The King of Exploring, who posts pictures and videos of his adventures to YouTube, TikTok and Reddit, previously went viral after taking a look around the inside of an abandoned McDonald’s.

A haunting glimpse of a once-popular fast-food outlet, there’s something undeniably eerie about revisiting these previously busy spaces, now left to fester as remnants of a time and space long forgotten.

However, his latest excursion takes that up a notch with a trip around an abandoned high school.

There’s no getting away from the fact America has a problem when it comes to vacant buildings. While a report from LendingTree estimates that as many as 16 million homes across the U.S. currently sit empty, the Harvard Business Review reported in 2020 that the U.S. government alone owns an estimated 45,000 underused or underutilized buildings.

Many of these buildings will have been well-maintained, but some fall into disrepair, having been deemed surplus to requirements by the owners. Schools are just one example, with many local authorities opting to shutter entire campuses and leave the contents to rot, rather than remove what has been left behind.

These sites have become the source of much interest to amateur explorers of urban architecture, such as The King of Exploring, who claims to have visited as many as 300 different locations.

“Back in May, another urban explorer messaged me and said, ‘King, I have a school that you absolutely need to explore,’” he told Newsweek. “I was told that they literally left everything behind and I had to see it for myself.”

The King of Exploring documented what he discovered across a series of pictures and videos that offer a glimpse of the senseless waste of resources. Books line the shelves alongside labels stating “don’t take.”

Crash mats, tennis rackets and basketballs lay strewn across the gymnasium floor.

Desks, chairs and, most astonishing of all, laptops have also been left behind. It was a scene that left The King of Exploring, something of a seasoned veteran when it comes to roaming these urban spaces, stunned.

“When I first entered the school I was shocked to see all of the sports equipment and clothing that was still in the locker room,” he said. “Little did I know that this was just the start of what I was going to find.”

“Soon I came across a full gymnasium with everything still intact and in great shape. As I moved into the main parts of the building I came across the music wing of the school and quickly found the auditorium.”

As well as potentially useful resources and equipment gathering dust, he also found tokens of the achievements of a previous generation of students.

“Outside of the auditorium I found trophies still sitting on the tables and the main office still loaded with paperwork and documents,” the urban explorer said. “From there, I located the cafeteria where they have left computer carts still loaded with 200 to 300 Chromebooks, some of which had been thrown in piles on the floor. I was most shocked to find that the library was still loaded with books on the shelves.”

The King of Exploring said he has roamed the halls of as many as six schools across the U.S. but this was the first “where they had left everything.”

According to the explorer, the school (the location of which was not identified) closed in 2018. Even so, he thinks anyone who recognizes the facilities on the footage should be angry at what he saw.

“I’m shocked that a school district would just leave hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment behind for four-five years without repurposing it or recycling it,” he said. “If I were a taxpayer in that city, I would be extremely upset to see everything going to waste like that.”

Some on social media speculated the school may have been left to rot due to the costs and dangers associated with destroying or remodeling the building. “Probability riddled with asbestos,” one user wrote. “Remediation costs a fortune.”

Others were less convinced, pointing to the amount of equipment left behind as a missed opportunity to either help someone or generate additional income.

“They could have auctioned off/donated so much of this stuff,” one Redditor wrote. “The basketball hoops, the scoreboard, the books and bookshelves, the desks and chairs. So much money, just abandoned.”

Aside from the evident waste on display, there’s something undeniably creepy about venturing inside a large space of this kind. However, the King of Exploring has no such concerns.

“Honestly, I’m not scared at all. I look forward to finding and exploring new locations,” he said. “I have explored a mausoleum where I found human bones laying on the floor and even funeral homes with embalming chemicals and caskets left behind. The creepier and the more stuff left behind to see at a location, the better.”

Check out more of the King of Exploring’s photos below: