Our home is like a safe space that God has given us – a space where we can be ourselves, a space for rest and enjoyment. One can tell a lot about a person just by taking a look inside their homes. Houses tell stories, even if its walls cannot talk.

In rural Hertfordshire, UK, an old, rusty cottage that looked like it was going to fall apart any second stood among thick bushes. The cottage, commonly knows as Crooked Cottage, probably because of how its foundations had weakened and were “crooked”, was abandoned 15 years ago in 2003 and hasn’t been lived in ever since.

It is said that a woman and her father lived in this cottage. After the father died in 1971, the woman lived all alone until 2003, when she was taken into care. Since she left, no one made the cottage home, and over the years, it started becoming old, rusty and dusty.

In 2012, Toby Batchelor, an urban explorer and photographer explored the Crooked Cottage, where he took pictures and videos of what he found inside and uploaded it on YouTube. All the owners’ belongings were still inside – a bed that was made, a piano, chairs and tables, jars of pickles, a 1956 calendar, a bicycle, and a ton of other pieces, all of which seemed to tell a story.

Toby said that the cottage looked like it was from a movie since it was so old and tiny. The cottage was demolished later that same year.