Is this Britain’s creepiest home? Scottish bungalow full of soppy toys

Urban explorers have uncovered what could be the UK’s creepiest house – a bungalow filled from floor to ceiling with cuddly toys despite being uninhabited for years.

Mitch Johnson and Jake Parr claimed to have unearthed the remote house in Selkirk, Scotland, after four days of searching on Google Maps and before they even crawled in through a hole in the door, the astonishing array of stuffed animals was in full view.

The property was apparently owned by a woman who hoarded the toys after her husband passed away, before dying herself years later.

Footage filmed by the duo showed them stepping over cuddly toys just to get into the bungalow, before panning to a room with walls entirely covered by soft toys in all shapes and sizes.

Mitch said: ‘This was the creepiest place I’ve ever been to. I just could not wait to get out.’

The duo drove six and a half hours from Manchester to Selkirk, Scotland, to find the bungalow earlier this summer and had to walk for almost an hour through the woods to find the property.

They never break into properties they think are abandoned, but fortunately on this occasion there was a panel missing from the back door to squeeze through.

But once he was in, Mitch was not hanging around, and ‘sacrificed some pictures because I just didn’t want to be in there’.

‘We were going through all this pine forest and we were hearing all sorts of noises and branches were snapping everywhere,’ he continued.

‘It was just the most bizarre place I’ve ever seen and I’ve been all around the world doing this.’

He and Jake met through urban exploring in 2015 and have become best friends.

A video shared by Mitch on Facebook shows each room inside the property, without exception, is stuffed to the brim with tons of teddy bears and similar plushies.

Mitch said there were so many he was even anxious about the possibility of someone jumping out from one of the piles. 

In some rooms, these toys were guarded by cobwebs which had been cultivated in the home’s empty years. 

‘I’ve been to asylums and loads of places around the world on my own and this was the most scary place I have ever been in and there was just a weird vibe about it that didn’t sit right at all,’ Mitch added.

The 40-year-old said he thought the collection of toys must have been a ‘coping mechanism’ for the woman who reportedly lived there after her husband died in the 1980s.

Her husband’s workshop also remained intact and his tools appeared to have been unmoved since his death.

Mitch continued: ‘There were some real collectables in there, some really rare dolls. There were like 200 or 300 Cabbage Patch Dolls. Some of them are a grand each.

‘All the Care Bear teddies, all the Monsters Inc teddies. All the teddies you could imagine. It was just like a plethora of teddies.

‘It was dusty as well when you were in there you could taste how damp the place was so I don’t know how she lived in there.

‘It was a little unnerving as well because I kept thinking at any moment someone’s going to pop out here.

‘You can only just walk into the bedroom, the rest of it was just teddies so it’s like six feet deep.’

The photographer’s love for urban exploring was born out of his interest in history and after showing his friends some of the things he saw, he decided to share his finds on social media.

Now his Facebook page, which he started in 2018, has 51,000 followers alongside his YouTube channel and an Instagram account.

The father-of-one’s urban exploring has taken him to places all over the world and he has seen everything from palaces in Portugal to mansions in Marbella, but sometimes the things he sees can take a toll on him.

Mitch said: ‘It can be a bit of an emotional burden because I see that much, it just makes you realise that life is extremely short and the things you accumulate mean absolutely nothing.

‘It’s your memories that mean something.’