Welcome back everybody to the Bros Of Decay. I am Lesley and today I am
joined by William, we are on our way to an abandoned location in Belgium. A house that should be filled from top to bottom
with antiques of a couple when they got on their pension, they had an antique shop and they
moved all their items back into their house. It's probably gonna be an amazing
house with lots of history left behind but I don't know anything about it yet but
I'm gonna find it out when I get there. We're almost there like five more minutes on the
GPS, I am really eager to see what it looks like. Okay, we have arrived at the house, you
can already see spiderwebs over here. Okay, I gotta watch out over here with the glass. Okay, give it to me. So we're inside right now. This is the living room. Let's check out this place first
and then we'll start the video. Life is a strange correlation of events, the
one time you are born and before you know it you grow old and it has all
passed right before your eyes. During this period we create a lot
of memories that we share with our loved ones most of these memories
are made in a place we call home. This was no different for the
Belgian family Steenacker, a family of four who loved lived, and
laughed in their wonderful historical home. But life is not endless and in the year 2004, Mr. Jan Steenacker passed away as
the last inhabitant of the household. This turned the once-loved family
home into a desolate time capsule. The children that once lived here seem to
have no interest in collecting the memories that were made here, they left everything
behind from the moment Jan passed away. Today we will relive their story
and give you an exclusive look into their former place of happiness. We are inside, I'm excited to finally be exploring
again in Belgium, it's been a long time since I explored a house in Belgium, they have these
unique features about them that I really like. Standing here now, on the patio,
in the terrace as you could say, and yeah as I told you in the
story, Mr. Jan lived here. He was a Belgian teacher and he had a
wife and children but we did not find any relics of them anymore in this place only from
Jan, so that's what we're gonna look at today. Look at this wonderful room there's
a tinted glass window up there, the ceiling as well, I really like it. And here he would pot some plants and would sit
outside in the summer, also the winter of course because this is attached to his living room,
you have a german beer pot *Speaks German*. Little bench for him to sit on and if we turn
around we immediately come into his living room. William, of course, is behind the camera right
now, but i'm gonna ask him a question what's the first thing you see when you walk into
this room, what's the most obvious thing? -Wallpaper. Yes, that is right, the wallpaper is very fascinating,
It even has this relief worked into it. I really like this wallpaper, the design
underneath represents wood but it isn't wood. There are lots and lots of
antiques left in this house. These look like little Chinese soup
cups, and they are made in china. This place is abandoned since the year 2000,
when Mr. Jan, unfortunately, passed away. Oh, look at this something in a drawer here. Oh! One-off pictures of Paris. A national museum. Look at those, is this the Louvre? I am not quite sure. Lots and lots of pictures, oh you can see
here the Eiffel tower in the distance. It's maybe from their vacation when they
went to France, still left in this place. Gonna put this back nicely, into the drawer. And we were also discussing
that maybe the children who inherited this place
started to move things down. Because you can see this is a nightstand from a bedroom and behind here on this
side as well we saw some nightstands. But that has been a long time ago, as you
can the whole ceiling has begun to collapse and rubble has fallen on these nightstands. This is a typical heater, I believe they are
from the 1970s and you would normally put these in the bedrooms because in the bedrooms
they didn't have heating back in the day. As you can see old school plug, I shouldn't say old school anymore so
it's a vintage plug, wow wonderful piece. We have more antiques over here. I think it is a thermometer.
What is this for? No it says *Speaks French* over here. -Yes exactly. Yes, I think this is a rain meter, it is a
combination of things, yes a humidity meter. So it's a combination of things and now we
have more antiques displayed in this cabinet. Jan, left behind a lot this one
seems to be closed I'm not gonna try to open it but we can see through the glass
that there are lots of cups left in there. And also the glasswork itself,
it's wonderfully designed. Look at this face here to the side. More of those Chinese soup terrines. Oh wow, this has a name right this looks like
the Efteling, for people that ever come to the Netherlands visit the Efteling, and then you
will immediately know what we are talking about. They put some liquor in here back in the day. It's Christmas right now but
when we are filming this video, so they fit right in, Christmas candles. Wow, these are also from the bedroom,
I think these are nightstand lamps. So unfortunately the place is not entirely
untouched, but there is a lot left behind. Wonderful clock and I was
looking is this the clock face that should fit in there I think
so right that fitted up there, wow. Big vase for flowers, okay let's move on. Still looking at this wallpaper, I really like it. This was Jan his entrance area, the little window
for the door lots of spider webs up there wow. Nobody has been in this
place for a very long time. Oh, this is the bed frame as you can
see, when did they move this downstairs? That has been a long time ago you can see
the spider webs are hanging beside it. And when I first came into this hallway, I
immediately noticed this mirror over here. You can maybe show us both in there. It's like a bend mirror that
you see at the carnival. There is gold plating around it, and then we have the stairway that's gonna
lead us up later through the top floors. And then we enter into some sort
of a living area, I suppose... Lots of things all around here, wow! And you could see that Mr. Jan
was very religious as well. There are lots of religious artifacts left behind
like crosses and bibles all throughout the house. Oh, these look like postcards. Blankenberge it says over here, and
Blankenberge is a Belgian coast town. We carefully turn these around because
there are probably addresses on them as you can see this is directed to Mr.
Jan, of course, I am going to blur it out. But there's also a postage stamp
there that says 20 francs, that's the old Belgian currency that would be
like 50 euro cents in today's money. And these are all pictures from
the Belgian coast town Blankenberg, maybe he had family who lived
on that side of Belgium. This one's from Luxembourg, wonderful to see. What do we have over here? Oh, like I told you lots of religious artifacts. This is a picture of Jesus Christ. And another little booklet with probably some
important documents that I shouldn't open up. Oh yes, this whole box is filled with
bibles, I took a few out, and as you can see these are all bibles that are in here. Maybe that has something to do with his teachings maybe, Mr. Jan wasn't just an ordinary
teacher, maybe he was a religious teacher. Lots of clocks left here. A marble fireplace in the back. And then some champagne up there, let's have
a look at the champagne *Speaks French*. Oh, this is interesting! Okay, 1967 it says on the back,
this might be a picture of Mr. Jan, I'm not 100 percent sure, but if it is
then he might be a religious teacher. A picture probably of his daughters. The chair where you used to rest
after a long day of teaching. A wonderful cabinet still filled with the nicest
glasses that you could find around the house. Lots of silverware as well. And we also have a microscope over here. Can I look in there with the camera
probably not, oh you actually can! It still functions. Wow, so many antiques left behind in this house. *Lesley gets excited* Oh my god, look at this, this is like
a cross from the owner of this place. He was born in 1923 Jan it says on there and
he died he passed away excuse me in 2004. Also, have a look at these coffee tables. They're also Chinese-influenced. I really adore these coffee tables that
fit into each other, it's like origami. And as you can see over here as well,
they were moving things downstairs and they were collecting things
in the general rooms of the house. A clock face and lots of
different artifacts left here. The walking cane of Mister Jan. Then we go through these doors, into another room of the house, first,
let me show you the design on these doors glass tinted windows, I love the blue in there. And they lead us into this room
that has been emptied out a lot but they can already see
wonderful artifacts left in here. Okay, first off an homage to my country
Belgium this is the flag of my country black, yellow, red, and like in America. In America you see lots of people
hanging out flags of the states but in Belgium, we don't do this a lot, so
it's really nice to see a flag of the country. And again another religious artifact,
there are lots of religious artifacts for just an ordinary person, you normally
don't see that many artifacts in the house. And another clock face. And here on the floor for the first time ever,
I find a violin inside of an abandoned place. This one is in pretty bad shape as you
can see but it's a really nice find. Wow-what a beautiful piece! A lamp to the side of the stove here,
there are two identical lamps in this room. A vintage television. I think my grandad had the same one as this one. A trumpet as well, so Mr.
Jan was also very musical. There's like a stamp on here. What a wonderful piece! Fireplace clock, and to this side of
the room, we have another cabinet. Over here there are all the
watches that Mr. Jan used to own. I don't understand why the children that cleaned
out or that were trying to clean out this place left all these things like the
violin, the trumpets, and the watches why they left it all behind,
it's just understandable. There is a little wall clock over where. Let's open this one first. Is this an answering machine, oh no
this is a digital clock, a radio clock. All the keys of the house and
stuff he owned are still here. *Lesley is struggling* I will close it later. What's in here? Oh, records I love to see those, peter alexander. Oh, this is cool! This is like a cd of Sinterklaas, and to the side
of him you can see blackface and there has been a lot of rage over it the last few years, people
are saying that it is discriminating, but it's a children's holiday as you can see. You can see the children with blackface
and Sinterklaas *speaks Dutch*, the nicest Sinterklaas songs are on that cd. I'm not gonna say anything about blackface,
I'm going to leave it in the middle but everybody has their
opinion on it and me as well. And then we have more records in there. Over here we also have the greatest hits of
Elvis Presley one of my dad's favorite actors and singers, excuse me not actors he's probably
gonna be mad if I say that he is an actor. But i like his music as well still in
its package never touched like new, wow! It says here on the package that is from 1978 and
it costs 495 francs, I'm not sure about the price. Wow, let's close that up let's
go further in this house. I think this last part of the
house has been built on later because the doorways over there
are pretty high and this one pretty low, there's like a big difference
between the doorways in this place. In this one, I can barely stand, and then
the other one I can just walk normally. And that brings us into the kitchen of the place. The ceiling is cracking down. I'm gonna go into the backyard, later on, there's
a lot of junk again in the backyard as well. All the spider webs on here. Look at this stove this is like a combination
between a modern and a vintage stove, when I open this up, you can see
there's also gas cooking available. Oh my finger is stuck and
then you can also probably put wood in here it's like an oven as well You cannot put wood in this stove,
I'm not entirely sure, maybe coals. A wonderful piece, here to the side we have
another stove it's a nice design on there and a gas stove next to it. Lots of things lots of
construction material on the table. And that might be from the children that came
in here to clean up the house, but that's years ago because even the stuff that's
on the table looks and feels pretty old. They just leave these things inside of this place. I'm really fascinated by the
kitchen over here, by the sink. They still have a pump, so this is
the vintage pump that they used. And it was before this faucet was
installed and the water still runs like usual, yep that's
Belgium, welcome to Belgium. This is the hot water that
still runs that's crazy. Cabinet with electrical appliances
again, and another religious statue. And then we have the fridge completely
rusting away, but nothing in there anymore. And here to the back of the house, I think before maybe even before Jan his
time or maybe in Jan his time. They would house some animals
in here to my knowledge. Or this was maybe for storage, oh yeah
you can see there is still coal in here. And that they might use for the fireplaces
inside of the house, buckets to store coal. It's like a little storage
area for the house, wonderful! Here are a few pumps. The wine bottles look like
they were from Jan himself. There's even still a chainsaw up there. Let's now take a look at the
bedrooms, oh before we go up there. There's a puzzle maybe from the
grandchildren it's like a building, you can build a castle with this puzzle. There is also a basement in this place, but as you
can see the staircase has completely collapsed, there is lots and lots of food still left in
the basement but we can't go in there anymore. We can go a little bit lower. Wow, this is completely flooded,
completely all that food left behind there. Oh, don't want to fall into that basement. Let's close that up is that possible? Okay back through the hallway
gotta go upstairs I'm excited there's that mirror again that's gonna lead us up. Over here we can see the same
wallpaper but then with silver coating. Yeah, like I thought most of these bedrooms have been emptied out by the son
or the daughter that came in here. You can see some copper plates here on the floor. But again another bedroom
that's completely emptied out. Unfortunately! Lots of rooms as well, so he had a few children
and they left with him here in this house. This room that we're standing in right now looks
like the master bedroom where Jan himself slept. Because the bathroom is to this side and
this is the biggest room of the upstairs and it even has a balcony. Which is pretty nice I like how this is designed with the tree curtains
and then like the tinted mirrors above. I'm gonna try to get a peek outside for a moment. I have to be a bit careful with the
neighbors but it's probably possible. Ah, this is pretty stuck, maybe give you a
glance like this, you can take a little peek on the balcony, pretty blurry
but you can get a sense of it. This was in the day a fireplace,
but it has been bricked up by now. And then they had this huge
cabinet in here store the clothes see if there are any clothes left,
oh this one is completely empty. Then behind here, we have the bathroom. Wow, the bidet, toilet, and
then this bathtub with paws is one of my favorite and a huge wine jar, wow. And then as sherry on the cake, there is also
still an attic that we haven't explored yet. The stairs lead us up there. Oh wow, attics always hold the
most treasures from a house. Fantastic how it's designed. I really like the design of this house, I'm
gonna show you later on from the outside how it's designed so you can see it. They have like this baby chair up
here, with a chamber pot in there so the child could do his business while
he was eating or something like that. Huge chest! And more car parts around the
house downstairs in the kitchen we saw a steering wheel and
up here we see a car seat. Oh, and the smell in these places, whenever
I'm in an abandoned place, I always smell, and then I can smell the vintage and
old sent coming from the place itself. I'm pretty comfortable walking in
here without a mouth mask as well. You can see there are even holes in
the roof that's not good for the place. More religious artifacts up
here, the cross of Jesus Christ. Yeah, he has definitely been
like a religious teacher maybe even a priest in the church who knows. There are not a lot of artifacts left behind from
his life so that's a bummer Remington typewriter. Over here we've got even a sewing
machine which brand is this? I can't distinguish the brand this is
not a singer and not a path I don't know. Oh, Titania it says on here, Titania
sewing machine, it's the cover for it. He probably made this chair himself look
at it, they put wheels underneath here. This is like a living room or dining
room chair a very beautiful one as you can see, but they
made wheels underneath here. And i made it into some sort of a
wheelchair, I really like how they did it. *speaks Dutch* Be a king in your house it says over here. You're always king in your own house. And then we got this chair here to the
side, wonderful design in the woodwork. I would rather expect this kind of
share and like a castle or a manor, not in a typical Belgian house like this
one so it's really nice to see it over here. Wonderful design on there. I'm really surprised by the number of
antiques that are left in this place. And up here they had even two more rooms they also look like bedrooms and then a cabinet
look at this, it was maybe the dry clothes. Lots of clothing hangers in here. Storage cabinet for more clothes maybe winter
clothes or summer clothes would be put up here. Let's look in this room, we've got another one
of those chairs so there are a set of chairs. Now we have one last room up here. Even more religious artifacts were left behind. Okay, that was the house and I'm now
going to make my way downstairs again and I'm going to meet William again. So then we're going to go outside
and I'm going to look if there's something nice to see outside, whoa I
have to do a lingo to get underneath. Okay, let's go there! Look at William with all the
gear standing here outside. Let's grab my backpack and
let's check out this backyard. I'm gonna give you an overview of the
house from the backside over here. With the little terrace, look how many
lawnmowers he has like four or five lawnmowers. Yeah, they definitely need it here oh,
this backyard is totally overgrown. Maybe there's something in the shed as well. Let's have a look in there. You're not going to leave your eyes William! This is cool right, oh my god! That's why you always check all parts of
the house, there are two beetles in here. Wow, they are cool, right? -Yeah! Look at his face! William gets always excited when we find
abandoned cars, I really love those! See they don't have the engine in the
front but they have it in the back. Oh let me take a peek in one of those cars these were these cars of Mr. Jan, you could
see that it was a pretty wealthy guy actually. And they also have this distinct
smell on them 1400 kilometers, 1400 kilometers they have driven, that's
nothing right they are like brand new cars. I would love to own one of those and we also have
this white silver one this is silver this color I'm a little bit colorblind, so I don't know. This one is orange and that
one is blue, or a light gray. What a find, maybe these were
collector's items for him. Let's look at this speedometer
95 000, so this was maybe the one that he used regularly and this
one was just as a collector's item. That's why we may be also found
like car stuff inside of the house, we found like a steering wheel on the top
floor we found like the driver's seat. Here are even more parts here to the side. Wow, okay we're gonna take
some quick pictures I suppose. Look even the motor is still on the
back, I think it needs to be cleaned up, maybe a small revision, maybe some new
oil and then probably starts up again. We were just discussing as well we think that
Jan probably fixed up these cars because there's like a motor behind here and what did you say
underneath how you can work under the car yeah. It's like a pit where you can walk
in and you can work on the cars, so the man was probably his hobby
his passion project besides teaching. And this one from the other car the motor from
the other car looks even better than the other one this one has fewer kilometers but oh yeah the
roof has collapsed on it, you're right William and this roof over this car is still pretty good. Oh, it is so unfortunate this
motor still looks amazing. Did you take all your pictures, William? -Yes I took a nice picture of you in
the car, it will be on Instagram soon. Bye-bye beetles, let's look at the front of
the house, and then it's time to say goodbye. Okay let's go through here, oh we're now
with the side of the house as you can see. This is not the way to the front,
we have to go the other way. Okay and over here we can see the
front of the house how it looks. Wonderful, oh I love this front side. This is the balcony from up there and the window
in the attic, this is the downstairs floors, wow! What a place! Okay and here in front of the building,
I'm going to end off this video. I want to thank Jan for his wonderful
life and the house that you left behind. I hope you're happy up there and uh yeah guys
there's a link in the description for Patreon there you can support the channel
and help us out with going on these adventures because it's pretty expensive
for us students to go on these adventures. Please like the channel subscribe down there and I will see you all next week
with another epic adventure. Bye-bye, I love you very much you.
