H(a)unting Houses Series

A decade has passed. I stumbled upon an article on the world wide web showing premises in Switzerland which have been abandoned for years. I also read a whole bunch of spooky stories in the comment section. So, out of curiosity, I started talking to people about all these stories about abandoned places that always get told slightly differently. I believe that's kind of where the magic happens. That's why many people so passionately pursue this subject. It's unlimited in its capacity to tell a story.

It did not take me a second to throw myself back into my ten-year-old self and be as curious and dedicated to research for abandoned or even "haunted" houses in the holy country of clean, structured, and well-looked-after Switzerland. I quickly found out that I have many fellow friends all around the globe interested in researching empty buildings. It's called "urban exploring”, not that much of a magical term to be used, in my opinion. After a few days and some phone calls, I decided to be up for adventure and start this series called "h(a)unting houses," where I hunt for houses that are said to be haunted themselves.

In 1971 in a small village called "Lostdorf" in the canton of Solothurn, a hotel and thermal bath were built on a hill next to a big forest. As soon as they had finished building the construction, it had to be restored in the same year as the building had suffered from a fire. The man who opened the place in 1988 wasn't very successful in keeping it up, and after a few years in 2001, he ended up in bankruptcy. Shortly after, the mineral factory Eptingen AG invested in the bath for only one reason: a substantial mineral source is located underneath the bath. So what they did was create a hole in the ceiling to get to the source of the mineral. When it rains, the whole building fills up with water. In the meantime, the former hotel rooms have turned into one colossal grey block building for the villagers to live in. The main building where the baths are in is sadly left to decay. If you try to read articles from the archived newspaper, it will tell you the same story: They brought the building to the market for 2,7 Mio. Swiss francs, but as soon as anybody tried to plan a project something weird happened.

The mystery had to be revealed, I thought. I gathered all the information in my h(a)unting houses diary and took the train from Zurich central station to Olten. From Olten, I had to take the bus and drive into nowhere. From nowhere, I needed to walk up to this little hill where the thermal bath was located. Upon arriving, I was very disappointed. It looked creepy and ran down, but people covered all the windows with brick walls. My dear friend who accompanied me on this journey finally helped me find a way to enter the building. A sliding door only opened from the inside out, not from the outside in. We took a skateboard to drag it open. The subsequent disappointment was waiting for us behind the door. Every other door was closed, or they had put walls in front of them. I could only see some rooms by looking through the windows. There were empty hallways, office rooms with opened drawers, and rooms with lockers only left to imagine how the place once hosted families and friends enjoying and relaxing from Lostorf. I looked from a window through another window and filled them with all the stories I could come up with. The last room I was looking into was covered by clothes, alcohol bottles, and tissues.

I had hoped to learn more about the history of the place, and just as I decided to leave, two older women came down the hallway. One lady began screaming at us, "Trespassers, I have to call the police." That's when the adrenalin finally rushed through my blood. She kept on screaming and tried to get us out, but my pseudo psychologist mindset appeared at the right moment. I asked her all the questions I couldn't answer myself, and suddenly she was willing to cooperate. With her squeaky voice, she said: " Mr. Seiler and his wife, they, well, they got their throats slit open. Yeah, what a tragedy, but I mean. I mean, they didn't deserve any better."

"Which Mr. Seiler," I asked.

"The owner of the thermal bath. But now he's gone for good. I wish you, fellas, a nice day but don't continue creeping around such old places. Nobody else cares about us and this place anyways", the old lady with the tattooed eyebrows answered.

My research about haunted houses just turned into a murder case. I researched the case on my way to Zurich, but they never found the responsible ones. When I arrived home, it took me a while to process the experiences from Lostorf. Whether it was the coincidence or negative energy of Lostdorf, I cannot say. However, I can say that the village, the thermal bath, and the people there seem to be lost. Lost in their memories, they appear obsessive. There is something one cannot put into words...