An apartment in Paris, abandoned since 1939

IMGUR ^ | February 9, 2016 | jponic

[beaversmom]

An Apartment in Paris, Abandoned Since 1939

by jponic

See original Daily Mail article here (May 2013) to read story

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Hard to believe given Paris real estate values and rental properties.

[Rusty0604]

Wow, I love old stuff like that.

[Skooz]

bfl

[The_Victor]

That prewar Mickey Mouse must have some value.

[RoosterRedux]

I want it. At 1939 prices of course.

[Jonty30]

Somebody missed the opportunity for 40 years of free rent.

[Jamestown1630]

It’s always amazed me how much a house can deteriorate simply by being unoccupied for a little while. It’s almost as if something more than just physical upkeep is involved in keeping a house ‘alive’.

But this apartment looks like it could be brought back pretty quickly with dusting and wood polish. I’m surprised it isn’t much worse.

-JT

[Jonty30]

Make that 70 years.

[Louis Foxwell]

rent control and automatic bank draft rent payments allow places to languish for seeming ever. There are more such stories about dowagers living for a pittance for many decades in exclusive, posh apartments and villas in Paris.

[Captain Peter Blood]

The back story on this is very interesting.

[beaversmom]

Edit...DM article was originally published in 2013, but more recently updated in January 2016:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323297/Inside-Paris-apartment-untouched-70-years-Treasure-trove-finally-revealed-owner-locked-fled-outbreak-WWII.html

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

The Paris I saw was very similar to SF and NYC.

Impossible to find anything remotely affordable.

[Louis Foxwell]

Once these jewels are vacated price goes up astronomically.

[beaversmom]

[SkyDancer]

Make that 77 years.

[Blue Jays]

Seems rather unusual there would be NO REASON to enter the unit for decades and decades on end?
No electrical issues, no plumbing issues, no building upgrades, no maintenance, and all taxes paid-in-full?

[colorado tanker]

I can’t believe the Nazis didn’t loot it. Goering stole every piece of art he could get his mitts on.

[lacrew]

I know exactly what you mean...a building goes unoccupied for even a few weeks, and things start to deteriorate.

I suspect that since this apartment was part of a larger building, it fared better. The roof would be kept in good repair, and even some air conditioning and heat from adjacent apartments would help keep extreme temps and humidity away.

[beaversmom]

Yeah, watched a good NetFlix documentary on that called the Rape of Europa. I knew they (Nazis) did that sort of thing, but that was a pretty eye opening documentary.