10. Several abandoned mental hospitals across the United States have attendants who live on the premises
Throughout most of the twentieth century states operated mental health hospitals and asylums for those deemed to be insane. What was considered to be insanity covered a vast range of complaints, including women committed by their husbands for being too emotional, or patients committing themselves to avoid debt collector’s importuning them for payment. Within the facilities electroshock therapies, isolation therapy, insulin therapy, and all manner of near medieval tortures were inflicted on the patients in well-intentioned but misguided attempts to improve their mental and physical health. Many patients died and were buried on the grounds in cemeteries with headstones marked only with a number, to protect the reputations of families.
In nearly all states there are abandoned mental health facilities, standing like ancient castles, crumbling slowly, with gurney’s and wheelchairs scattered about where they were left behind, ghostly remnants of clothing and paperwork, battered desks in offices, rusting beds with rotting mattresses, abandoned kitchens and tables, and other detritus. No places on earth are more suitable for the habitation of ghosts, of the victims who suffered there and of the caretakers who labored there. Yet in many there are still skeleton staffs of caretakers to protect the rotting buildings from the depredations of vandals and thieves, often they are there merely to protect curious trespassers from injuring themselves. Being alone in a vast former insane asylum on dark nights cannot be a comfortable experience.