Think these hauntingly beautiful abandoned homes are creepy Wait until y...

Halloween is a whisper away, but spooky images of abandoned houses are good all year round .

From the chill of a darkened window to the spine-tingle of a crumbling staircase, these 'homes' have long since lost their claim to that word of comfort.

The pictures, which are every kid's worst nightmare, have been taken by US photographer Seph Lawless .

Lawless visited America's 13 most haunted houses for his book Hauntingly Beautiful.As well as the derelict appearances of the houses outside along with never before seen images of the inside of these real-life haunted houses.

Seph Lawless is a pseudonymous American-based artist, political activist/artivist who has deliberately chosen to keep his identity concealed.The stately and decaying homes he has snapped offer an outstanding view into his supposed 'autopsy of America' where he hopes to showcase the demise of the country's properties.While working on other projects, including documenting deserted malls, abandoned amusement parks and Rust Belt ruins, Lawless amassed images of up to 50,000 abandoned homes.

His images were recorded in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, but Lawless says that Cleveland was the spookiest place.“Cleveland is the serial killer capital of the world.

"It’s the rock and roll capital, but it’s also the serial killer capital.”

The images are set to play on fears about haunted houses , with their watching windows and dilapidated surroundings.Lawless told the New York Daily News : "“I guess conceptually with anything I shoot there’s kind of this message that I wanted to show a vulnerable side of the country.

“I want people to see the fact that we’ve lost millions of manufacturing jobs to outsourcing and globalisation. Sometimes images can convey that better.

“I want people to see these images and be a little afraid.”