Glad you enjoyed it Stoked!
Poppinjay - Your post reminds me of a place I've read about in New Jersey...I read about it years ago in the Weird New Jersey magazine and for the life of me I can't recall where it is or what is called. Essentially its a small abandoned town, all of the old homes were still standing and oddly enough somebody pained white blinds on all the windows. Anyway the urban legend tells us that back in the 1980's a group of Satan worshipers moved into town and eventually went on a killing rampage, which is why the village was abandoned. If I recall the real story was the land was bought out by a power company (water company?) and everyone just moved away.
There were some pictures online I found a few years ago and aside from being VERY creepy, it looks like it might be a great place to explore. If I can remember the name of find them I'll post em up here.
Oh and how bizarre is it that it costs more to keep home standing then it does to tear them down?
EDIT: Found it! Demons Alley in West Milford, NJ or officially known as New City Village. AAAANd as of 2005 it appears no buildings remain on the site...I would have loved to have poked around this place when it was standing.
Heres a few passages from wikipedia:
"The most prevalent reason given for the name 'Demon Alley' and the abandonments is this:
When New City Village was an active community, someone moved into a house (by tradition the largest one). Soon strange and disconcerting things started to happen (pets disappeared, dolls would have their heads cut off, telephone and power lines would be tampered with). The new resident suggested that they all have a community meeting in his house, and all assented to it. On the designated night, everyone gathered in his house where he, or in some stories a cult he leads, kills them all and vanishes.
There are several stories of ghosts, possessions, and bizarre phenomana".
Although the stores I've read about it are much more creepy.
and the real story:
"The New City Complex (NCC), (New City Village, NCV) was built in an unknown time frame, appearing to be Victorian in architecture. These houses, around eight with garages and maintenance buildings were used to house Newark Watershed employees. The last occupant of these houses moved out in 1992 according to the NWC, and many have pondered the departure of the occupants without removing their personal belongings, this was thought to be because of Radon Contamination in the neighborhood. This however, has not been confirmed by the NWC. The NWC still owns the 644 acres (2.61 km2) of land, which almost was sold to an NYC man to use as a golf course. The NCV/NCC was demolished in October 2005. The neighborhood suffered two full arson fires and a third attempt."
Some great photos on the below link if anyone's interested...actually if you like this kind of thing poke around this site a bit it has some great photos of abandoned buildings and such
+Lost Destinations::Demon's Alley+ <--- no idea why there is a smily face in that link, it works for me...but if it doesn't just google "Demons Alley, NJ" and it should be the very first site.