Let’s face it; dealing with junk can be scary. And we don’t just mean the prospect of having to clean it up. Sometimes, you come across stuff that’s truly, horribly, make-you-jump-up-and-squeal scary. Starting with the less frightening items, scary junk can include:
- Light Bulbs
This one seems pretty normal. Old light bulbs have a great deal in common with household pests like ants and cockroaches. One or two don’t present a problem; just whack them with a shoe and clean up the mess. But spot more than three, and you’ve got an infestation. Same thing with light bulbs. Most people live in houses with electricity, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find a few lightbulbs in the junk pile. See a dozen, however, and it starts leading the imagination to scary places. What’s with all the bulbs? What did the owner need them for? Are they conducting weird electrical experiments, or do they have a side business repairing lamps?
- Mixed Collections of Shoes
What’s scary about discarded shoes? Nothing, if it’s only one sandal or a pair of loafers. There’s an old cliché about only finding one shoe in a garbage can. Get a bunch of shoes together, however, and the creepy factor intensifies.
As with light bulbs, the scariness of mixed shoes runs with imagining why so many different shoes have been discarded. Heels, boots, sneakers, slippers, and baby shoes all in the same pile of junk? Why the variety, and what happened to the owners? Spend too much time considering the frightening possibilities, and next thing you know, you’re having nightmares about buildings full of barefoot ghosts.
- Dolls
Alright, now we’re on some familiar scary junk ground. Doesn’t matter the size or the type, dolls can be scary even before they get thrown out.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a single dress-up doll on a counter or a group of china dolls with glass eyes congregating in the corner of a room, dolls can be very scary. They stare, they collect dust, and you can never be sure they aren’t moving ever so slightly when you’re not looking directly at them. And those are just the small dolls. The bigger ones that look vaguely like real children are terrifying.
- Strollers
Even when they’re just temporarily parked to the side of a theme park ride line, an unused stroller has an abandoned quality that makes the object unnerving and eerie. Find a stroller among other junk only enhances those feelings. Heaven help you if there’s a doll sitting in it. That’s bad mojo.
- Stuffed Animals
Just to clarify, we don’t mean stuffed teddy bears or beanbag-filled critters that sit on a bed like so many cuddly throw pillows. No, few things can be scarier than a wild animal that was sent to the taxidermist. What could be scarier than cleaning out a dark basement and coming across a stuffed bear in a standing position, mouth open and claws spread? Even smaller animals like turkeys and game birds can be scary, but not fish unless they’re big. Trout have never been scary.
- Electric Chairs
Seriously. This is a thing. More than a few electric chairs have been found in abandoned storage units. That’s scary. The only way they could be scarier would be if a pile of old light bulbs were found next to it.