Every now and again, a place pops up that really strikes you as terrifying. And look, this might just take the cake for the scariest of all.
Dubbed Larundel, this place used to be a mental asylum, and as you’d expect, it casts quite the sombre shadow of surrounding residential developments.
According to the Bohemian Blog, “During its heyday, Larundel dealt with patients including those suffering from acute psychiatric, psychotic and schizophrenic disorders. As pharmaceutical treatments began to replace traditional, institutional care for psychiatric patients in the late 1990s, the Larundel Mental Asylum was one of the many Victoria mental hospitals to be closed down.”
Apparently, visitors are greeted by alcohol containers, spray can tins, and haunting imagery and messages along the ex-psychiatric facility’s walls. “There were beer bottles and plastic bags strewn across the floor, while every conceivable surface had been tagged in graffiti scrawls. The effect was like the aftermath of an explosion in a paint factory,” the article describes.
“Back in the maze of first floor corridors, I came across a wooden cabinet laying in the middle of the passage, and trailing a long electrical cable; beneath it hid the petrified body of a large bat,” the visitor says.
The buildings were initially used as an army training centre, then commission housing by the Department of Housing. It wasn’t used as a mental health facility until 1953, years after the official opening.
According to Darebin Heritage, “by the early 1970s Larundel had a number of wards operating dealing with a wide variety of psychological illnesses. These included acute psychiatrics, chronic schizophrenics, chronic psychotics and geriatric patients. A clinical laboratory had also been added,” their site reads.
Now, the facility is being transformed into residential developments, with apartments throughout the precinct selling quickly. I must admit, I wouldn’t be the first to move into a location with such a haunting past.
