Urban Exploring

Anyone else dreaming of erecting secret hacker HQs in an abandoned soviet bunker? This thread is used to fantasize about that. Post any experience you have with exploring abandoned places or questions you want to ask more experienced urbexers.

If you're in a city somewhere, the first thing you should address is how to deal with homeless and junkies taking over that couch you dragged all the way up there. They're always in need of comfy spots, and once they start visiting, someone from ordinance will come to place a heavier fence.

>>22290 I'm not and I wouldn't want to do urbex in an overpopulated soykafhole for the reasons you named. But around here it is hard to find interesting places

I wish I lived in an urban area so I could have the chance to explore abandoned areas. Alas...

urbex is nice, i often stumbled upon "living" places when i do them (once i found a full home with a made up kitchen in an abandonned kindergarten). It's fun to see how people reclaim those abandonned places I wish they were less guarded and protected though, most of them get completely destroyed or blocked where I live, it stinks I hate landowners so much

Always wanted to get into urban climbing/urbex. I'll probably go to the zone one day. I don't want to go with a guide though, fuarrrk that soykaf. Besides the zone I don't have many locations on my bucketlist. The only abandoned things within any reasonable distance from me are collapsed schools and even those are hours away. I'll probably just climb antennas and factories until I get into a position to travel. >>22290 There are some places that get left untouched. Though good luck finding them, urbex guys are pretty secretive about locations.

Wish I lived in a place worth exploring. Walking around a third world sprawl is perhaps one of the most boring settings out there.

>>22304 if you have internet in your sprawl, you have things you can break into. instead of looking at the static geometry, consider the broader networks worth exploiting. you could install a very low cost computer in a discrete location, and with a little computer wizardry, create a haven for lain. think about it.

Ive urbexed quite a bit

>>22307

>>22307 >>22308 noice where you live?

I'd try to look up if whatever building you want to hole up in is in the sights of an urbsn developer. Some empty buildings I frequented got demolished out of the blue.

All juicy abandoned places are discovered 15 years ago by every urban exploration website, looted, mowed down and apartment complex built upon. The rest are semi-functioning military bases with large holes in their corncrete walls and graffiti, they still have signs "shooting on sight" though. There are however endless real estate bubble semi-empty office buildings and unfinished malls, but they all have security, cameras on every corner, and lights burning at night.

I live in Warsaw, there used to be this abandoned house in our neighborhood. Bums used to live there but a local junkie had a "disagreement", with one of the residents, who was a drug dealer, so he set the house on fire. Therearter the place was abandoned. A few months after that me and my friends explored the building. It was really filthy, but we decided to clean up one room and get some old furniture. We got a carpet, some blankets, a table some books, a drawer and picrel. We also did some decorating, so the place got really comfy. We would go there, burn incense, drink wine and just chill. We jokingly called the place The Synagogue or Menelnia, which means "Bums' place". After a few months someone burned down our place. We tried to rebuild it, but it wasn't as successful and it also fell victim to our mysterious arsonist. By that time a lot of people found out about the place, so it couldn't have stayed a secret. The owners of the place wired it off and put up signs saying to stay out. I haven't visited Menelnia since. It was a lot of fun tho. I hope I can repeat something like this sometime.

There are a few abandoned buildings in my area, but they are more like crackhead dens instead of hacker HQs. There is also a lot of bunkers from the start of WWII, but they are mostly locked down, flooded or used as museums.

>>25229 pic rel is from last fall

>>25213 >The owners of the place wired it off and put up signs saying to stay out. Landlords are so useless ffs

>>25233 It makes sense if you think about it realistically. Nobody wants a burned corpse, they dont know who burned it but first guess will be dumb squatters did it themself in drunken stupor. So you want to keep them out to avoid the trouble of someone killing himself on your property.

I want to do this where I live. I saw a guide on /k/ on finding soykaf like this, it talks about "google earth being your most important tool" along with government databases of.....something. Some sort of "site" but I forget the words. It was basically just a screenshot of a bunch of very well written and detailed posts. Anyone have what I am talking about? Also FREEDOM forever.

>>25235 Five Eyes archives are available on the public.

>>25229 That's pretty cool, where do you live?

I wanna do this but I'm scared of going alone and finding some crackhead spot where I will be robed and beaten. Also can't go with frens because of pandemic and all of that.

>>25233 In russian film Leviathan there is an abandoned church where kids go drink and light bonfires. In my town theres an abandoned house, an ex-president house. The major problems are the razor sharp wire and the fact that its in between two heavily watched big hotels, so going there is safely out of the question. I'll just keep dreaming and increasing my hatred towards landlords, people in power and big hotel owners.

>>25322 This sounds really cool! I might go and watch this movie.

>>25248 fuarrrk the pandemic and go with your friends

i need to get into urbex with the neetbux i have, hopefully i don't become a menace to urbex people by doing graffiti

>>25407 This looks really cool! What is this place?

>>25408 Its an old, asbestos infested, railway switching building downtown.

>>22289 Recently, I was biking around and found this really cool abandoned church. I did a little research and it was built by the Maravites, a sect of christianity which was popular in Poland in the early XXth century. They lost popularity after WW2 and now the building is unused.

I have lockpicking, hardware and software hacking skills I know a bunch of places in my town that are abandoned and could be setup with computers without people noticing for months Sadly I am alone and have no one that has same interest or goals as me so a hacker HQ is not needed IRL

urbex looks really fun. do you get stopped by police a lot while doing it? i hate talking to the fuarrrking cops

>>29083 No one ever called the police on me, in a big city people usually mind their own business. If you're wearing a high-visibility vest and look legit you can go pretty much anywhere and no one even asks questions.

>>29084 >high-visibility vest This meme is like 40 years old already. It doesn't work. Actual workers (migrant day laborers hired for cheap at nearby hostel) don't wear visibility vests on "abandoned" sights in state of permanent demolition, it won't be visited by inspections as a construction site, so everyone who might spot you, will be extremely suspicious of outsider.

>>29085 i bet it works just not like intended, if you see someone autistic about safety you will keep distance cause you simply dont want to get into an argument

>>29086 The biggest problem is, once you're spotted by a security guard, and he checks back on the radio to confirm you entering through the gate, you're in trouble, especially if you're dressed as a smartass clown.

>>29085 >>29086 >>29087 It does work, stupidly well, in fact. I did building inspections for years and carried a pad and camera along with my high-vis vest. I would enter "authorized personal only" areas without second thought. Civilians bothered me maybe ~1% of the time, wherever i was, whether it be a pub, busy mall, a restaurant's kitchens, sports stadium, civilians do not care and will accept whatever you tell them. Security guards sometimes asked me what i was doing and always seemed satisfied with whatever answer i gave them. The few places that actually took security seriously had me escorted, but that was rare, security was usually surprisingly soykafty. We would enter buildings from backdoors or loading docks because it was the only(or most convenient) way to get access, the dude guarding the dock couldn't care less, just assumed we belonged there. People always just assumed we belonged there. I would sometimes go explain to security what i was doing without being asked and they were like "oh ok" didn't give a fuarrrk and went back to play some soykafty mobile game. Once i spent 5 minutes trying keys from a massive keychain, at every door, in the middle of the night, at a university, security guards saw me and went on their way, only found out they didn't know or care what i was doing when i went to give them the keys back, they were all like "btw why are you here?". I was only ever asked for ID like 3 or 4 times. And that's for indoor inspections, outside i would just do whatever whenever, undisturbed. Industrial, municipal, fancy condos, corporate offices, banks, peoples backyards, almost no one cared and when they did they cared very little. Rarely have people come ask me questions and if they did i would just yell "INSPECTION" at them and they would fuarrrk off. I only remember someone seriously interrogate me once, when i was taking pictures outside a psychiatric hospital. No one ever called the cops. Active construction sites are well monitored and you absolutely must wear a high-vis vest, steel-toe boots and a hardhat. Not even peons will tolerate you not wearing PPE(at least here, in a modern functioning country that's not a failed-state) but even then no one ever bothered me passed the first line of defense, once i was in i was free, and all i had to do to gain access was find the foremen and ask them. Thats it. They didn't check with anyone, didn't inform anyone, they just told me i could go wherever and fuarrrked off. It honestly blew my mind how easy it was to gain access, how trusting people were, how little it took to get suspicious people off my back.

one of my favorite things to do is urban exploration, and im hoping on doing some with my old friends this summer in the balkans but it's very difficult to do, especially if you live in somewhere like the netherlands which makes it basically impossible to do anything

Not trying to dox, but are there any Germans here? I wanna go urbexing in Germany, and I plan to trainsurf to get around. Is this viable, or is there too much risk to it in Germany? I heard they only use modern trains that are very smooth and have almost no spots to hang on to

>>29095 not German but studying in Germany. I would want more info on urbexing in Germany. How would one do it since I assume Germans are more likely to spot and report something suspicious.

there are open bunkers people still explore in germany. Its all semisecret to keep morons out but of course people still find and paint their graffiti / steal whatever is valuable. >>29095 Seems unnecessary dangerous, just pay attention and hide in WC if necessary like a normal poor person. No reason to risk your life.

>>29092 Last time I've seen a current year construction site in my turd world country, it had only one dedicated well-lit entrance with full-height turnstile gates, ID card scanners, video camera at face level and a guard booth observing it through the window. There was a separate gate for trucks, and another one permanently closed. Full perimeter observed by cameras. You can't "sneak" into such place unless as legit laborer or inside truck. Now to universities and offices. Of course they have ID card scanners on all entrances, some even facial recognition cams. First thing they ask from anyone caught accessing non-pedestrian areas is ID and permit, and then they check it back with their schedule lists. You are not an authority unless it's documented. You can not small-talk yourself only wearing a helmet and a vest, this is burger nonsense from almost 2 decade old book describing events from 1990's (Access All Areas). Semi-abandoned malls are a more relaxed place, but you have to understand that you're recorded all the time and wherever you go on their premises. It's like poking around an Internet server, but with admin looking at access logs as his daytime job.

yeah. i would go to some if there were any near me does anyone here watch shiey? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGPjj4B_jEk

>>29117 >Now to universities and offices. Of course they have ID card scanners on all entrances, some even facial recognition cams. In Germany, most areas in universities are freely accessible without anything like that.

have some pics from this week's exploring including : -a super creepy corridor -me censored into amogus -message for the next visitor

It is not necessarily abandoned but we have completed one or two excourses. I suggest you to make cereful observations on the active building and then do it. I left a lambda there.

>>29131 Wow great work, keep it up brother and stay and most importantly have fun out there. >>29133 That last one is really a gem.

I don't know why I wrote this wall of text... In Russia, almost all children born before 2005 (I take this date from the date of birth of the youngest guy I met stalking) were interested in abandoned buildings. As for me, I was doing this until I was 15. At that time, the most popular abandon in my district was completely blocked, and today no one wants to make new entrances to it, because really hardcore guys and amateurs like me who have learned every step are now not interested in it. All hope is for a new generation, but they are not as crazy as we are, and they are just afraid to go to such places. What about this "most popular abandon in the district" - it was planned as a swimming pool for a kindergarten, on the territory of which, by the way, it was placed. But a classic story happened: there was not enough money for construction, and in our hands we take a building, where, like in the pool, stupid children like me could spend their time, but not swimming... Well, one spring there was so much snow in the pit where the pool was planned that after the warming there really was a "pool", and you could hear stories about "geniuses" who swam in it. But regular, teens go here to smoke, younger guys to have some CREEPY. But the most interesting part of the "Rubella", as it was popularly called ("Rubella" ="Krasnuha" ="reddish" - it is made entirely of brick.) is its underground room. It was conceived as a transition between a building with a swimming pool and a kindergarten, in particularly frosty weather. We went down there in groups of 5-15 people, so everyone was afraid of this place consisting of pipes, strange spots on the walls, and all sorts of toys and furniture from kindergarten, the passage to which really exists... Judging by the numerous tales of stalkers and my personal memories from this kindergarten, where there really were a couple of strange doors that never opened...

>>29083 I used to urbex when I was in college. I was shooed away by a security guard once and got stopped by the cops a few times. The security guard literally just yelled "no, nuh-uh, shoo!" and then followed my friends and I until we were off the property. He stayed maybe 30 feet away from us the whole time as well. We found out later that what we thought was an abandoned building had actually recently been purchased. The cops were usually easy to deal with. They would just make sure that we're not squatters, drug users shooting up or smoking, scavengers looking for copper wire, or graffiti artists and then let us go. Having work gloves, hard hats, and flashlights helped because addicts and homeless people usually don't carry that stuff. The one time a police interaction went south was when we had convinced a black guy to join us. We invited him a lot but he always said no and told us we were blissfully unaware of how different getting stopped by the police would be if we had a black guy with us. Eventually me and one other friend got him to join us and sure enough, cops show up, handcuff all of us, manhandle the black guy, and take all the money he had on him claiming they believed it was drug money. Told us to be more careful who we hang out with and then let us go. So tldr be white and don't carry drugs or spray paint and you'll be fine.

>>29133 I've returned from another exploration, same complex, different strut. I need more places to explore. Anyone in the EU has tips for encounters with Police? This time no lambda was left. Next time, I will deploy another.

>>30990 I've always been told police in most of Europe are a joke compared to US/Canada. Just act really stupid, like you didn't know you were doing anything wrong and were just bored and curious.

Personaly I went to old limestone and sand quarries, abandoned factories, cops training site, subway stations not used anymore, and old WW2 bunkers. >>31029 Be careful with mines, find a way to assure yourself that there is enough oxygen / and no toxic gas (less likely to happen). Go there equipped with a frontal flashlight, water and something to eat. If you are afraid that you could lost your way do yourself a map and try again another time. Please avoid to damage the mine with spraypainted arrows (pretty common) to have indications. Most of these mines are a part of history and do not deserve to be trashed.

>>31029 Mines and quarries are some of my favourite places to visit. Loads of old chalk quarries around me.

>>29092 This sounds like Europe or something. Nobody in America randomly wears high-vis vests except workers on roads and some big-league commercial construction sites. On industrial sites it would be specific types of fire resistant clothing, not just a random high-vis vest.

>>31233 >Randomly It's mandated by insurance, and insurance is mandatory. Construction etc. Don't randomly wear it. Wear it because you begrudgingly have to, but not inside active facilities. Still wear or carry a hard hat, and bring one of those thick compartment metal clipboards. You can do whatever you want anywhere if you have a hardhat and a clipboard. You're either inspecting the elevators, or preparing a quote for renovations. There's a game called get to the roof. Can you get to the roof?

>>31238 Also tuck your shirt in. You'll resonate with the plebs. If someone asks you for ID pull your wallet out of your fuarrrking metal clipboard and make up a business name. Bonus points of you already had fake business cards made and hand him one.

There's an unfinished school in the far north of Sacramento that I want to explore during the winter. An acquaintance of mine told me the story behind it; back in the early 2010s the Twin Rivers school district was planing to expand and build a new school and begun to do so on that plot of land. However they failed to get some kind of permit so construction had to stop. There's only a one way road to it and the only nearby buildings are houses that are about 500ft away. If I do go to it I'll show pictures.

does anyone know other shows or movies like serial experiments lain or perfect blue

>>32137 gotta love that this relatively obscure thing has a fair few amount of lainons doing it. We really are alike in more than just our favorite TV show? I spent one summer climbing on top of every school in my towns District. 16 of them or so. Including one 40 ft climb up a radio tower onto a roof. I watched 4th of july fireworks on top of a school several times, once I even got several people with lawn chairs to chill up on a middle school. Those were truly great times, I really lived up on them roofs.

>>32137 Picrel is disturbing in a good way Texhnolyze is apparently that way

>>31229 Mine anon here. Don't went down yet because life's busy. As I said I did lot of excursions and I'm not the kind of guy who trash places. I don't even take photos, I just enjoy wandering lonely in those places that were once full of life. I just enjoy the atmosphere and the little fear inducing sentiment. >spraypainting the walls I managed to get some information about the place and some people already did it so I think I will just follow indications of previous wanderers and cartography my path. Also I'm always careful and plan my trip with precautions. I never did underground urbex so I will not improvise this one. >>29131 Tu es en Normandie mon anon ? Je vois que tu as mentionné les blockhaus.

>>32147 nan, haute-bretagne, désolé)

>>32148 T'excuses pas mon pote je ne suis pas en Normandie. Je demandais juste comme ça. Ca fait toujours plaisir de croiser des français sur les boards. J'aime beaucoup la côte Bretonne. Il faudrait que j'y retourne un de ces quatre. Toujours en Auvergne moi sinon

I grew up on totse and followed the urbex and night ops threads and spinoff forum originally at no.surgen.org with great enthusiasm. Some little ventures of my own were inspired. Is this where the spirit continues?

>>22289 I'm thinking of moving to the Soviet Union for exactly this reason. Hoping I find some abandoned nuclear material or old computers, I could make a secret research lab or something, would be funny.

Aren't there abandoned ICBM silos in the American plains somewhere too? >>32632 To move to the Soviet Union you will need a time machine.

A while ago I saw a discussion of cheeky / mischievous activities in public; to make life easier, or just have a laugh (fuarrrk w people / orgs). Do you guys have any? - I use random office buildings (or hotels) ground floor to go to the toilet, use their restaurant / cafe, and as a flexible workspace. Sometimes I have a text message saved that has something vague like ' meet me downstairs at address xx'. I'll ask the guard if the address is correct and if i can 'wait' / soykaf / ... there.

>>32633 I believe there are plenty, some are for sale quite cheap, i heard of people buying them and living there.

Here's a question: how do you find decent places AT ALL. Literally never done it, only ever found the typical collapsing house. How do I find secret underground tunnels? Am in a fairly large city.

>>32750 >how do you find decent places AT ALL some easy-to-find places are basically anywhere with lots of tags on the walls. It's the best indication that something is abandonned, but it can also mean the place has been visited a lot and probably already vandalized. For secret underground tunnels, if you leave in a city older than a few hundred years, I guess the place to start is the sewers. They're not hard to access, and I guess most soykaf there is opened. Never really been to personally though, the one time I found a sewer door opened it stank a lot and I wasn't equipped so I kinda pussied out. If you want "better" places, having friends who do urbex and some very specific forums might give you some intel.

I am posting in this thread, as I find incredibly interesting. I do not have much to add other than I plan o traveling to EE in order to mess around with urbex at some point. Bump because there are no LC archives yet.

>>22290 >>22291 Going underground with a hidden entry/exit would be absolutely crucial I imagine. But the real question is how to discover subterran space? In cities? Maybe there are such survey maps, how to get them? And wouldn't that imply that your spot would be exposed since it is basically known? The real play would be to start in an easy to access cellar, find some tunnels or a complex of some sort and dig into unknown space to then hide an access point there, camouflaging it. But you'd need a starting point and I don't know where to look. Maybe just go into one of these car parks and just take a look around? Then dirt extraction, and damn, all the rocks will make it nearly impossible. There's gotta be a forgotten chamber somewhere below the city where no one ever goes. Then it's a matter of hiding the entrance behind panels and stuff like a hidden door. Then one would dig to lay cables upwards and hide a router topside or something for internet access, which may be tricky. Ventilation, life support, storage, electrical, comfort etc -- all sort of needs only requires a bit of creative thinking to be solved. I can start by measuring my daily electrical consumption.

>>32969 Draining is a special niche of urbex that, as cave diving is to regular diving, comes with its own set of hazards that surface exploration doesn't prepare you for. Sewers as distinct from storm drains come with further hazards and fewer reasons to enter them. Do not go draining: - Alone - Without knowledge of confined-space safety - Without the equipment needed to detect and protect against deadly concentrations of gases - If there is any chance it might rain that day - Without multiple backup sources of light and power - Without a way to mark your route (tip: fluorescent marking paint) - Without telling anyone where you're going 1. Sewer gas can contain carbon monoxide and dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, esters, phosphine, methane, and ammonia, among others; it can be irritating, asphyxiating, or explosive, and can be odorless and invisible. Of particular interest is hydrogen sulfide. This gas is the second most common cause of gas inhalation fatalities in the workplace after carbon monoxide. This is the gas responsible for the "rotten eggs" odor in natural gas. It also occurs in sewage as a byproduct of the breakdown of organic materials therein. Hydrogen sulfide has a very steep exposure-response curve: at 50 parts per million, it is a nuisance; at 300 ppm, it's deadly in hours; at 1000 ppm, it's deadly in seconds. At concentrations as low as 250 ppm, it can cause loss of consciousness in one or two breaths, with no chance of self-rescue. It can initially cause coughing, trouble breathing, irritation in the eyes or throat, runny nose, confusion, nausea, or disorientation; while these symptoms may seem to subside if ignored, this is because hydrogen sulfide anaesthetizes the olfactory nerve when the concentration is high enough. It also fatigues the sense of smell and depresses the central nervous system, all of which can make it seem like the danger has passed when it has done no such thing. Brief exposures of significant concentrations that you appear to recover from at the time can lead to long-term issues including memory, motor, and neurological conditions; hallucinations; loss of sense of smell; and personality changes. If you have had significant exposure to any concentrations of it in the past, you may be unable to smell it at all anymore. Know what to do when you see someone enter a confined space and collapse. Hint: The answer is not "go in after them so you can pass out and die too". There's a broad range of explosive concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, with concentrations ranging from 4.5% to 45.5% in air, and the autoignition temperature is only 250 degrees C (482 F), so don't go flicking your Bic down there. Hydrogen sulfide is heavier than air and accumulates in low-lying areas. It forms pockets in stagnant wastewater that can suddenly emerge in lethal amounts when disturbed. It is 10 times more water-soluble than carbon dioxide -- so picture how much gas can be released from an agitated soda can when you open it; ten times the amount of H2S can be emitted from disturbed water. This can happen no matter how cautious you are if a pump is suddenly activated, for example. Because the characteristic odor of hydrogen sulfide vanishes from our perception just as the concentration of the gas reaches dangerous levels, it is imperative that you immediately turn back and exit the confined space the moment you smell it. Without a supplied-air respirator or self-contained breathing apparatus, remaining in an area that may contain this gas is flirting with death. Without a gas detector, you're leaving it up to chance that you will manage to realize when you're in danger. People who are getting paid to go down there don't do it without the proper PPE. Don't risk your life for free. This paper "Classroom Simulation for Working Safely in Storm Drain Systems" contains some useful info on assessing these dangers, including graphics: https://peer.asee.org/classroom-simulation-for-working-safely-in-storm-drain-systems.pdf 2. A user from uer.ca elaborates on this in the thread "Big city storm drain risks?": >The biggest risk hand down is getting caught in a flash flood. Check your area, check the surrounding areas that are even 50-100 miles away from you. Did they get any big storms? Has it warmed up and snow may be melting and the runoff is coming your way? Is there any probability of even the slightest shower or increase in temperature, either in your area or in surrounding area while your gonna be exploring it? If the answer is yes or maybe to any, don't go. Winter is a bad time to do drains in states that have snow (assuming yours does). >Also, it's good to invest in a quality pair of non-slip boots. Links: "Everything you ever wanted to know about exploring drains and then some." https://www.uega.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4360

I'm huge sucker for bunkers. I have abandoned house a d train tracks near me but too many pepeole go there to set something up.

>>22289 used to do it a lot in my teenage years. fun stuff but can be dangerous depending on location.