Photo Essay: 25 Foreclosed Homes in Ontario

Alarmingly many homes are being left in the dust as a result of our progress. Most will be demolished, however, some will be preserved and awarded heritage status. But more than just the actual house will be gone; these homes also contain memories, pictures, and furniture. This photo essay contains many pictures of scenes that were once houses but are now gone and will never be seen again.

Along the rural roads and farmlands of Ontario, we are discovering more and more abandoned homes every year. Our cities and towns are encroaching on what was once vast farmland as populations expand and the need for better infrastructure grows. Ample land is purchased by home builders, real estate firms, and developers who then sit on it as they wait for the need to build on it, for residents to move in, and for the economy to expand.

However, it’s not just developers and home builders who are snatching up this land; the windmills that dot Ontario’s backroads and cornfields have also taken hundreds of homes. As if that weren’t enough, the province’s eastward-extending 407 extensions have also taken their fair number of victims in the form of houses.

Road widening, wind farms, schools, hospitals, condominiums, and mass-produced residences are constructed quickly. We are eating land, homes, and history at an alarming rate as we try to keep up with a population increase, new Canadians who have left their home countries for a new life in Canada, as well as the urge to travel and consume power.

I’m not a city designer, so I can’t speak to the causes for the sudden spike in demand for new, enormous towns or the urgency with which we must build them. However, I am not an expert on population growth. As a hobbyist photographer, I have a strong desire to capture decay, abandoned locations, and vacant areas.

I, along with many others, explore the urban and rural peripheries of your cities and towns to take photographs of the current status of the past. We are not alone in this hobby; hundreds of weekend warriors with DSLR cameras, iPhones, and Android phones hit the backroads every weekend to photograph these lovely homes before they are torn down and replaced with new life, new families, and a new future.

A startling number of properties are literally being left in the dust as we witness a tremendous increase. Most will be demolished, however, some will be preserved and awarded heritage status. But more than just the actual house will be gone; these homes also contain memories, pictures, and furniture. Several of these houses feature ornate staircases, hand-carved newel posts, crown molding, and ornamental ceiling medallions.

This photo essay contains many pictures of scenes that were once houses but are now gone and will never be seen again. There are many more out there waiting to be found. Some are still standing, getting worse with each passing season.

Here are 25 instances of vacant, abandoned buildings in Ontario, along with some of the things that have been left behind.

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The abandoned homes in Ontario are the subject of this photo essay, but the number of hospitals, factories, and other institutions that have been shut down and left vacant across the province is just as frightening.