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Our Very Own, Neighborhood Haunted House

9/20/2015

38 Comments

 
Picture
PictureDon't let those pretty pink flowers fool you!
Yup, I know we’re still a month shy from the season of ghosts, goblins and weird looking food whose primary colors are orange and black.   

But that doesn’t matter, because I’m feeling compelled right now to tell the story of our very own, neighborhood 
haunted house.

It’s just a 30-second walk from my place, but thankfully, because it’s on the opposite side of the street, I can only see it when I’m strolling down the block.  Still, every time I find myself walking by, even during the day, I’ll admit it: I get creepy-crawly chills. 

Okay, I’m not sure that there are actual spooks roaming its halls.  

Here’s what I do know.   

The house is completely abandoned, and has been for more than four years.  A forsaken red jeep sits in the driveway, nearly covered with crackly old pine needles.  Close by are some tall, completely dead trees that brush against the structure.  One of those tree’s branches intertwined with several electrical wires right above it.  Yikes.  And, that’s alongside some of the gnarliest, driest tumbleweeds I’ve ever seen.  There’s also a giant 1970s-era satellite dish, long rusted, and anchored not-so-jauntily to the garage roof. 

Here’s more about its festive exterior.

The outside walls are made entirely of wooden shingles; it also appears that this siding is 100 percent dry rotted and probably abuzz with zillions of happy, I’ll-never-go-hungry-again termites.  Adding to the creepiness is a fairly large hole, which immediate neighbors say has given easy entry to rats—not the cute little cartoon mice who sewed Cinderella’s gown, but rats—along with mold and mushrooms, to move in and flourish. 

And the story behind the walls?

Well, its elderly owner lives several hundred miles away and is using this place, or so he says, to store items that he plans to display in a museum dedicated to vintage computers.  (Can you say hoarder? In fact, a peek into the garage through its swollen plywood door shows that space literally packed floor to ceiling.)   

But here’s the most troubling thing: with the epic drought we’re experiencing here, our neighborhood haunted house is also a tinderbox just waiting for one bored teenager with a match.      

There’s a bit of good news.

Never one to not try to right a wrong in my big girl clown shoes, I have found a sympathetic person in our local government to help put the house in order.

I promised this person that I wouldn’t give any specifics about his or her identity or plan, because this person may be overstepping his or her bounds.  But this person strongly believes that it is important to do so because, this person says, the home’s extremely combustible interior and exterior represents a clear and present threat to all of the other 
homes nearby. 

So far, I’ve convinced nine neighbors to send in complaint forms to our county health department, which this person instructed me to do.  I’ve also posted the form to a town Facebook group I’m in, so folks I don’t know, but who might want to help, can join my little crusade.  

I felt powerful for only about a week, though, since my call to action hasn’t done much. 

Both the county code enforcement folks and the public health folks say that since no one lives here, and also because there are no broken windows, there’s not a whole lot they can do right now.  (However, a small victory: one tree—but not the most potentially dangerous one that hugs the electrical wires—has been cut down.  Too, a good amount of brush has been cleared since I began my squawking.) 

So, yes, with this person continuing to advise me in any way he or she can, I’ll keep working to ensure that this house is made even safer than it is right now. 

But I’ve realized there’s another reason I really, really want it cleaned up. 

It goes back to when I was a very little girl. 

In those days, I walked to school, first my grammar school and later, the middle school.  

To get to each of those destinations, though, I had to pass the house where The Jungle Lady lived.

I never learned her real name, but the moniker my brother and I gave her was a perfect fit. 

Only about four doors down from where I spent my entire childhood, her tired wooden residence seemed to have been haphazardly plopped down amidst a jumbled front yard overgrown with under-pruned trees and vines.  Worse, meandering over the worn picket fence and almost onto the sidewalk were a dozen out-of-control oleander bushes.  Their nasty, pointy leaves started an almost immediate rash if I accidentally happened to brush against them, and I soon learned that if someone chewed on those leaves, or a flower or stem, the consequences could, literally, be deadly    (http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/26/local/me-59440). 


In my mind—and I still think I’m right on this one—those oleanders were planted on purpose by The Jungle Lady to keep neighborhood kids out of her way.  Indeed, when I did get the occasional glimpse of the slow moving, grey haired woman who lived there, and who always seemed to be glaring at me, I was petrified... as were a whole lot of other children. 

In fact, I’m getting a queasy feeling in my gut, right now, just picturing her and where she lived. 

So perhaps, getting the creepy-crawly house that’s down my street in proper order might be serving as a method to vanquish a few of those old memories.

It’s also a proactive way to honor one of my core beliefs, which is this:  I can’t change the world.  But I can always try to do my best to change a corner of a corner of a corner of the world. 

So maybe, just maybe, I’ll eventually do a bit more than make our neighborhood haunted house safe.

I might be able to save one or two little kids from feeling scared and powerless when they have to pass that corner to get to school.  I could prevent a few nightmares, too.

And that, I know, is A Very Good Thing.    

What spooky houses, and the people who lived in them, do you remember from your childhood?  Since I can’t be the only one, I look forward to your stories! 


38 Comments
Larrea Grant
9/20/2015 02:41:30 pm

I grew up in a Civil War era farmhouse in rural Ohio. Until I was about 11 years old I was sure our attic was haunted. Mom and Dad let my brother and I believe it just to keep us out of there.

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Hilary
9/20/2015 03:01:00 pm

Imaginative parenting at its best! xo

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Rebecca
9/20/2015 03:52:24 pm

I just walked by a creepy, hoarder house yesterday where a guy was happily sawing wood and singing "Good Golly Miss Molly" ... it did make me curious if he was the hoarder or if he was clearing it out. I'll guess I'll have to talk by again.

Good for you for trying to make your corner of the world a better place.

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Hilary
9/20/2015 04:11:33 pm

You will have to walk by, for sure. I wouldn't have done anything if we weren't in this drought... but now, the way it has been kept up--or rather, not kept up--can now result in a fire that can spread in seconds to my house. That's when I knew it was time to take action.

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Melany Shapiro
9/20/2015 03:57:49 pm

If there's still a mortgage on the place (easy to find out -- all public info) -- then there's mandatory fire insurance. I believe the name of the insurance company is also public info, but I'm not sure. They'd be interested to know about this. When we rented out our old house in Nipomo, the tenants had some debris outside. It wasn't nearly the fire hazard that you describe, and we heard from our insurance company. Fortunately, we were in the process of selling the house and didn't have to deal with it. :)

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Hilary
9/20/2015 04:14:14 pm

Thanks for this info. I think I knew that... about insurance and mortgage.
Sadly, for me, I'm pretty sure the house is owned free and clear. But I will ask the person helping me when I speak to this person next, probably in about a month. Between us, at least we got a good amount of brush cleared and one tree taken down. There's a lot more to good, but this is a good start.

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nancy
9/27/2015 12:44:23 pm

The owners took out a loan right before they abandended it. There is definitely a loan.

kerri
9/20/2015 03:58:36 pm

Everyone remember Amityville Horror? My husband and I lived in a ranch house that was rustic and rural. We used to hear scampering in the walls (gross) well one day we didn't hear scampering. A few days after that I was sitting having my morning coffee in front of the news, and I thought I saw the carpet move. Blurry eyed from just waking up, I took a second to adjust, and discovered we had maggots. WAY grosser than whatever was in the walls- we suspect whatever was in the walls- a rat, I am sure, died and rotted, and that is where the maggots came from. I cannot believe that story, but I know it is true because it happened to me- BELIEVE IT OR NOT! :) Happy Halloween, everyone!

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Hilary
9/20/2015 05:59:26 pm

Maggots are the WORST. One long ago summer, a now-deceased relative killed a rattle snake near his farm, and I got to keep the rattler! I put it away for safekeeping but when I took it out a few months later, it was COVERED in maggots. I was told that I should have salted the rattler and that would have kept it pristine. Who knew? Did you know that maggots turn into flies? Just... all... so...EWWWW.

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Peggy
9/20/2015 06:38:30 pm

yes, of course I knew maggots turn into flies! Go on a "de-comp" case with my daughter...flies also lay eggs that in turn become maggots!

Jerry Lazar link
9/20/2015 04:08:58 pm

I spent one summer during high school at a journalism program located at a prestigious prep school in rural New Jersey. Wandering around the woodsy town with a female classmate late one night, way past curfew, we stumbled upon what was obviously -- in our teen minds -- an off-the-beaten-path abandoned bungalow. We brazenly entered and proceeded to, um, enjoy the solitude. We convinced ourselves the place was haunted. So imagine our double shock when the owner returned. Luckily he was calm, gracious and even bemused to find us there. In fact he insisted we come back and visit sometime. Looking back, I realize he must have been a ghost.

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Hilary
9/20/2015 06:02:05 pm

A calm, gracious and bemused ghost. Are you sure you didn't meet Cary Grant as Topper? :)

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George Marshall
9/20/2015 04:13:47 pm

I guess I am lucky because I have no memory of a spooky house in our neighborhood.
Gardens and lawns were tidy and no plants encroached on the sidewalk except for tree roots which buckled it. A healthy fear of the Oleander plants in our neighbor playmate's driveway was instilled in us through a story of some young campers who used the sticks to roast hot dogs and they all died. Such pretty deadly flowers. Belladonna too, as the name suggests, are gorgeous flowers.
Good story as always Hilary.
I like the way you bring us into it.

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Hilary
9/20/2015 06:12:43 pm

A quick Snopes search shows that the hot dog roasting story is a legend, but does say that oleanders are NOT plants to be messed with... extremely poisonous.
Do you remember THIS movie and the terrific book it's based on? :) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283139/

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pam thomas
9/20/2015 06:48:43 pm

Haha! That house doesn't look too scary by East Coast standards. My own Victorian puts it to shame, especially when the local turkey buzzards perch on the chimney! I wonder if the owner has kids who could be contacted about the fire concerns.

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Hilary
9/20/2015 07:19:19 pm

Funny, because as I was writing this, I remember thinking that this house has NOTHING on the houses on the East Coast. No kids that I know of and none that have been mentioned. It's an idea, though. :)

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Anne R. Allen link
9/21/2015 04:50:03 pm

I love your writing! This has all the makings of a great mystery story! Especially with that poisonous oleander...hmmm.. Best of luck getting it cleaned up.

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Hilary
9/21/2015 05:56:01 pm

Aww, thank you! You can look to the right of the post, under Archives, and see what else I've done. I'm making myself consistently post 2x a month, to keep my writing polished. The house with the oleander is from my long ago childhood in a town many hundreds of miles away, though. :) The woman next door has oleanders but they are very well trimmed... so don't scare me a bit!

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Chuck link
9/21/2015 06:36:08 pm

This article took me back to the time in my childhood when a spooky house of two stories with gables frightened the neighborhood, children and adults. From your descriptions I could smell the decay and sadness of your old building. Beautifully written.

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Hilary
9/21/2015 08:12:24 pm

Thank you, Chuck. Yes, decay and sadness for both houses, although the experiences are decades apart.

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Sydney
9/21/2015 08:13:29 pm

Having grown up in New York, I regularly heard ghost stories and not just on Halloween. We lived in a garden apt community, with the exception of one run down, overgrown 3 story house. We never saw the people who lived there, but there was always trash everywhere & only in front of this house! Piles of newspapers would appear & disintegrate over time, but we always walked really quickly by that house or crossed the street! The stories persisted that a Frankenstein-like character lived there, so everyone stayed away. When I returned years later as an adult, the house had been torn down, but the darkness remained.

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Hilary
9/21/2015 09:45:47 pm

I got the shivers just reading this. I believe that positive and negative energies abound on our entire planet, and can even crisscross. So, yes, I can see where even after a structure is torn down, the land that the place had been sitting on could still feel dark and heavy if bad things had happened inside.

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leslie spoon
9/21/2015 08:44:52 pm

Hilary Thank you for trying to get something done about the house across the street. A neighbor told me that there are mushrooms growing on the floors. Years ago I lived in Easton, Maryland (strange town!) and there was a old mansion in the town from the Civil War era. It looked like it had not been taken care of for the last 100 yrs. It was very spooky. I asked around about who lived there and why the place had not been taken care of. No one would give me an answer. It was like I had asked a terrible question. That place still gives me the creeps when I think about it. I was so happy when we moved from there!

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Hilary
9/21/2015 09:47:58 pm

To me, the creepiest part of your story is that no one wanted to talk about the place. I wonder who lived there when you were in that town... and if it was haunted at the same time. Now I want to see a picture!

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Tammy Dalcin
9/26/2015 08:26:23 pm

In my youth,,as far as I was concerned my house was haunted, or at least i had a very scary monster under my bed. My father was so patient with my sister and i. Using his flashlight he always assured us that nothing was under the bed. Only once did the monster really exist under my bed. We had come home from a week long family vacation at our cabin. Mother noticed the kitchen trash can had been pushed over. We all thought that's odd, but then just shrugged it off. That night we all settled in our beds. It was nice to sleep in my bed again I thought. Then just before I fell in my deep slumber, I felt it! Something ran across the top of my bedspread. I laid paralysed under the covers. It took everything thing I had to yell for help. My dad came in, tired from the day, but ready to assure me that nothing was under my bed. I looked at him with tears in my eyes and said, "it's real dad, I know it is, I felt it!" He looked under the bed and said well your right . Something is under there. A big laugh came out of his mouth, he said" it's Ben your pet rat". My sister and I had been playing with him in a rat maze that my sister made. we forgot to put him away before we left on our trip. He had roamed the house for a week looking for food. He decided that my bed would make a good nest for him. He had ripped part of my bed spread to use for his bed. We all had a good laugh. After that , my monster never returned under my bed.

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Hilary
9/27/2015 09:05:21 am

What I love most about this story is that your dad treated your fears with love and respect. He never belittled you. And, when there really WAS something under your bed, he explained just what was there, and how the pet rat had gotten there. Good parenting, Mr. Cady! :)

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Charles Garcia link
9/26/2015 11:15:40 pm

Lordy! I loved this! It gave me chills in the best way. Reminded me of the "haunted house" in my hometown from so long ago. It brought back good memories of youthful indiscretions and ghost stories. In my hometown was a strangely Victorian type home off the main road. It was an architectural anomaly as it would be something more familiar to a seaside town on the east coast. It had a widow;s walk and a tower above the gabled third story. It was owned and inhabited by two elderly sisters who had their food delivered. To my knowledge no one ever saw a car as there was no garage but only the remnants of a carriage out in the back. No one had the courage to walk up to the house, and even though the road to the strange home was private and covered by eucalyptus trees it was a local lovers lane. No one ever came out of the house, and no lights were ever seen from the shaded windows.
One evening in my tenth year we heard the volunteer fire department howling down the street and turn onto Claus Rd. It was summer, so going to a fire was considered good fun. My dad, mom, and I hopped in the old Chevy and followed the fire trucks out to...well you know where. Half the town was in attendance. The fire lit the inside of the house like a made Halloween jack o lantern. The place could not be saved. Even some of the trees closest to the fire exploded and burned.
When the embers cooled the fire marshal came and started the long laborious task of trying to determine what caused the fire and and finding the bodies.
The reason of the fire was never determined.
Nor were the bodies of the sisters every found.
In later years we learned that a small private road led from behind the home, into the fields for several miles, and onto a paved country road leading to a neighboring town. We often took the road for a shortcut or to outrun the cops. But we never attempted it at night. Because the only portion of the house that did not burn was the carriage house. And inside that one unburned out building was a decrepit carriage. In fifty years no one has rebuilt on that land. And the carriage house still remains.

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Hilary
9/27/2015 09:11:18 am

A scary story, indeed. I would love to know more about the two sisters. What sort of childhood did they have/what sort of fear was instilled in them, that they had such severe agoraphobia? Maybe they weren't sisters at all, but lovers in a forbidden time for such couplings? Of course, they might have gone out all of the time, via that back road! The fire was probably due to ancient wiring that finally snapped. I'm also wondering... who owns that property now? Good one!

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Charles Garcia
9/28/2015 09:15:08 am

All those thoughts have come to me in later years. There were no power lines leading into the home or telephone lines. Our guess was the fire was caused by candles or kerosene lights. The back road is still not on any county maps. Sadly, my generations is the last to remember this house. And there are no photographs of the house in the town museum. It was beautiful in its own way.

Susan Jordan
9/27/2015 03:34:17 pm

Great story, Hilary! We had a haunted house too, but it was in the neighborhood of my elementary school in Santa Monica, which was about two miles from my home neighborhood. It was this amazing three-story thing almost cat-a-corner from Washington Elementary School at Ashland Avenue & 4th Street. We nicknamed it "The Witch's House" because a very old lady lived in it, and we all thought she hated children. (I think she hated that so many children trespassed all the way up to the front porch to try to catch a glimpse of her on a dare.) We kids had rumors and legends about the old lady and that spectacularly spooky house, and, as much as it frightened us, we also loved that we had an old, rundown, 'haunted' house practically next door to our school. Years later, the old three-story Mediterranean was toned down and replaced with a completely boring cracker box apartment building that stands to this day. For years after, I thought perhaps I had imagined the place after all. Then came Facebook! I joined in June 2009, and quickly added a lot of 'kids' from the neighborhood and school. One was (is) an older boy named David Stone, who attended that same elemtary a few years before me. He was a fledgling amateur photographer back then, and happened to have taken an old photo of the house sometime in the late '60s or early '70s. When I saw the photo, it was the first I'd seen of that old house since about 1975! I was thrilled to know I hadn't imagined it. I asked David if I could post it on my FB wall with photo credit to him. He graciously consented, and it was no time at all before several of my schoolmates chimed in on the thread about their own memories and experiences of "The Witch's House"! Funny, how these places so often look so much alike in at least their condition, if not their architecture. A couple of the boys said they'd actually trick-or-treated at the old lady's house, and she wasn't really all that scary - just a lonely old lady who was kind of tired of scores of kids daring each other to peek in the window from her front porch. It was a sign of serious courage to get all the way up to that porch! Poor old girl; I've wondered since then who she was, what her name was, and what her story was. I also wish that magnupificent house still stood. If I owned it, I think I'd dress as an old witch on a regular basis, just to scare the stuffing out of any kids who tried to trespass onto the porch. Too bad, though, that my old old school isn't really a school anymore, but the school district offices, so kids aren't in abundance now like they were in those remaining Baby Boom days.

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Hilary
9/27/2015 09:57:18 pm

Wow--it's amazing that you, too, had a similar--bigger and fancier, but still, similar--house in your neighborhood. I've now been told that The Jungle Lady was very poor and could barely walk... who knows, maybe she could barely see, which is why she always seem to glare.. so she could focus! :) It's interesting the way kids' imaginations work, isn't it? I, too, wish I knew the whole story in my case. But... I still do not like, do not like AT ALL, oleanders! Especially the nasty pink ones she had. :)

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Ed
9/28/2015 04:01:23 pm

Cool! Always lived in large or victorian houses when I was a kid. The "creepey crawley" spaces and widow's watches were always a delight.

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Hilary
9/28/2015 04:58:55 pm

I've been in some magnificent, completely renovated Victorians, and they are a delight. Neither of the homes mentioned in my blog come anywhere close to the wonderfulness of kept-up Victorians! :)

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Hilary
9/29/2015 10:22:31 am

The house has now been officially condemned. The ball is moving faster than it ever has. http://www.ksby.com/story/30134058/abandoned-house-in-los-osos-vandalized-with-swastikas

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Jim Nolt
10/9/2015 08:09:08 am

I love seeing and reading about all things spooky... have ever since I watched "Dracula" on TV when I was very young. His castle seemed a wonderful place to live.

I don't recall any local haunted houses, but I'd often pretend our attic was haunted... just to put me in the mood.

And since I'm trying to learn Swedish... this article gives me a perfect opportunity to reinforce some seasonal vocabulary:

a ghost - ett spöke
a haunted house - ett spökhus
a scarecrow - en fågelskrämma
a vampire - en vampyr
a bat - en fladdermus

Vampyren blev en fladdermus.
(The vampire became a bat.)

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Hilary
10/9/2015 01:55:05 pm

The Hubster's comment to this blog was also about HIS attic as a kid. En fladermus sounds like an exotic children's toy or maybe a high-end skin cream. :)

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Marianne Erickson
10/12/2015 05:33:15 pm

Hilary, this is a great story, with happiness at the end and hope for future improvements and safety measures. Your activism is very admirable, and I hope appreciated by your neighbors. I, too, had a haunted house-like residence in my neighborhood growing up. I finally met the lady who owned it and she was really nice, just very old. Absentee owners seem never to be able to stay on top of all the things that are needed in a home. Perhaps the owner has now hired a contractor/manager to look after the home on your block. Wouldn't that be great? Perhaps, they will move the merchandise into storage, repair or bulldoze the house and make it livable once again!

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Hilary
10/12/2015 06:59:18 pm

The house has now been officially condemned and the white power graffiti (left about three weeks ago, after I had written this post) has been painted over. The owner still has not come down to get his crap out, but I am on it... in about a month, thanks to the condemned status, he will start to get fined $100 per day. RE: the childhood house I talk about, it seems that as kids, everyone had a rundown house in their neighborhood. A childhood friend severely chastised me for writing about mine, saying that (just like your experience) the woman inside was very poor and was actually nice, although lonely. I wrote her back that as a little girl, what I wrote in the blog is MY truth. She didn't like that at all! :)

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    Hilary Roberts Grant

    Journalist, editor, filmmaker, foodie--and a clown! 
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