Yard (14 Branchland Court)
The yard of 14 Branchland Court is the historically severely-neglected yard of the Chandler home.
In earlier pictures (when Chris was slimmer and he had yet to start his Love Quest), we can see that the Chandlers' yard used to be quite lush and beautiful, with a variety of flowers planted around the area, the grass clipped, and the trees healthy. Many people speculate that over the years, Chris's parents got too old and/or too lazy to care for their garden, leaving the area neglected.
The yard now consists of some simply crossed wood planters near the curb and some small shrubs and trees out front. The plants in the planters have long since died. The backyard contains a shed - dubbed at one point by Bob as the "Dreaming Studio of Mr. C and Little C" - and a small platform leading to a back entrance. After that, there are some trees and the pen where Patti once played. Her 5-10 ton doghouse still stands, and she is buried nearby. At some point, a tree branch fell on the grave. Being lazy, Chris could not summon the strength to pick the damn thing up.
As of February 2012, the yard has been completely obscured by trash, junked cars, and God knows what else. In 2013, a troll passing Chris's house in his car uploaded a video, showing the front yard almost completely covered by an untrimmed lawn, in addition to the above.
2019 Pokémon GO yard photos
In April 2019, Chris, while playing Pokémon GO, used the game to photograph several locations in the yard, uploading them to his Google Sonichu Headquarters page.[1]
The eerie images unintentionally capture the abandoned state of the yard, including the gazebo, Bob's old greenhouse, the unkempt, weed-strewn, and thinning lawn, and a derelict shed, as backdrops against colorful game characters. In essence, the images are a look into Chris's psyche and his own abandonment of reality for escapist fantasies.
The gazebo.
Another angle of the gazebo.
Bob's greenhouse.
Patti's doghouse.
2021 yard photos and footage
On 6 September 2021, the carpetbagger Winfield Winfield trespassed into the yard. He took 18 pictures of it and the surrounding structures.
Images gallery
The gazebo
Video
| Chris Chan Outdoor House Tour (September 6th, 2021) | |
| Direct link | YouTube, archive |
| Stardate | 7 September 2021 |
Transcript
| Transcript |
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[Video begins with a shot of Dylan's face.] Dylan: Hi, everybody. Uh, my name is Winfield Winfield, I am the author of a horror novel, the start of a series, it's called "Cult of the Eclipse", so be sure to look for that online if you like Silent Hill kind of stuff, and you guys are not going to believe where I am. I am at... [Camera pans to show Son-Chu and the front of 14 Branchland Court.] Dylan: ...Sonichu Headquarters! (chuckles) Oh man, I wanted to go ahead and see like what the house looked like, it was just a little road trip that I'm on. [Camera zooms in on Son-Chu.] Dylan: I'm guessing that might be Barb's car here, uh, I wonder if those marks are from, uh, maybe hitting Michael Snyder, like who knows man. Okay... [Dylan walks to the side of the van, then looks inside the passenger-side window.] Dylan: If, uh, you look really closely here... [Camera shifts to Dylan's face, then back.] Dylan: ...you can see...there...is a bucket full of garbage, that's not shocking here... [He looks in the back of the van.] Dylan: ...you got that going on in the back and whatever else. This unfortunately is not the Sonichu Car, I think everybody knows that it's stuck at that motel where Chris got arrested at, and the license plate's been stolen. [Camera zooms in on a "rejection" sticker from Virginia State Inspection on the front windshield.] Dylan: Rejection...ooh, that doesn't look good. Okay... [Camera pans over the front of 14 BLC again.] Dylan: Clearly nobody is here, so let's, uh, take a gander around here. Obviously, I can't go inside, but let's check out how it looks on the outside...we got a whole bunch of tall vegetation so far... [Camera looks at a tree in the front yard.] Dylan: ...clearly hasn't cut the grass in a long time. [Camera pans to the road in front of the house.] Dylan: Uh, trash cans are pretty empty, uh, I guess that means all the garbage is probably inside the house somewhere, but, uh, let's keep going. Go on a little outside tour... [Dylan starts walking around the house's right side.] Dylan: You know, around the back is actually interesting, and I'll show you guys why in a minute. [Dylan enters the backyard, passing the bench and the house's back door.] Dylan: Okay, got the bench, got a little trail leading to the back. Oh Jesus Christ, yeah, like right here, literally right here, you can actually like smell the fucking BO, like it, like right here, it smells like somebody hasn't showered in like three weeks, uh, I'm gonna put my short over my nose here. [Dylan looks up the stairs at the back walkway. A cat is sitting there.] Dylan: There's a little kitty up there, I don't know which cat that is or that's even the Chandler's cat for that matter. [Camera zooms in on the walkway.] Dylan: Oh there's two cats! Poor babies, having to live with this family. (shifts camera to the vines growing on the side) Oh god, look at like the vegetation growing on the side right there, like that might be digging into the foundation. Man, I wonder how bad that is. [Dylan walks across the back yard.] Dylan: Okay, uh...... [Camera shifts to the shed) there's the shed] Dylan: There's the shed, some cats ran off in there, probably scared it's one of the Chandlers, knowing this place. [Camera turns back to the house)] Dylan: Yeah, more uh, tall vegetation on this side, probably eating away at the place, and if Chris-Chan gets sentenced, I mean, shit, it might get worse over the next 10 years, like who knows. [Camera turns to the gazebo] Dylan: And over here, we got the little gazebo, Bob's little gazebo here. [Dylan approaches the gazebo] Dylan: There's a little dog house here, probably where Patti is, poor girl. God, could you, could you imagine how nice of a place this could have been if the Chandlers just took care of it? [Camera turns back toward shed] Dylan: Man, but then again, Chris Chan wouldn't be so famous now, would he? Okay, um...I'm gonna see if I can go around to the other side here and take a look... [Camera goes around the outside of the house again] Dylan: Okay...and over here we got this little pathway here, it's all broken up as you can see. Okay... [Dylan finds Bob's old greenhouse.] Dylan: That's...oh my god! What is that, is that supposed to be like the, the dream factory? Let me take a look...there are little steps here, gotta be careful. [Camera moves past a side entrance, looking inside.] Dylan: Holy shit, the light's still on. Ugh, I do not want to see that electric bill. [Camera looks inside the greenhouse.] Dylan: Thinking outside, what the f-, what...okay, uh, a ton of junk in here. It's probably more Chris Chan shit, I don't know if, um, you can get a decent view in here. Unfortunately, it's locked, we can't really get a better look, but hopefully, hopefully you guys can see okay. All righty... [Dylan walks around the greenhouse, showing the junk crammed in the windows.] Dylan: Uh, let's see if there's anything else to look at here. [Dylan heads around the back of the greenhouse and finds what appears to be a jungle gym.] Dylan: Whatever that's supposed to be, I don't know, man. Is that supposed to be like the dream factory, or is it, it's just a regular tree house or a regular little kid's club house or something. I don't know. Oh holy fuck, look at this. Look at this. [Camera pans over the extremely overgrown yard.] Dylan: Jesus tap-dancing Christ, god look at the state of the yard, holy fucking dog shit, man. Man that is just wild. God, holy shit, look at this. [Zooms in on side of house.] Dylan: It's like the plants are growing into the house, like check this out, I mean, it's not like going up the wall, it's actually trying to go like into the wall itself, like take a look here. Uh, Jesus Christ. Oh my god, taking over the gutters, too. [Dylan finds a pool of stagnant water] Dylan: What is this supposed to be, is that like a pool? I can't really tell, it's just so, it's just so murky and filled with like rain and, er, and like dirt and earth and...fuck, man. God...man, that's a shame, it's a shame what happened to the Chandler place. [Camera pans over the back yard again, then moves toward the road] Dylan: Oh my god, I feel like, like I genuinely feel like I'm walking through the woods right now. Jesus god almighty, god look at this fucking place. God, I almost tripped over a rock there. [Dylan notices a dry stone fountain] Dylan: A little fountain, totally unattended, unkempt, not shocking at all. Okay, going back to my car here, so... [Camera turns around to Dylan's face] Dylan: I hope you guys, uh, enjoyed that somewhat. It was uh, definitely worth driving here from Pennsylvania. All right, have a good one, guys. [Video ends]
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Yard fixtures and equipment
Dreaming Studio
The backyard shed is full of shit, most notably a car, and was once the place where Bob would tinker with machines. At one point, when Chris was a boy, the shed was known as the "dreaming studio of Mr. C and Little C," and Bob would try to teach Chris how to build things - although Chris could not recollect what they had built.[2]
Mowers
The Chandlers were known to possess at least two riding lawn mowers. Chris whined about using one in the Father Call. Barb bought a new mower - a Craftsman Riding Lawn Tractor - for $1,400, on 26 October 2011;[3] five years later, she attempted to sell it on Craigslist for $595. The second mower is presumably the one seen in photos of the yard after the house fire, as the listing includes the tarp that is seen covering it. The mower had been so inactive that Chris noted the old gas would need to be replaced.