Travel

Exploring Creepy Abandoned North America with Liz Roll (PHOTOS)

With chipped paint and overgrown shrubbery, abandoned spaces that were left to the elements have a way of captivating humans. Whether it's from fear of the unknown or a morbid curiosity, a crumbling, weather-beaten building just begs for a peek.

Photographer Liz Roll has travelled throughout the U.S. photographing abandoned buildings left to the elements. Abandoned hospitals, with their rusty medical supplies and beds, have a creepy air about them, but who would guess that an abandoned cookie factory in Virginia could be so unnerving?

Roll says that it's common to come across inexplicable discoveries while urban exploring, which might make one wonder what the last inhabitants were up to before abandoning the scene.

(MORE: Abandoned Places in Every State)

"I almost always see pianos, for some reason... lots of old dolls," she said. "Smetimes we'll find x-rays, which is always odd. At some greenhouses in D.C., we found a squatter's residence with all these Bible verses all over the walls."

The photographer told weather.com that she belives her interest in abandoned spaces began as a child.

"When I was a kid, I went in an old house with my family, and there was a mousehole in the wall, just like you see in the cartoons," she said. "I think this memory is part of the reason I like to do this, as I never know what I might stumble upon."

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