I kept driving in circles throughout the California State University Channel Islands' campus, misled by incorrect GPS coordinates, and lost with no exact address.
But it turns out that the old dairy farm once run by the former Camarillo State Mental Hospital (CSUCI since 2002) is in the middle of a public park, accessible by a hard-to-find turnoff.
You can't even really see any of the dairy farm's abandoned structures – earning the name "The Scary Dairy" – from the parking area. You just have to know what you're looking for.
This location has been a favorite of trespassers and taggers and urban explorers of all kinds...
...so unfortunately security measures have tightened, in the form of padlocked fences.
At least that means that the dilapidated structures can at least be preserved in a state of arrested decay...
...for more people to enjoy...
...now that the surrounding park is open to the public.
Of course, to me it wasn't scary...
...it was peaceful.
But lore surrounding the mental hospital patients who worked the dairy...
...and kept the livestock here...
...has given the Scary Dairy a pretty creepy reputation.
Some even speculate that the cows weren't just being milked here, but also slaughtered.
On the site, there is another, graffiti-laden structure...
...with multiple rooms...
...broken walls...
...shattered windows...
...empty doorways...
...and collapsed ceilings.
It's hard to know what exactly happened here.
There's a certain craziness to its current decor...
...though presumably not created by any mental patients.
You can imagine this building as a cattle stockyard...
...used for the breeding and feeding of cows...
...in probably not the most idyllic of conditions.
After all, there are a lot of sad cows out there.
Although the mental hospital didn't close until 1997, the dairy farm was abandoned in the 1960s...
...left to rot in place...
...vandalized and pilfered.
I don't really see how any former mental hospital could not be haunted. I can't imagine being one of those CalState college students sleeping in dorm rooms that once treated the mentally afflicted.
But is the Scary Dairy haunted by the ghosts of the tormented patients...or the livestock?
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