The tenant farmers houses are left behind when the farmers can no longer afford to stay there. The houses are characterized as having lost life, or as dying, when their owners leave them. The houses and farms are no longer alive with laughter, or the constant movement of people.
The doors are often left to swing back and forth and are no longer closed. If the doors are not open, many houses are broken into through windows by local town kids. Once the windows are broken into, dust is allowed to fill the home. Family pets, such as cats, become feral when they cannot find their owners. Rats, mice, bats, and weasels start to go inside of the abandoned homes at their leisure. Shingles begin to blow off of the roofs and the homes are left in further dilapidation.