Dump

 Had a friend who was dropping off donations to the Thrift Store on North Illinois refer to that section of town as a "dump". They are right as that section of Carbondale is not that attractive once you get north of Jackson. That section is a complex of light industrial buildings with several abandoned and going to seed. The only really attractive location is the Payne Accounting building, which has nice landscaping around it. I doubt anyone will ever move into the long shuttered Tesa Tuck building and the DAG Transmission building either so they will just sit there and further deteriorate. Driving into Carbondale from the North is just not attractive.

Haunted Carbondale Rain House

 Rain House stood at the northwest corner of West Oak and N. Poplar and, until it was razed a few years ago was, after Hundley House, the site of the most notorious murder in Carbondale's history, though today few people have heard of it.

 During spring break in 1982, most of SIUC decamped for the week including SIUC marketing professor Sion Raveed. However, unlike the rest of campus, Raveed did not return to campus. On March 9th the campus and community found out why.  His body  was found stuffed into a laundry bag in the basement of Rain House, dead from multiple stab wounds to his chest. Since prior to his time at SIUC Raveed had worked in international finance, his experience in the field a major reason for his recruitment to the department, and some of the activities he had been involved in were questionable to say the least, investigators thought maybe his past had caught up with him and not only the local police but representatives of the State Police, FBE and SEC visits, although what they sought was never made public.

However, the truth, when it came out, was much more prosaic. Raveed owned several rental properties in town and, sometime during spring break, he and his property manager had an argument that ended with the manager knifing Raveed multiple times, hiding the body in a laundry bag in the Rain House basement and fleeing to Canada, from where he was later extradited and convicted of manslaughter.

For a number of years afterwards, tenants in Rain House reported hearing voices, footsteps, electrical powered items turning on and off, cold spots, items moving by themselves and the smell of something dead or rotting. For a number of years after the murder, Rain House would rent then a short time after a "For Rent" sign would again appear in the window and its demolition means no other renters will encounter the uneasy spirit of Sion Raveed.

Halloween

 There was a lot of foot traffic downtown both Friday and Saturday night. Fraterinties or someone had gotten permission to close off West College for a street party and people were walking around in costume Saturday afternoon for a Halloween pub crawl to most of the bars on the strip as well as Oakland Station in the old fire station on S. Oakland. S. Glenview closed for Trick or treating and a broke water main on Chautaqua made driving out in that area to get home pretty tricky.

Apparently drunks were sleeping under some of the Road closed signs in the area as well.