize that they were boarded up from the inside AND outside. The boards were torn off the side door, and the door’s window was broken as well. Inside the window, we saw boards nailed to the floor and to the walls pushing against the door, making the door impossible to open. If one miracleously did find their way into the kitchen, they would be stopped from entering the hallway by the refrigerator blocking their only path in. The last window that was bothered to be opened up revealed a room that looked like an innocent craft room with cabinets and lots of electric outlets. An innoculous hole was in the middle of the floor, mildly covered with taped-down black plastic (lifted at some point by someone). Also, this house does not seem to have a basement, and those without basements had nothing more than a concrete slab at the foundation.
This place was so booby-trapped that I decided at this point I didn’t feel safe wandering around the yard anymore. I could understand some of the paranoia-response features installed on the house, such as floodlights every 10 feet and motion sensor lights every 5. But who the hell boards up their own home? Inside and out? While they are still there? Why did they refuse to leave until they were forced out? And why the HELL did they leave behind a toxic dump of paint, petrol cans and propane? Oh, and we can’t even tell what the hell might exist in the garage or the rest of the house for that matter… all we could see into was two and a half rooms. I think I will photograph this one from the road from now on.
BTW- they left behind a whole car. Complete with White Castle boxes under the hood.
I do hope that the demo crew is careful around this bat-shait crazy house, maybe letting in only the Lambert officials.
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