A sad house. It's easy to visualise Adolf living here. It's easy to imagine that the house wasn't in too good a state when he was still alive for some reason. I just got that feeling. 

 

Typical 1970's wallpaper in every room adding a gloomy feel to an already gloomy house devoid of much natural light. There appears to have been a craze in Belgium in the 70's for this exact kind of wallpaper, I have seen the same in so many houses. Maybe everyone went to the same store to buy it? 

 

Downstairs a large function room and a large kitchen. i don't actually recall seeing a bathroom anywhere in the house. It could have been outside. Maybe it just didn't exist. Adolf liked his books, The book shelf in the lounge covering an entire wall. My grasp pf any of the languages in Belgium ensured that I had no idea what the reading matter was.

The grand art deco fireplace covered in the remnants of the above ceiling took centre stage of this room, suggesting the house was probably built post WWII. 

 

The kitchen a similar chaotic mess. A mass of cobwebs on the windows, torn curtains, dust covered items strewn around, peeling walls and a crumbling ceiling. All the ingredients of a perfect venue for photographing.

 

Negotiating the stairs was tricky. The way they had warped and twisted round 30 degrees over time was alarming to see as i tip toed up the creaking wooden steps clinging on to the hand rail which was about to fall off itself! memories of a staircase collapsing as I stood on it taking a photograph the previous year flooded back. The risk is there but the knowledge something is upstairs makes rational thinking difficult sometimes. On this occassion I decided the risk was minimal. The stairs seemed solid. Buckled by time yes, but solid enough!

 

The main bedroom with its extreme dampness on the walls looked like a swamp had fixed itself to the walls. Yet enough remained from the life of the former owner to make some sort of sense of the decline in conditions.  A naughty magazine on the bedside table a reminder that I was after all entering into a once private world of another human being.

The only other room upstairs was a small bedroom with trees growing inside. A little piece of the garden taking shelter.

 

Next door was another house, also abandoned yet not as interesting as this one. I will post a few photographs of that one in time. Not much remained inside except various paraphanalia and references to marijuana.