Free haunted house demolished after no-one moves in - but creepy image appears
A haunted house in Louisiana, US, that once drew comparisons to the infamous Amityville Horror House is no more - but its legacy has left a lasting shadow, with a chilling Google Maps image serving as a reminder.
For years, the four-bedroom home sparked fear in the hearts of residents, many of whom had heard eerie tales of the old woman said to walk its corridors.
Keen to preserve the history of the home, estate agent Sylvia McLain took to Facebook back in 2020 to try and give away the 1930s-era property for FREE.
But the mission failed - with terrified residents afraid to step inside the spooky residency, even in these turbulent times.
Sylvia asked on Facebook if anyone would be interested in moving it to another location for restoration, but unfortunately, no one wanted to spend a single night under its 'demonic' roof, let alone live there.
Walking tracker one of 12 apps banned by Google as users urged to delete themOne person commenting on the post shuddered: "I was the last tenant that lived there before it was abandoned. The property was heaven but that house is quite unsettling if you don't enjoy communing with the spirit world because they speak loudly."
Another fearful individual warned that the charming period property needed "to be washed in the blood of Christ and the demons rebuked."
Despite her best efforts to preserve the home, Sylvia has confirmed that it's been flattened.
Sylvia told the Mirror: "There were no interested parties that could afford to move the house from the property so it was demolished about one year ago."
It would have cost as much as £63,000 ($80,000) to shift the eerily beautiful property elsewhere - a sum that appears to have frightened potential buyers away just as much as any spook.
A 'planned, private, gated 48-acre development' is currently being built on the former grounds, which is now in its final stages. As per a the listing, new residents can expect a serene, beautiful neighbourhood 'planned around mature trees and the natural topography of the land'. Photos of the development show plenty of pleasant green spaces - a far cry from the creepy history of the area.
Interestingly, it is still standing in digital form at least - and can still be seen on Google Maps. As the image was taken in 2022, it's likely the Google camera hasn't yet snapped the grounds as they appear today - leaving a ghostly reminder of what was.
Former resident Dawn Vallot DeClout previously claimed that the house had been occupied by the spirit of her great grandmother Adele Vincent, a 4ft 9in woman who died at the age of around 90.
Dawn previously said: "There is a spirit and her name is Adele... my great grandmother.”
Her family owned the 160-acre plot the house was built on in 1860 for more than 100 years and she lived there for a year in 1981.
Her grandparents built and owned the house by the side of the family’s plantation and her great-grandmother lived there most of her life until she died in the front room in 1967.
Dawn, whose family moved out in the 80s, said: “We believe [Adele] is the ghost, but she’s not menacing at all. She was probably like 4ft 9in and weighed about 100lb.
"She lived to be almost 90 and she was always digging in the pots, like when you have something on the stove and someone goes and looks in the pot and stirs it around.
"She was well-known for that, and so when we lived there, we used to hear her all the time jangling the pots when we had something on the stove.
"You could hear somebody picking up the lid but there was nobody in the kitchen."